University of Alcalá

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University of Alcalá Universidad de Alcalá


Established	Historical University 1499 Official Modern University1977
Type	public
Endowment	140 million EUR
Rector	Dr. Virgilio Zapatero Gomez
Students	22,836
Location	Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, Spain
Campus	Urban and Outskirts
Faculty	1,616
Website	www.uah.es

The plateresque facade of the university.

The University of Alcalá (Spanish: Universidad de Alcalá) is an institute of higher learning located in the city of Alcalá de Henares, to the east of Madrid in Spain.

[edit] History

The university was founded in 1499 by Francisco Cardinal Jiménez de Cisneros. During the 16th and 17th century, it gained recognition as a center of academic excellence, with students and faculty including Antonio de Nebrija, Juan de la Cruz, Lope de Vega, Balthazar Alvarez, and Francisco de Quevedo. In fact, its success was so great that is now considered to have been a substantial influence on the new universities being formed in the Americas.

The eighteenth century saw great change at the University of Alcalá, including a new academic program chartered by Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos and the awarding of a Doctorate of Philosophy to María Isidra de Guzmán y de la Cerda, making her the first woman in Spain to hold such a title.

In the middle of the nineteenth century, the University relocated to Madrid, where it is now known as Universidad Complutense or Complutense University. It was not until 1977, when Spain was a nascent democracy, that the people of Alcalá reopened a university in the old buildings and gave it the same name as the one which had moved out more than a century earlier.

[edit] The university today

Currently, the university is housed in both urban buildings in downtown Alcalá and dedicated campuses in Alcalá and nearby Guadalajara. It has around 20.000 students, which makes the city of Alcalá de Henares strongly influenced by the University. It presents the highly prestigious Cervantes Prize annually, recognizing achievement in Spanish-language literature. It offers programs of study in biology, economics and business, environmental sciences, law, Spanish and English philology, history, the humanities, medicine, chemistry, architecture, telecommunications, and many other fields. The most strong programs are the engineerings and economics and business, although the humanities related programs are also notable. Also, because it is the hometown of Cervantes, and its geographical localition, there are several foreign programs in the city dedicated to the teaching Spanish.