Central University of Venezuela

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Central University of Venezuela
Universidad Central de Venezuela
Seal of the Universidad Central de Venezuela
Motto La Casa que Vence la Sombra
(Spanish, "The House that Conquers Shadows")
Established 1721 (Universidad de Caracas)
Type Public
Rector Antonio Paris
Faculty 8,000 (aprox.)
Students 60,000 (aprox.)
Location Caracas and Maracay, Venezuela
Campus Urban, 164.2 ha
Website ucv.ve

The Central University of Venezuela (or Universidad Central de Venezuela in Spanish) is a premier public University of Venezuela located in Caracas. Founded in 1721, it is the oldest university in Venezuela and one of the first in Latin America.

The university campus was designed by architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva and it was declared World Heritage by UNESCO in 2000. The Ciudad Universitaria de Caracas, as the main Campus is also known, is considered a masterpiece of architecture and urban planning and it is the only university campus designed in the 20th century that has received such recognition by UNESCO.

Contents

[edit] History

[edit] Origins

The origin of the university goes back to Friar Antonio González de Acuña, a Peruvian Bishop who studied theology at the Universidad de San Marcos and founded in 1673 the Seminary Saint Rose of Lima after the first Catholic Saint born in the Americas. In the following years, Friar Diego de Baños y Sotomayor, broaden the scope of the seminary by creating the School and Seminary of Saint Rose of Lima in 1696. Yet, despite of the creation of the seminar, students who wished to obtain university degrees had to travel great distances to the universities located at Santo Domingo, Santa Fe de Bogotá or México. Given such harsh circumstances, the Rector of the Seminary, Francisco Martínez de Porras and the people of Caracas requested the royal court in Madrid the creation of a university in Venezuela. As a result, on 22 December 1721, Philip V of Spain emitted in Lerna a Royal Decree that transformed the School-Seminary into the "Universidad Real y Pontificia de Caracas". The university offered degrees in Philosophy, Theology, Canon law and Medicine. Until 1810, when the Seminary of Saint Bonaventura located in Mérida became the Universidad de Los Andes, the "Universidad Real y Pontificia de Caracas" was the only university existing in the country.

The campus of the Universidad Central de Venezuela in 1911 at the former Saint Francis Convent. The building also served as the location for the National Library from its creation in 1833. It is currently known as the "Palacio de las Academias"
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The campus of the Universidad Central de Venezuela in 1911 at the former Saint Francis Convent. The building also served as the location for the National Library from its creation in 1833. It is currently known as the "Palacio de las Academias"

[edit] Republican Years

Until the end of the 18th century, the official papal and royal censorship on books was largely ignored in Venezuela, a situation which allowed the smuggling of the works by Rousseau, Voltaire, Diderot, Montesquieu, Locke, Helvetius, Grotius in the ships belonging to the Compañía Guipuzcoana. This might have helped to educated an enlightened generation of Venezuelans, like Simón Rodríguez, Francisco de Miranda, Simón Bolívar and Andrés Bello which composed the forefront of ideas of self-determination and independence from Spain in Latin America. Until 1812, the University supported the republican cause. However, between 1814 and 1821 the stage was set for a violent ideological prosecution against all of those within the university, students and professors, who collaborated with the independence movement. The Rector José Manuel Oropeza y Torre, a defender of the monarchical rule, exhorted all in the academic environment to defend the Spanish King and ordered religion over revolution as the official ideological doctrine of the University. However, this all ended with the triumph of the independence movement and from 1826 the "Universidad de Caracas" adopted the name of "Universidad Central de Venezuela" by separating itself from the Saint Rose Seminary and moving to the Saint Francis Convent. The Royal constitution was displaced by the Republican Statutes proclaimed by Simón Bolívar on June 24, 1827. The new statutes gave the institution a secular character and transferred the main authority to the Rector.

In May 1827 José María Vargas becomes Rector and begins the development of a complete economical (based on the Haciendas Chuao, Cata and La Concepción donated by Bolívar) and ideological autonomy that could guarantee freedom of speech and the end of discriminations of incoming students based on race, faith or economical status. During the middle of the 19th century the University suffered from the same power-driven disputes that lead to the Federal War until 1869, when the University was intervened by President Antonio Guzmán Blanco as part of his program modernizing the country. A commission to reorganized the university and its library was formed by the Rector Carlos Arvelo, Juan José Aguerrrevere, a mathematician, Joaquín Boton, professor of philosophy, Adolfo Ernst, distinguished Prussian scientist and the political scientist Lucio Siso. Yet, President Antonio Guzmán Blanco also ordered in 1883 the sale of all the land and Haciendas donated by Bolívar, taking away Vargas' hope of economical autonomy and making the University -until this day- dependent exclusively on the National Budget.

[edit] 20th century

View of the Ciudad Universitaria from the library.
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View of the Ciudad Universitaria from the library.

On December 1908, Juan Vicente Gómez comes into power with a coup d'état against the government of Cipriano Castro. Gómez will stay in power until his death in 1935, and during this time the Dictator, having ambivalent feelings about the purpose of educating free minds when he could hired foreigners to exercise any technical requirements for the Nation, decided to close the University from 1912 to 1922. When the University reopened its doors, the Rector Felipe Guevara Rojas had reorganized the Schools and made them into separate Departments.

