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Dominican Republic Student Politics
The Dominican Republic had some 80,000 students
enrolled in
institutions of post-secondary education in the late
1980s. The
largest institution, the Autonomous University of Santo
Domingo
(Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo--UASD), had its
main
campus in the capital city and several branches in
different
areas of the country. The Catholic University (Universidad
Católica Madre y Maestra--UCMM)--literally mother and
teacher,
with religious connotations not apparent in English--was
located
in the second largest city, Santiago de los Caballeros
(Santiago); another private university, the Pedro
Henríquez Ureña
National University (Universidad Nacional Pedro Henríquez
Ureña--
UNPHU), competed with the public university in the
capital, as
did a branch of the Catholic University. Several private
research
centers and technical institutes provided specialized
postsecondary education
(see Dominican Republic - Education
, ch. 2).
The Autonomous University was highly politicized. The
student
body sometimes devoted whole weeks, or even semesters, to
political activities. Most of the activist groups were
composed
op people who espoused leftist ideologies: communists,
Trotskyites, independent revolutionaries, Marxists,
sympathizers
of Juan Bosch and his PLD, sympathizers of the PRD, and
radical
Christian organizations accounted for most of the
membership of
student political groups. The private universities were
less
politicized. Even in the public universities, however, the
level
of politicization varied according to the faculty: arts
and
letters as well as law tended to be more political;
medicine and
the sciences tended to be less so.
University students were important political actors,
although
as a group they did not appear to have the ability to
topple a
government by themselves. However, because education
(especially
higher education) was so rare in the Dominican Republic,
the
students formed an intellectual elite in the eyes of those
less
educated than they. Hence, in alliance with the trade
unions and
the urban unemployed, the students had the potential to
provide a
moral leadership that would expand their political reach
and
power.
Data as of December 1989
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