7th FISU FORUM - LISBON 2004
Lisbon, Portugal - July 21st to 27th, 2004
The Portuguese Academic Federation of University Sports (FADU) hosted the 7th FISU Forum in Lisbon, Portugal from July 21st to 27th, 2004.
Topics
Main Topic Education through University Sport Sub-Topics Sub-Topic A – Educational values of University Sport Sub-Topic B – The social importance of University Sport Sub-Topic C – The unity and mobility of the University Sport System Sub-Topic D – The importance of new technologies in the promotion and development of University Sport
Main Topic: EDUCATION TROUGH UNIVERSITY SPORT
Prof. Dr. Sérgio MACHADO DOS SANTOS Former President of European Union Rectors Conference
The international dimension of higher education raises interesting questions of cooperation and exchange of experiences and good practices which are gradually involving a growing number of partners in the development of networks with potential impact on higher education policies and activities. In this presentation it is argued that FISU must be one of such partners A relationship between sports and higher education policies is established, in the context of the changing role of Universities. The presentation deals with the mission of the University as seen from Society and its implications, namely on graduate skills and the necessary new learning environments where essential horizontal and transferable skills can develop. The role of sports on such learning environments and on life on Campus is stressed. On a more operational level, a case study is presented, in relation to a policy document on Sports in the University developed by the Portuguese Universities and to its practical implementation at University of Minho, in the Northern region of Portugal.
EDUCATION TROUGH UNIVERSITY SPORT
Prof. Dr. Claude-Louis GALLIEN First Vice-President of the FISU – Chairperson of the CESU
We are living in a world marked by change and an accelerating rate of change. It becomes increasingly difficult to keep up with the developments in knowledge, technology and information, the constant drivers for the remodelling of our societies and the hub for their future. We are also living in a world where nations are interdependent and where individuals from various origins, religions and cultures have to rub shoulders and mix. And, finally, we are living in a world that is harsh, sectarian and identity-based, where social groups without solid credentials and strong reference points feel marginalized and tend to assert themselves through affectations of singularity. Against this backdrop, nations must both preserve their cohesion from a reductionist communitarism and open up to the planetary dimension, without, however, becoming submerged in a globalising society and losing their identity. For this is to be achieved, it is essential to educate young people so that they get to know and respect others, and also to prepare them for accepting the fact that there may be competition. Our educational systems are not, for the most part, suited to these constraints and necessities. If top priority is not given to education and qualifications, and if these are not founded on new teaching principles, the consequences will be serious, not only for economic growth but also for the preservation of social ties. It is vital that we are aware of this* and the “European Year of Education Through Sport” reminds us that physical education and sport can constitute remarkable training tools for preparing young people for accountability and taking * In this regard, we can cite the strategy and objectives endorsed by the Special European Council held in Lisbon in march 2000, intend to make Europe “the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010” by strengthening original innovation, education, training and research targets. charge of their future. This training must start in the elementary school, be developed in secondary school and then in University education. Higher education can offer students – the leaders of tomorrow - knowledge and even know-how, thereby enabling them to become experts - capable of producing knowledge, information and logical analyses - but not necessarily to become decision takers. Today, in all sectors of society, those who seek to become leaders must have acquired not just knowledge and know-how, but the self-being knowledge (life skills) to enable them to make the best choice of information and analyses, and select the most effective decision-making tools for drawing up suitable development plans to give form to the future. They must also be capable of anticipating and managing the risks that the new, highly technological society will entail for the ethical values that constitute the foundation stones of the life of human kind. Because physical education and sport, with their associative practices, make it possible to acquire such life skills, they should clearly be given a prime position in the pattern of primary, secondary and higher education. Could university sport become the linchpin for an “educational model” that acts as a springboard for new impetus for our destabilised society? In this regard, however, we must be careful to ensure that certain of the by-products that have sullied sport per se for some years – profit for profit’s sake, individualism, arrogance, dishonourable behaviour, cheating, violence, doping, etc. - do not mire the sporting practices of our students. The values underlying university sport extend far beyond the lifestyle of the student, or simply a technical approach to sport and physical activities. They have a role to play in education and social integration, serving as a mainstay for training in citizenship and accountability. One of the fundamental tasks of the university today is to teach young people to choose a system of society, to mould it and not just put up with it. University sport can serve as an effective tool for giving a broader, more concrete dimension to this task.
