Begoña Gómez, wife of the head of the Government, began to transmit her knowledge at the Complutense University in 2012 (at that time her husband was not a member of parliament) in a program on raising financial resources, without having an official university degree. Since 2020, her activity as co-director is covered under the word “chair”. “extraordinary chair”, in the official name (not necessarily an extraordinary chair): The “Extraordinary Chair of Competitive Social Transformation”, for whose implementation 30,000 euros are required from sponsors. The word “chair”, currently used in that and in 53 other similar coursesthus serving to glorify the prestige of those who teach under its auspices, and also as a rallying cry. With that word in front, sponsors subsidize, students enroll and teachers get paid.
The term “chair” obviously designates the employment or exercise of a professor, the highest rank in university teaching. So the misappropriation of words intended for a purpose for which they were not intended continues to make headway: just as a Supreme Court ruling has tried to teach us that one can incur enrichment without becoming rich, the Complutense has shown us that it is possible for a chair to exist without the need for a professor.
It is not surprising, therefore, that Judge Juan Carlos Peinado was surprised by the response of the rector, Joaquín Goyache, after asking him as a witness if any qualifications were required to teach at his university: “None. In some cases, none.”
No qualifications are required for the president’s wife, nor for any other experts or specialists like her who may have been offered the job of directing these academic programmes.
In the “Extraordinary Chair on Communication and Golf”, One of the 54 organized, for example, a former professional player without a university degree could have been hired. (This was not the case: it was co-directed by two professors, neither of them professors.) And it would have been legal as well.
In the course that concerns us, the president’s wife acted as an expert in finding financing for companies and administrations, which is called fundraising (fundraising). Therefore, it was about training fundraisers (seriously, they call them that) so that they could go out into the world of fundraising (I’ve already made this up.) And it is true that in the profession of fixer Begoña Gómez has shown great results; perhaps in part of those years because of her position.
But until now we had not realized that these types of courses were assigned the word “chair.” That is, a single university could host, for example, a chair of Pharmacology, a chair of Neurosurgery, a chair of Hispanic Philology and also a chair of Fundraising.
This occupation of Begoña Gómez is presented in some media as a scandal, as well as the fact that she signed a paper to supposedly influence an award, when she could achieve that more easily by whispering in someone’s ear and without leaving home. In this conflict, in my opinion, there are elements to argue for ethical censure, not so much criminal; but what seems to me most scandalous, most unforgivable, most surprising, is the corrupt use that is made of the word “chair.”
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