ABSTRACT
Latin American universities are said to be Napoleonic, which means to be controlled and strictly supervised by the central government according to uniform, nationwide standards. Latin American higher education, from its beginnings, was defined almost as a synonym of education for the professions. The centrality of these units has led both to the preservation of some quality and to resistance to innovations that have come from other groups entering the universities and from governments and administrations trying to promote change. The art of governance in Latin American universities, as in any institution, is very much the art of finding and keeping good allies. It is also the art of association. Comprehensive reform was typical of some military regimes in Latin America to try out deep changes in their country's higher education systems, very often motivated by short-range, and short sighted, political concerns.
