Carmina Virgili i Rodón A steady path to democracy Abrupt or prolonged climate disruptions have been the trigger for five mass extinctions throughout the Earth’s history. Carmina Virgili became passionate about the largest of these, the Permian–Triassic extinction, which caused the disappearance of 96% of species some 250 million years ago. What she perhaps did not imagine, studying the rocks of that time, is that she herself would be the driving force behind important changes in our recent history. Carmina was born in 1927 into a wealthy family in Barcelona. Her parents saw to it that she received a university education when it was not yet common. She studied to be a teacher and later obtained a degree and doctorate (1956) in natural sciences from the University of Barcelona, where she worked as a lecturer. She forged a close relationship with her mother, a pharmacist, after sharing countless days in the countryside, first collecting plants and then making geological observations. On one of her outings, a countryman who saw the girl in the bush approached her and gave them the address of a seamstress who would give her a job so that she could stop doing things that were not ladylike. It was perhaps the first time, though not the last, that Carmina had to face the prejudices of being a woman in a male environment. In 1963, she became the first female professor at the University of Oviedo and the third in Spain. Her unusual and exotic presence was not well received in university cloisters that were still reluctant to allow women to enter. These difficulties failed to limit her, and she developed her leadership even under adverse conditions. In 1968, she moved to the Complutense University of Madrid, where she continued her research and teaching until she was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Geological Sciences, the first women in a Spanish faculty. She specialised in the stratigraphy of the Triassic and Permian, a time of upheaval and great change, much like the political times she lived through. In the last years of the dictatorship, Carmina was part of the clandestine socialist organisation and became involved in the changes that were taking place at the university. In 1982, she was Secretary of State for University and Research in Felipe González’s first government and drafted the University Reform Law and the Science Law. These laws were the catalyst for the obsolete Francoist university to become a more democratic university, committed to research and open to society. She resigned in 1985 due to her mother’s health problems. A few years later, she directed the Colegio de España in Paris, where she worked tirelessly in cultural dissemination and, in 1996, she resumed her political activity as a senator. Her human and scientific value enabled her to overcome much gender bias, forming a benchmark by reaching important milestones that were previously forbidden to women. Her passion for geology and her fight for democracy and freedom earned her countless prizes and awards from different universities and the governments of France and Spain. She passed away in 2014 and, with the donation of her body to science, she perpetuated beyond death her commitment to research. I am left with the small satisfaction of thinking that I contributed to creating the first shoes in which our university began the journey towards its autonomy. 31
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