For those studying in the university's domed halls today, it is no longer obligatory to memorize dog-eared, Soviet-made manuals on Marxist-Leninist philosophy. The standing-room-only seminars on "Scientific Communism" perished with the old Soviet bloc, the course title sarcastically remembered by former professors and students as "Science Fiction."
The long course lists attached to rows of bulletin boards in the School of History and Philosophy today reflect a significantly different moment in the history of the island's 37-year-old Marxist revolution.
"For many today, Marxism means nothing," said Jorge Luis Acanda, director of the Philosophy Department. "And the fault is all ours."
Only five university students had signed up for a course on the history of the Cuban Revolution, according to course lists for the spring semester. Nearly two dozen names were on one list under the heading of Contemporary U.S. History. The names of 75 students registered for Property Law this spring filled two single-spaced pages. There were offerings in accounting and finance, economics and statistics.
But this will be the first year without a graduating major in Marxist philosophy since President Fidel Castro's government reopened the department in 1967. In fact, the university's philosophy concentration today accounts for a mere 29 students, compared - for example - with more than 350 in economics.
Acanda, 41, recalled seminars in scientific communism with as many as 200 students."Marxism was not only a product desired by many because of the enthusiasm of the revolution,"" he said.
But in a nation where more than half of the population was born after Castro came to power in 1959, a crisis of ideology has paved the way for what Acanda called a "crisis of reason."
Asked if his department will survive this new era in Cuban history, Acanda smiled: "I believe so. If not, I would have been the first to go to work on my own - selling french fries or something."