When I was a child, Alfonso Sánchez-Tabernero (Salamanca, 1961) did not know - like anyone else - what it was like to be a rector, although his great-grandfather and great-great-grandfather had already directed the University of Salamanca. He dreamed of being a bullfighter, a footballer or a fireman, and when he arrived at the university he never thought of leading an educational institution. His arrival at the rectorate happened naturally as a response to a vocation that emerged from his love of the university and the creation of new projects.
After working at the University of the Basque Country, he returned to his alma mater as Dean of the Faculty of Communication at the University of Navarra in 1996. Nine years later, in 2005, he was appointed vice-rector of Institutional Communication at the same institution and later moved, with the same position, to the area of International Relations. In 2012 he became rector, a position he currently holds.
Sánchez-Tabernero knows how to communicate and knows communication very well. With a degree in Journalism and a PhD in Information Science, he completed the General Management Programme at IESE and was president of the European Media Management Education Association for six years. Since 2007, he has been a professor of Corporate Information Management.
In a good university, according to Sánchez-Tabernerothree essential circles converge: study, friendship and freedom. "What really captivates me about a university is its vocation and desire for freedom. At university, we are paid to say what we think and to be coherent with ourselves," he reflects.
-Should the university be idealistic?
-Yes, the university is there to show ideals, to place students in front of utopia, in front of the big dreams we can imagine. Afterwards, there will be many dreams that are not fulfilled because of work circumstances, pressure from bosses, clients or competitors. The university is not the place to analyse a list of problems, but to encourage the magnanimity and generosity of those who live there.
-We live in an era in which politics has taken over all areas of daily life. The university has also been permeated by this phenomenon, endangering academic freedom and rational dialogue between professors and students. Do you think this politicisation has contaminated the most prestigious universities?
-Politics is a wonderful reality and I distrust those who tell me that they are not interested in politics. Those who do not reflect on politics are not interested in what is relevant: what is the best way to govern, what tax system distributes wealth best...
However, the debate on politics at the university should in no way resemble the political debate on Twitter, which is often based on the disqualification of the opponent. The university is the place for educated conversation, for calm reflection that finds challenges in confrontational thinking. We have to pay the price of divergence, even when I consider someone's opinion to be unfair, inaccurate or false. Politics must be present in the university, but the university cannot be politicised. It is clear that politicisation impoverishes the quality of conversation and today there are many universities, some of them very good, where the quality of debate has been impoverished because political correctness prevents people from talking about interesting issues.
"Politics must be present in the university, but the university cannot be politicised".
-Do you have an intellectual point of reference who has reflected on what a real university should be?
-For me, a benchmark is Alfonso Nietowho was my teacher, rector of this university and the first professor of Information Business in our country. Nieto popularised the idea in Spain that media companies had to breathe with two lungs: content and business. He was a great lover of freedom; he always said that free media companies were those that had no economic problems.
The Faculty of Communication has become a champion of quality journalism; an educated, demanding and truth-driven journalism. This way of understanding the profession now coexists with the new digital context, which requires journalists to know, in addition to what they are already expected to know, digital tools, marketing, social networks... Is it more difficult to be a journalist now than it was before the boom technological?
-There are difficulties now that didn't exist before and vice versa. Technology in a certain sense is liberating and makes our work much easier. I think it is a mistake to always see the past as a better time. I understand Jorge Manrique in his verses (how, in our opinion, / every time in the past / was a better time), but I don't believe that what he writes is true.
What is true is that we need more and more intellectual daring to rise to the occasion. In any profession there are three skills that mark the worker: judgement, determination and empathy. To have judgement, you need to be well educated. The more educated a person is, the easier it is for them to have judgement. On the other hand, determination is related to perseverance. The biggest risk in journalistic ethics is laziness. Many journalists settle for imperfect content, and we all know that inventing costs less than being consistent with the truth. Finally, empathy has to do with the heart and consists of putting oneself in the other person's shoes.
-In an interview in La Voz de Galicia, you commented that "good journalism has to be paid for". Do you think there is enough critical mass in Spain to make this business model viable? Do you think the average Spaniard is unaccustomed - or has become unaccustomed - to paying for information?
-I am very critical of what journalistic brands have done in the last twenty years. They have sent a harmful message to their readers: what is produced, the content, is worthless and what was valuable was the medium, i.e. the paper.
Many media thought it was unfeasible to offer paid information if someone else offered it for free. But I always say that I should care relatively little about what someone else does. I think you have to get the public used to paying for what is worth money.
-Some journalists think it would be better to pay per article rather than a subscription to a particular newspaper. Do you have an opinion on this?
-I haven't thought about it enough, but I am a great believer in the prescriptive value of brands and therefore I have some doubts that this model can work. The journalistic brand as a whole, capable of attracting paying audiences, is in my opinion stronger than the amalgamation of articles where today I pay for one and tomorrow I pay for another.
"I think you have to get the public used to paying for what is worth money".
-The reputational value of a company and its corporate communication is becoming increasingly important. In this sense, what are the trends that a consultancy firm should take into account?
-When we talk about intangibles, it seems that we are talking about an abstruse or not very concrete issue. For me, the key word is trust because almost all companies compete in the trust business. Why would anyone want to study Law at the University of Navarra? We could explain many reasons - the teachers, the syllabus, the internships - that a student fresh out of school probably doesn't know. Confidence often translates into a generic experience. For example, someone who goes to the Clínica Universidad de Navarra to have their knee fixed knows nothing about traumatology, but trusts that the operation will go well. In this sense, communication consultancies must help their clients to generate trust with their audiences and know how to maintain it once it has been achieved.
-There is an ongoing boom What do you think about this educational model and do you think it is compatible with the ideals that inspire the University of Navarra?
-During the pandemic, we have learnt two things: the presence at the university is a product of the premium. Never before have students at this university valued going to class so much. I have never been stopped on campus - by students I don't know - to thank me for keeping classes open. The pandemic has taught us that human relationships, face to face, are an irreplaceable experience.
On the other hand, we have learned that online training has incredible possibilities. It is very suitable for unregulated or very specialised training. For a four-hour immuno-oncology course, it makes less sense to be in person. And it is also true that for some people - due to lack of time or resources - it is a more affordable option.
Online training has been a revolution for the university, but in our case the new developments aim to reinforce the face-to-face training experience.
-Do you have a university that is a reference and model for the UNAV?
-Yes, we have many models based on the best universities in the world, but we have them to inspire us, not to copy them. We want to be ourselves, motivated by the mark that the great proposals of Christian thought have left and will continue to leave.
-Professor of Hispanic Studies Sebastian Faber recently wrote an article discussing the pitfalls of university excellence. He believes that the methods of measuring academic quality encourage the overproduction of papersHas this conflict been discussed at the university?
-I share this thesis with one "but": What alternatives are offered? Every indicator is controversial. It is true that the systems that have been established reward quantity over quality, but I believe that a system with controversial indicators is better than one without indicators. That is why I prefer the current method to that of 25 years ago, when we all knew that specimen that in the jargon was called the unpublished professorThe one who did not publish anything and therefore could not be criticised.