A Escola Superior de Agricultura de Lavras/ESAL e a Universidade Federal de Lavras/UFLA: a trajetória de uma transformação

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to analyze how the route of institutional

transformation of a "college" to "university" had been operated, both from the

standpoint of administrative-bureaucratic as the voices of their social workers and

also by observing the social dynamics that determined this process. The micro-story

enrolled had a historiographical approach which guided this research and allowed us

to operate with various sources from how the concept of observation scale change

between the micro (local and institutional) and macro (global and national). The

sources were as follows: the relevant literature, subject legislation, the internal legal

documents - ordinances, minutes and others - and open interviews with the actors

involved in the transformation process of ESAL into UFLA. The results indicated that

the micro universe of institutional ESAL had happened throughout an internal debate

among faculty of agricultural sciences and humanities that, despite the desire of the

university institutional model, differed about the conception of the university to be

adopted, making this discussion one important element in the analysis of the

transformation itself. Varying the observation scale to the macro-political level -

Brasilia and the processing of the bureaucratic method we realized that the same

argument was manifested in that proceedings by aspects such as: the politics – the

Itamar Franco period of mandate and its deliberations - and legal regulations as the

principle of universality field. In conclusive terms, on the other hand, the fact that the

Brazilian university, in its historic building, assumed certain conception of university

that at one point, filed for depletion and the transformation of ESAL into UFLA

mirrored exactly this phenomenon, having as core the discussion about the

universality of field. On the other side, it was confirmed the premise of the importance

of removing anonymity backwoods, educational historical studies of various orders, in

that it allows us to see with equal clarity, the universe macro-political history.