The university in crisis, does it threaten or reaffirm its ontology?

Abstract

The article addresses the issue of the idea of university. Through a qualitative design of
hermeneutic approach, dominant ideas about the raison d'être or reason to be and mission
of the University were interpreted. Historical tensions were revealed between the technical-
instrumental logics of productive scheme and the critical tendency that advocates a
university for humanity, focused on the commitment to society, culture and the planet. We
analyze the main references that have laid the theoretical foundations for a conception of
the alternative university that serves ancestral and cultural diversity.