28 January 2025
Bilbao Campus
On January 28, the University of Deusto celebrated the feast of its patron Saint Thomas Aquinas with the investiture of its new Theology graduates and new doctors -a total of 59 doctors defended their doctoral thesis last year-, as well as the awarding of distinctions to the most brilliant students. A day of recognition for a job well done, which also marks the beginning of the graduations of the 1,691 undergraduate students who completed their studies in the 2023-24 academic year.
Of these graduates, 339 belong to Deusto Business School; 390 to Social and Human Sciences; 198 to Law; 234 to Engineering; 266 to Education and Sports; 257 to Health Sciences; 7 to Theology. In addition to these graduates, there were 1,051 Master's graduates and 59 new PhDs, making a total of 2,801 new graduates in the last academic year.
The academic day, which was preceded by a Eucharist in the Gothic Chapel, began with the presentation of the UD Extraordinary End of Degree Awards, the Honors Program, the Mendieta and Lambarri Foundation Awards and the Ignacio Ellacuría Extraordinary Award. This was followed by a tribute to emeritus professors, retired professors and collaborators, followed by the investitures of new theologians and doctors, and the words of the rector, Juan José Etxeberria. Full speech.
Accompanying young people
Rector Juan José Etxeberria was inspired by the traits of St. Thomas Aquinas, a restless and introverted young man who followed his ideals and who, despite the opposition of his family, opted for an uncertain future, to deepen one of the apostolic preferences of the Society of Jesus, which is to “accompany young people in the creation of a hopeful future”. In his opinion, history needs the contribution of young people - restless and, at times, misunderstood like St. Thomas - because they can untie knots, generate new horizons and imagine scenarios of greater humanity.
According to him, “a society without young people leads to paralysis and boredom” and in the current youth deficit “their contribution is more necessary than ever”. “We need to facilitate spaces for them, support them in their initiatives, strengthen them in their stumbles, listen to them in their intuitions and ideals. Only in this way will they be able to create the novelty we need. Young people have expectations about reality that project them into the future.” Therefore, “welcoming the aspirations of young people, without naivety, helps us to have a renewed vision of the world and to discern our contribution to the construction of a better future,” he said.
The search for truth
The university works hard to know the world better. In the case of St. Thomas Aquinas, he trusted in the capacity of human beings to know the truth. A confidence that today has been overshadowed with the consequent discrediting of the truth and the whole of society is in danger as the dynamics of the so-called post-truth are strengthened. For Juan José Etxeberria, “truth is powerful and we need to reaffirm ourselves in it -and in reason as an instrument to reach it-, in order to build that hopeful future”. In this regard, “we believe that we can approach the knowledge of reality through the effort of human reason and create the future from it,” he said.
However, our postmodern times have led to the displacement of reason in favor of emotion and subjectivity in the interpretation of our experiences. Science is increasingly being pushed into a corner and the siege on reason and truth is tightening. In this scenario, totalitarianisms want to impose their lie as truth by repeating it. And, “we are witnessing the blatant use of lies to impose certain perspectives on reality and domesticate consciences,” he said.
He added that recently social networks “have soiled the lenses through which we look at reality, to the point of disfiguring it”. And the danger is, as Hannah Arendt said, that “the distinction between reality and fiction and the distinction between true and false” will cease to exist, so that “the sense through which we orient ourselves in the real world is destroyed”. For all these reasons, the rector considers that university work must ally itself with young people in this task of deep and honest knowledge of reality. “It is about vindicating the truth and the possibility of approaching it collectively, in order to be able to engage in dialogues based on reason about the serious problems of our time.” In the opinion of Juan José Etxeberria, this may be one of the most important contributions that the members of the University of Deusto community can make to our democracy, which needs debates on facts, responsibilities and consequences, and not discussions based on flags and slogans seasoned with hoaxes and lies.
A hopeful future
To face the many facts that today move us to pessimism, the rector invited to hope, a feeling based on the confidence that we have the ability to influence reality and transform it. He believes that there is hardly hope without utopian discourse, without imagination and anticipation of what is to come. And given that it is in the youth where it is easier to find utopian thinking that announces another future and practices that precipitate it, he once again invited us to “accompany the youth”.
Because, as the Rector pointed out, “young people deserve the best of our accompaniment, men and women, educated and illiterate, included and poor. We love them and wish them a full personal and collective life. We have confidence in them and we hope that they will develop all their human capacities. We are committed to this task. But we also need them, not only in the future, but today to build together another world that is more humane, more dignified and more integrated with all forms of life, under the same roof of the common home.
He concluded that “accompanying young people is a central task of the University and accompanying them in the possibility of building a hopeful future is to put our feet on the ground today and begin to walk together in a process of search and rational and reasonable struggle for a more just world, where the best of each and every one of us comes out, because we put it at the service of humanity”.
From this first day of investiture, the different Faculties of the University of Deusto celebrate the graduation of their new graduates every Saturday.