1928 became a very important year for the University since a group of students, known as the Generation of 1928, organized a series of events during the "Students Week" protesting the Dictatorship which culminated in an attempt to overthrow Gómez on April 7 of that year. This heterogeneous group, which shared a common front against Gómez, was conformed by people like Rómulo Betancourt, Miguel Otero Silva, Juan Oropeza, Isaac Pardo and Rodolfo Quintero. Most of them were jailed after the events or went into exile without being able to finish their studies.

The University continued to be at the forefront of the democratization of the country when in 1936, during the Presidency of Eleazar López Contreras a decree suspended the Constitutional rights and declared general censorship of the press because the oil workers decided to start a strike (an unprecedented deed), the Rector of the University, Francisco Antonio Rísquez, guided the protest that followed through the streets of Caracas. By 1942, the student population had been growing steadily for decades without any significant expansion of the University. Instead several Schools, like Medicine, were moved to other buildings around the city. The administration of President Isaías Medina Angarita felt the need to move the University to a larger and more modern location where it could function as coherent whole. The government bought the Hacienda Ibarra and the responsibility of the main design was given to the architect Carlos Raúl Villanueva after a visit to the University of Bogotá convinced the authorities of the Ministry of Public Works that, in order to avoid constructing a group of heterogeneous buildings, the design should be under one architect that could develop one consistent complex.

Central Library
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Central Library

The new campus was going to become a vast urban complex of about 200 ha. and included a total of 40 buildings. Villanueva worked closely with 28 of the most important avant-garde artist of time, from both Venezuela and the rest of the world, to build what continues to be one of the most successful applications of Modern Architecture in Latin America. Villanueva's guiding principle was the creation of a space where art and architecture cohabited in harmony in a "Synthesis of Arts". Among some of the most important pieces present in the University are the "Floating Clouds" by Alexander Calder, murals by Victor Vasarely, Wifredo Lam, Fernand Léger and sculptures by Jean Arp and Henri Laurens. The Ciudad Universitaria de Caracas was declared World Heritage by UNESCO, and it is the only modern University campus to received such high honor.

In 1958, after the fall of the dictator Marcos Pérez Jiménez, a government commission established a new law for the universities. The new law came into place on Dec 5th and it guarantee a principle of autonomy that would allow both faculty and students to study and work in an environment of freedom and tolerance for all currents of thought. This very important legal foundation was however abused during the 1960s when guerrilla rebels, supported by Fidel Castro took refuge inside the University campus to escape prosecution from the government. This tense situation came into a stalemate in 1969 when students asking for reform took over the University. Finally, on October 3, 1970, the administration of President Rafael Caldera ordered the University to be raided by the military and the Rector Jesús María Bianco was forced to resigned. The University reopened in 1971 with a new Rector and a new plan for renovation.

In terms of the academic development of the modern university, during the second half of the 20th century the Central University's faculty body benefited greatly from the influx of European immigrants. Many intellectuals settled in Venezuela after the end of the Spanish Civil War and World War II and found jobs at the University. Those scientist and humanist helped develop the current lines of research and teaching at University and educated many of the present generation of faculty members.

[edit] Organization and Degrees

The University is currently organized in 11 Schools (Facultades) which are subdivided in 40 Departments (Escuelas) according to specific areas of study.

All Schools offer undergrate degrees at the level of Licenciatura (5 years) and graduate degress at the level of Master's degree (2 years) and PhD (3-4 years) from the Graduate School[1]. The Graduate School, founded in 1941, offers 222 different specializations, 109 Master's degrees and 40 PhDs[2].

  • Architecture and Urban planning [3]
  • Agronomy [4]
  • Engineering [5]
  • Humanities and Education [6]
  • Law and Government [7]
  • Social Sciences and Economy [9]

[edit] Notable Alumni

See also UCV alumni

First promotion of engineers of the Central University of Venezuela (1893-1899)
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First promotion of engineers of the Central University of Venezuela (1893-1899)

[edit] Humanists

[edit] Scientists

  • Lisando Alvarado (1858-1929) ethnologist, linguist.
  • José Gregorio Hernández (1864-1919) physician.
  • Eduardo Röhl (1891-1959) naturalist, founder of the brewery "El Águila" in 1927.
  • Alfredo Jahn (1867-1940) engineer, anthropologist.
  • José González-Lander (1933-2000) engineer, chief designer of the Caracas Metro.
  • Tobías Lasser (1911-2006) botanist, founder of the Botanical Garden of Caracas, the School of Sciences and the Department of Biology of the Central University of Venezuela.

[edit] Politicians

[edit] Businessmen

[edit] Presidents of Venezuela

[edit] Notable faculty

[edit] 19th Century

  • Juan Manuel Cajigal y Odoardo (1803-1856) mathematician.
  • Cecilio Acosta (1818-1881) (also Alumni) writer, journalist.
  • Adolf Ernst (1832-1899) Prussian born scientist, started the teaching of Natural History based on Charles Darwin and Lamarck.
  • Luis Razetti (1862-1932) (also Alumni) physician, began the teaching of modern surgery in Venezuela and wrote an influential code of ethics for the practice of medicine.

[edit] 20th Century

[edit] References

ldelfonso Leal, "Historia de la Universidad Central de Venezuela 1721-1981" (Caracas:EBUC 1981).

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

[edit] Aerial Photos
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