Prof. Roberto Carneiro
Sub-Topic A: UNIVERSITY SPORT AND NEW COMPETENCIES Homo ludens and Homo sapiens
Prof. Roberto CARNEIRO Professor, Catholic University of Portugal
Universities all over the world are currently under a strong pressure brought about by change. The globalisation phenomenon has also reached the higher levels of education, which increasingly find themselves compelled to operating in competitive environments and to follow the internationalisation of knowledge and competencies. With the Declaration of Bologna, Europe decided to position itself as a relevant player in the world landscape of higher education, by stating the quality of its institutions and summoning them to new platforms of cooperation and strategic collaboration. One of the most striking novelties of the Bologna process is the valuation of competencies of citizenship and the incentives given to universities to acknowledge and certify processes leading to this goal through university life. Higher education students are important and decisive agents in this general process of change. They face a world – a labour market – increasingly thirsting for human intelligence and social competencies. The evolution of the actual taxonomies of competence reflects this demand for new profiles of university graduates and for advanced competencies to function in highly complex contexts. The SCANS competence system distinguishes between professional competencies – on the basis of five management dimensions – and transversal or instrumental competencies, among which attributes of personal character. University sport can – should – be an important source of education for the young persons undergoing advanced studies. Conceptually, we refer to its potential contribution toward: - The acquisition of advanced levels of autonomy and self-regulation, with obvious benefits at both cognitive and motivational level. - The development of higher levels of thought and decision. - The enhancement of social competencies and of communitarian entrepreneurship (social capital). - Emotional intelligence and balance of the “self”, especially through the capacity to defer gratification and to manage strategic long-term objectives. - Character formation and consolidation of values, based on the respect for the other, on fair-play and on truth. - The celebration of diversity and the appreciation for intercultural contact. The four pillars of new learning in the 21st century, proposed by UNESCO, are based on the superlative values of Being and of Living Together. Through sports, both Learning to Be and Learning to Live Together can be valued and undertaken. Play is normally considered the reverse of study; but play is also just the side of learning, in the old Greek thinking. University Education ought to be able to integrate these complementary dimensions of human existence, with an increasing degree of success, Homo ludens and Homo sapiens are close partners in realising the aims of University Sport.
Organizing Committee
7th FISU Forum 2004 - Organizing Committee Estadio Universitario de Lisboa Av. Prof. Egas Moniz 1600-190 Lisboa, Portugal phone: +351 217 939 340 fax: +351 217 970 353 e-mail: fisuforum2004@fadu.pt URL: www.fisuforum-lisbon2004.org
Sub-Topic B: SOCIAL VALORISATION OF UNIVERSITY SPORT
Prof.Dr. Salomé MARIVOET Member of CNCAEED – UC
Sport has been revealing itself as one of the most important cultural manifestation of our times. With the advent of Modernity and the consecration of new ideals for social organization based on the principles of freedom, equality and fraternity, transformations have emerged within physical practises, which have been at the sociogenesis of modern sport. Sport has thus become an educating space and a promoter of the ethical principles that emerged in western societies. Freedom of assembling has enabled the creation of clubs and associations that encourage sport competitions under the principles of equal opportunity and confrontation on the basis of cooperation or fair-play, present in the rules and in the players sense of justice, and the school as an institution has integrated physical activity in its curricula, praising its shaping features. Although ethical principles of modern sport continue, at present, to be a reference for guiding the action, the determination it has been exerting on the practices has become more flexible, a reality that is not only visible in the social space of sport. At present and strongly determined by a huge competition, it is not difficult to find traces of the loss of human dignity, although new values have emerged for the promotion of new ways of being and of standing, e.g. the praising of human life, the respect for difference and self-identity revised in specific collectives or reflected in the individual. Once again, sport has been showing itself as a social space of excellence by stating these ideals, by promoting healthy lifestyles and by allowing for new corporal expressions. As a unique space in the