University Founder Advances Education — With Cook’s Instinct
Walsh says Gangotena is a Renaissance
man. “He’s trained in physics and mathemat-
ics,” Walsh says, “but he teaches Eastern phi-
losophy and thought, and cooking. He’s written
newspaper and magazine articles.”
Afew years ago, Santiago Gangotena ’ 78 (PhD) gave Neil Caudle a vegetarian cook-
book that Gangotena had written. So Caudle,
associate vice chancellor for research and eco-
nomic development, prepared to make a won-
derful vegetarian meal. But he found a flaw in
the recipes. They didn’t list any quantities for
ingredients.
When he finished at Carolina, Gangotena
returned to Ecuador and started his own tourism
magazine in 1978, he says, without a penny. He
became a graphic design artist. He started an
advertising agency with his wife in the mid-
“A real cook doesn’t need to know quanti-
ties,” Gangotena told Caudle.
1980s. He took the profits from that company
to conduct higher education studies that
resulted in his starting USFQ.
important.”
In Ecuador, Gangotena
says higher education has
served as the battleground
for power struggles
between professors, administrators and students. But he saw an opportunity to eradicate
that need for power by making education more
egalitarian.
“That’s characteristic of his approach,” Cau-
dle says. “He’s a very instinctive leader.”
On Oct. 12, Gangotena, a 64-year-old
Ecuadorian native, founder and chancellor of
the Universidad San Francisco de Quito,
received a Distinguished Alumnus Award at Uni-
versity Day for his efforts in establishing in 1988
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USFQ committed to using textbooks, which
Gangotena says is uncommon in Ecuadorian
universities, so the students felt they owned a
part of the knowledge. Gangotena insisted the
students not use formal titles when referring to
professors. Once the power struggle waned, students learned in an environment Walsh
describes as cross-cultural.
Ecuador’s first private university, considered the
country’s finest university.
Gangotena, who studied nuclear physics at
Carolina, never saw the award coming. “We
have a saying in Spanish,” Gangotena says.
“Students are encouraged to have a cross-
cultural experience through travel and course-
work,” he says. Students, he adds, tend to have
“a can-do attitude that looks to engage in local
communities and make life better.”
“Nobody’s a prophet in his own land. This recog-
nition really touched everybody. I was flabber-
gasted.”
Stephen Walsh, UNC professor of geography
and director of UNC’s Center for Galapagos
Studies, has worked with Gangotena to forge a
partnership between UNC and USFQ. They are
the only two institutions on the Galapagos
researching improvements to the islands’
ecosystem and inhabitants’ lives.
USFQ overcame some adversity in its first
21 years. Gangotena said the cost posed a significant problem. Yearly tuition at the large universities cost eight sucres (the dollar was at
that time about 200 sucres). Being a private
university, USFQ charged 800,000 sucres —
$4,000 — a year.
“He thought it was such a major gift from
the University,” Walsh says. “And he earned it. I
mean, how many people start their own univer-
sity? The best university in Ecuador.”
Gangotena’s main ingredient in his recipe
for starting a university is his belief in a liberal
arts education, a concept he discovered when he
came to college in the U.S. in 1963. He received
bachelor’s and master’s degrees in physics from
Santiago Gangotena ’ 78 (PhD) says the Universidad San
Francisco de Quito that he founded stresses a broader liberal arts education than traditional Ecuador universities,
which tend to focus on single disciplines. “To have a balance
between the arts, humanities and science is important,”
he says.
Auburn University. After teaching in Puerto Rico
for two years, he came to UNC in the early 1970s.
Carolina offered him opportunities to learn
more than just the physics he studied. He sold
tacos on Franklin Street at Oktoberfest. He
started a mime troupe. He cooked at the Irregardless Cafe in Raleigh.
— Chris Saunders
profile
Today, Gangotena says, USFQ serves as the
standard for higher education in Ecuador. Its
enrollment reaches 5,000 students, 3,300 of
whom are undergraduates. Those numbers
have grown from the 88 students who made up
the first graduating class in 1992. USFQ houses
three colleges: the College of Administration for
Development, the College for Applied Sciences
and the College of Communication and Arts. It
offers nine majors. It has medical and dental
clinics for students. It also has what Gangotena
says is the largest computing system in
Ecuador. He adds that 85 percent of graduating
students find jobs in their fields of study. USFQ
now stands as a leading research institution in
Ecuador.
It’s Gangotena’s instinct with those ingredi-
ents that’s building the university’s reputation.
“They’re trying to make their own legacy,”
Walsh says. “Being a young university, they can
kind of create a vision. They want to be one of
the top universities in the Americas.”
When Gangotena translated his beliefs in
the liberal arts into a new university, he says,
higher education in Ecuador wasn’t prepared.
Ecuadorian universities focus on specific issues
and technical disciplines, such as engineering.
“They are the gods and goddesses,” he says of
those focusing on only one discipline. “It’s very
important to communicate and not be driven by
their professional bias. To have a balance
between the arts, humanities and science is
benefactors of UNC’s Morgan Family Writer-in-Resi-dence program. u Jane Bethell Preyer (’ 76 AB; ’ 91,
’ 93 MPA) of Chapel Hill has been elected vice president of the state board of the N.C. Center for Nonprofits. Preyer is director of the N.C. office of the
national Environmental Defense Fund. She served on
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; obituaries
Kathleen Carson Barger (’ 76 JD), 61, of Alexandria,
Va.; Oct. 10, 2009. A lawyer, Barger retired as a
partner in Wickwire Gavin. She was a frequent lecturer on government procurement law. She was an
officer in Project Children and many Irish-related
charities. u Philip Edward Casey (’ 76), 54, of
Durham; Oct. 11, 2009. Casey was a service technician for an elevator corporation. He was active in
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studies. u Robert Thurman “Pete” Clark (’ 76
CGREd), 82, of Albemarle; Aug. 31, 2009. Clark was
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30, 2009. Fleming retired following 32 years as principal of three schools in the Rowan-Salisbury school
system. He was an Army veteran of WWII and
belonged to Phi Beta Sigma at UNC.
’ 77 Peter Frederick Allgeier (’ 77 PhD) of Falls Church, Va., has been named presi- dent of C&M International Ltd., the international trade and investment consulting firm affiliated with Crowell & Moring LLP. Allgeier returned to
the private sector after serving as U.S. ambassador
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trade representative. u Warren Louis Bingham (’ 77
AB) of Raleigh gave a lecture, “George Washington’s
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Jerry Braswell (’ 77 JD) of Goldsboro has received
the Governor’s Old North State Award for community
