The Interdisciplinary seminar "Topics and Ethics" has convened weekly for almost 20 years students from all disciplines at the Aldama Palace, headquarters of ISSA University of Navarra at Campus in Donostia-San Sebastian for more than 50 years. Rafael Hernández Urigüen, chaplain of ISSA, was its promoter and has directed it since 1996. Each course is attended by about 100 people. In 2008 he launched the activity's blog, which has more than 75,500 visits, and two books and six blogs on a wide variety of topics have emerged from the meetings of seminar .

How did you come up with the idea of launching seminar and why that name?

Academic schedules do not allow student body to reflect and hold dialogues in which to express their opinions, doubts and own ideas with calm and that is why I came up with this initiative for Monday afternoons. At the beginning I baptized the activity with this name: "What's going on: Let's think". The idea is to take the pulse of events without letting them escape us because of their dizzying speed and thus interpret them with a critical spirit, or in other words, from a university perspective. Later I renamed the seminar with the current name: "Topics and ethics" since there are topics that are frequently discussed but end up worn out and without being understood by political slogans or media commonplaces. To be truly university students, it is urgent to go beyond gregariousness. Ethics financial aid to analyze from an anthropological perspective the reasons for certain behaviors and to decide freely what is worthy and what to reject because it demeans the person.

When did seminar begin?

During the 1996-97 academic year. I had just joined ISSA-San Sebastian. I started with three ISSA students. issue We used to meet in my office in the old headquarters at Aldapeta, 49. As the number of participants grew, we moved to the old seminar room at conference room and from there to a larger conference room in TECNUN. Later we tried the cafeteria-degustation "Mamelena", in Munto, and in the congress hall of the Hotel Palacio Ayete for a year. In the end, the attendees decided that the ISSA-Donostia Palacete was the ideal framework to continue meeting. We remained there until December 2014, when we moved to the TECNUN's Degrees hall due to ISSA's move to Campus in Pamplona.

How is this seminar different from other activities organized at the University?

It is an open forum for reflection and dialogue on the deepest values in which opinions can be expressed without limit and contrasted with others. It is also about valuing the Seventh Art, extracting its potential beyond mere entertainment.

The seminar is special because from the beginning it was conceived as an interdisciplinary and inter-faculty activity absolutely free. The main difference lies in the fact that since its foundation, in 1996, it was focused on the University of Navarra opening its doors to students from other University centers such as the UPV, Deusto, Musikene, Basque Culinary Center and non-university students of different ages. It is a good therapy to prevent the University from becoming smaller or falling into inbreeding.

Which topics are the best received, and have they changed over the years? 

Human love is the star topic along with all those related to family and human values such as friendship, peace, work, solidarity and, of course, God. You asked me if the themes have changed over the years... undoubtedly current events have marked some of the arguments, but human problems have the validity of the eternal.

The themes are not repeated in nuances due to the richness of the human being and are always new, although some films are screened again, precisely because of their quality.

How has the format of seminar changed over the years?

The initial format was mainly oral presentations and dialogues. Often with guest protagonists. Later, we moved on to the film-forum, since the language of film is so rich that it makes it much easier to question important issues that we do not often give relevance to. This formula achieves two objectives: to learn to watch films, and to deepen our understanding of human values through its language.

Remember us to some of the guests...

Raquel Balencia, Miss Gipuzkoa and later Miss Universe was in the modality of Tourism. At that time she was a law student at the UPV. As a result of seminar God granted her the grace of Baptism in the Cathedral of San Sebastian during Easter 2005. Also present were the actress and singer Cristina Llorente and Javier Muñoz from Jana productions, scriptwriter and director of "Antígona tiene un plan" among other plays.

We counted on the testimony of Joaquin Gálvez Prieto, who was a prisoner in a Nazi forced labor camp and son of one of those exterminated in Mauthausen; we were also visited by people in charge of NGOs, University professors...

It seems that the seminar has been used for much more than the sessions themselves: several blogs and even two books...

Raquel Balencia's presence and contributions prompted the publication of a book on fashion and beauty pageant ethics "cooked up" at ISSA and published by then TECNUN professor Jesús Albertos: BEAUTY, FASHION, EXCELLENCE: MISSES, MODELS AND EXPERTS TALK ABOUT ETHICS (2005). It offers the first proposal of ethical codes for Misses, models, designers, agency businessmen and contest juries. On the Casa del libro website it has 200 reviews.

On the other hand, the sessions on human love gave birth to a book on courtship that reflects its atmosphere and structure with very lively dialogues. It is now in its third edition under degree scroll:"Courtship: Are you sure? Ideas to get it right" (2009). It is not a moralistic book but it does explain the importance of communication between man and woman already in the courtship exemplifying the good decisions and those unwise ones that kill love. In the page of the Casa del libro (Espasa Calpe) it has 481 opinions. I also edited a blog for those who wished to write their criticisms and queries.