diffusion of local and national cultural identities, sport has continued to strengthen the expression of human fraternity, allowing for the assertion of the parts that integrate more encompassing units; this became quite clear during the Euro 2004 that took place in Portugal, and it is also something that we will soon be able to observe during the Olympic Games in Athens, on a transcontinental scale. In Portugal, like in the remaining countries of the European Union, 2004 is a year in which we have been able to experience the reassessing of the educational importance of sport as a space of learning and of experiencing values such as fair-play, tolerance and citizenship. In this sense, university sport is an important space for the promotion and broadening of sport practices. Although sometimes ignored, university sport possess an enormous shaping potential, in terms of social, psychological and motor valences, essential to both the present and the future life of university students who, I am certain, deserve doubled attention as well as the conjugated efforts of the academic community, in order that sport may become an increasingly encompassing reality in higher education.
Sub-Topic C: THE UNITY AND MOBILITY OF THE UNIVERSITY SPORT SYSTEM
Master Fernando PARENTE Chairman of Minho University Sports and Culture Department
In a global society, with different rhythms of growth, heterogeneity and wealth, how can we evolve so as to create a true unity between people and cultures? With the growing insecurity we live in, on a global scale, how can we promote mobility so as to create socio-cultural synergies between people and communities? Up against this scenario, how are University Sports affected? And how should they position themselves in local and global terms? It is out opinion that the Higher Education space, as well as University Sports, can contribute to the growing of the values that are associated to unity and mobility, thus valuing the individuality of each of its cultures, in a world that we with to be of peace and prosperity for each and everyone. Sport bears with it a code that is common to all cultures, not only in the more formal terms of the practice of the different sport modalities, known and accepted by everyone but which, above all, promotes the values of a universal culture of peace, health and friendship. The International University Sports Federation, as responsible for the coordination of Higher Education Sports on a world level, as well as the national and regional agents, must organize themselves so as to be able to meet the events and programs, not only as an end in itself but, above all, as a means of promoting mobility with an ever increasing number of students, by promoting the sharing of values that ought to guide modern society. University students, future opinion leaders and influential critical mass in all societies, are the role-players of the future, in a democratic, creative and solidary globalise society. It will not be difficult to discover and describe programs, both with a local scope as well as with a wider international scope that can be launched and organized to improve unity and mobility within University Sports.
Sub-Topic D: THE IMPORTANCE OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES IN THE PROMOTION AND DEVELOPMENT OF UNIVERSITY SPORT
Hugo Dias and Andre Gaspar Students – Lisbon University
Probably, in 1957 when the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik into space, the world didn’t expect that, after 50 years, it would be possible a regular citizen send a picture to a friend’s mobile on the other side of the world. In the early 70’s, in response to the Soviet achievement, the Americans developed the “Advanced Research Projects Agency” that was an experimental information transport – Arpanet – that became what we call nowadays “The Web”. This technology changed the global information structured, that brought a new kind of relations between organizations. Information technology is a contemporary term that describes the combination of computer technology (hardware and software) with telecommunications technology (data, image and voice networks). Following the globalization, the university sports have to adapt to the changes that the new technologies produced, because they promote an effective exchange and storage data between all the involved agents. This data gives important information to all the university sports services that induces its development. Focusing on this, our work pretends on a theorical plan, analyse the concept of new technologies focusing the advantages of its utilization, as well as its impact on the general sports organization and on the university sports organization in particular. In the practical plan, we will reveal some new ideas regarding new technologies (integrated information network; wireless information systems; and others) that can help the development of the university sports.
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