A Pró-Reitoria de Cultura da Universidade Federal do Cariri: processo de institucionalização e panorama de funcionamento

Abstract

The present work proposed to investigate the institutionalization process and the operating panorama of the Pró-Reitoria de Cultura of the Universidade Federal do Cariri (UFCA). UFCA, created in 2013, was born with the proposal to establish culture as a strategic dimension of the institution, implementing a Pro-Rectory of Culture in its organizational structure and recognizing, in a bold and innovative way, culture as the fourth university dimension, along with to teaching, research and extension. Therefore, the objective of this study is to outline an overview of the cultural institutionality of UFCA, showing how the process of creating the PróReitoria de Cultura took place and how this instance has acted for the implementation of the institution's cultural policy. This is a descriptive research, with a qualitative approach, which adopts the case study for its development. Data production involved document analysis and interviews with managers and former managers of the Pró-Reitoria de Cultura, as well as agents who were involved in the process of its creation and implementation at the university. The data produced were analyzed using qualitative content analysis, through the pairing procedure, which consists of associating the collected data with the constitutive elements of the definition of cultural institutionality that have greater consensus among scholars in the area. Furthermore, the clashes, tensions, dissensions and consensuses that permeated the proposal to implement the Pró-Reitoria de Cultura were evaluated, taking into account the disruptive nature of the proposal, in relation to the standard organizational configuration adopted in Brazilian federal universities. The study of UFCA's cultural institutionality reaffirmed the power of the university as a cultural institution and the importance of validating culture as a structuring dimension of universities. The results obtained demonstrated that, as it encompasses teaching, research and extension actions, culture must appear as an independent element, being assumed as a strategic priority for institutions, in symmetry with the other dimensions of the academic tripod.