Gérald Chanques: “Making everyone feel like a member of this historic university”
Following his recent appointment as Vice President for Historical Heritage at the University of Montpellier, Gérald Chanques shares his vision of heritage with us. Between his official duties and more personal passions, he reaffirms his attachment to this university, which taught him the joy and duty of studying.
Name?
My name is Gérald Chanques.
Position?
I was recently elected Vice President of the University of Montpellier, responsible for historical heritage. I am a doctor, a graduate of this university, and a university professor and hospital practitioner in anesthesia and intensive care.
Responsibilities?
There are several projects underway at the same time, in various locations on the University of Montpellier campus, including the Jardin des Plantes, the historic medicine building, etc. There are multiple construction sites at each of these locations. My main responsibility is to monitor them with all the central services that are on site.
There is a second major project, and it is nothing but a pleasure. It consists of connecting all the different components. Ensuring that everyone, every student at this university, but also every BIATS agent, every teacher, Professor , feels like a member of this historic university through its heritage.
First term at UM?
No, this isn't my first term. I've been elected since 2018 to the Academic Council's Commission for Training and University Life (CFVU). I have also been elected to the disciplinary sections of the university's academic council. It's very interesting because it allows you to get a feel for all the different components and issues that students, administrators, and teachers may have. So you get a very broad view of the university.
A place?
The place that struck me? It was in my first year of medical school, right after graduating from high school. A friend who was born in Montpellier drove me to the Faculty of Medicine to enroll. It was located on Rue de l'École de Médecine. We were at Place de la Canourgue, we walked downhill and found ourselves at the foot of the cathedral. And there he said to me,"That's our college!" I still feel a little emotional about it, it was striking. You realize that something is really happening here, that something has happened. And when you enroll, you understand that it's still happening. So it's my favorite place.
No future without a past?
There are some very new universities, very modern universities that are extremely interesting. They don't really have a past, so they only have the future ahead of them. And I think it's interesting to have this type of university that is very much rooted in the21st century. But it's particularly striking to go back to the roots. We are fortunate in Montpellier. We are fortunate to have a university that is one of the four oldest universities in the modern sense of the term. These four universities are Oxford, Bologna, Paris, and Montpellier.
We have lived through this medieval renaissance, this renaissance, the Age of Enlightenment. The spirit of the Enlightenment that endured after the revolution throughout the21st century. It is so easy to have this real estate and lapidary heritage in the form of objects left behind by our ancestors. This heritage serves to explain the spirit. The spirit of the medical school, the spirit of the university, and ultimately the spirit that unites us all as academics. It is a fabulous opportunity that we must continue to nurture and build upon. And we will inevitably build it differently from newer universities that have no history.
A historical figure from the UM to revive?
It's probably Rabelais. Most interns, when they don the robe of Rabelais to defend their medical thesis at the end of their studies, don't know exactly who he is. Yet Rabelais embodies not only medicine, but all the knowledge and philosophy developed in his work. It is a joy to study and also a duty to study sufficiently and as broadly as possible in order to be sufficiently educated and able to decide freely. And that is a wonderful message for the University.