University of Havana

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University of Havana
Taken in 1930
Taken in 1930
Established: 1728
Type: Public
Rector: Rubén Zardoya Loureda
Faculty: over 300
Students: 6,000
Location: Havana, Cuba
Website: www.uh.cu/

The University of Havana or UH (in Spanish, Universidad de La Habana) is a university located in the Vedado district of Havana, Cuba. Founded in 1728, the University of Havana is the oldest university in Cuba and one of the first to be founded in the Americas. Founded as a religious institution, today the University of Havana has 15 faculties (colleges) at its Havana campus and distance learning centers throughout Cuba.

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[edit] History

It was first called "Real y Pontificia Universidad de San Gerónimo de la Habana" (in English Royal and Pontifical University of San Geronimo of Havana).At those times, universities needed a royal or papal authorization in order to be created and thus the names Real y Pontificia. The two men who gave that authorization to the university were Pope Innocent XIII and King Philip V of Spain.

The entrance to the University of Havana
The entrance to the University of Havana

In 1842, the university changed its status to become a secular, royal and literary institution. Its name became Real y Literaria Universidad de La Habana (in English, Royal and Literary Havana University) and later on,-at the time of the Republicans, the name was changed to Universidad Nacional (in English, National University).

The university had first been established in San Juan de Letrán (located in Villa de San Cristóbal in Old Havana) before it was transferred in May 1, 1902 to a hill in the Vedado area of Havana. The interiors of the building were decorated by Armando Menocal y Menocal. The seven frescos represent Medicine, Science, Art, Thought, Liberal Arts, Literature, and Law. At the main university entrance (shown above) there is a bronze statue of Alma Mater (meaning the "Nourishing mother" in Latin) that was created in 1919 by artist Mario Korbel. The model for the statue's face was lovely 16-year-old Feliciana "Chana" Villalón, the daughter of José Ramón Villalón y Sánchez, a professor of analytical mathematics at the University. Chana later married Juan Manuel Menocal (a distant relative of Armando Menocal), who went on to become the Dean of the Business School. Juan Manuel Menocal was a professor at the law school when Fidel Castro was a student there in the 1940s. The writer Maria Rosa Menocal, currently Director of the Whitney Humanities Center at Yale, is the granddaughter of Chana and Juan Manuel Menocal. (See Alma Mater Witness of Time by Eduardo Heras León).

The main library "Rubén Martínez Villena" was established later in 1936.

After the government was taken over by Fulgencio Batista in 1952, the University became a center of anti-government protests. Batista closed the University in 1956, and never allowed it to re-open. It opened again in 1959 upon the success of the revolution led by Fidel Castro.

[edit] Organization

The University of Havana is made up of 15 faculties (Spanish: facultades) and 14 research centers in different fields like economics, sciences, social science and humanities. In total, up to twenty five specialties are taught at the university. Now, it has about 6000 degree students in regular classes.

There are 15 faculties into which the university is divided:

[edit] Student Organizations

Before Castro's Communist Revolution of 1959, students joined different organisations, aligning themselves directly or indirectly with some political party. The strongest of all these organisations was the FEU (Federación Estudiantíl Universitaria or University students federation) created by Julio Antonio Mella, a co-founder of the Cuban Communist Party in the 1920s. The European revolutionary tradition of college-based political activism, practised in Cuba and in many other Latin American countries and the alleged corruption of Cuban political parties at the time turned the FEU, a stronghold of communist ideology, into the most influential of Cuban political organizations before 1959. It was a major participant in the overthrowing of Cuban President Gerardo Machado. The FEU innovated the national general strike of 1933, resulting in the imprisonment of many of its members. Founder Julio Antonio Mella, himself was killed at the hands of police during a riot outside the University.

After the coup d'état by Fulgencio Batista in 1954, when free and democratic elections were suspended, the violent clashes between university sutdents and Cuban police reached its extremes. Students known to be members of the FEU were violently tortured and killed in the streets of Havana, and the organization reacted with an irregular war in the city, aiming mainly to assassinate police officers of high rank, like the chief of the police in Havana, Blanco Rico, who was killed by 4 FEU members. After the assault on the Moncada barracks by Fidel Castro, an attorney who graduated from Havana University School of Law, and who had contacts in the FEU, the FEU became an ally of Castro's new July 26th Movement, though there were discrepancies between the leaders in the form that the forthcoming revolution should be carried out. While Fidel Castro was hiding in the Sierra Maestra mountains, the FEU, lead by Jose Antonio Echeverria, attempted to kill Fulgencio Batista in an armed assault at the Cuban Presidential Palace on March 13, 1957. Batista managed to escape, and many student assaultants died in the action, as did Echeverria himself. During the months that followed, the police executed many of the students that lead the failed coup. President Batista ordered the university to be closed, and it remained so until Batista fled the country and Fidel Castro entered Havana on January, 1959.

Since the triumph of the Castro Revolution in Cuba and the promulgation of a Communist State, all student political organizations in the university were outlawed. Resistance to these attempts were met with firing squads. Student protests were also outlawed, punishable by death. Only the PCE (Partido Comunista Estudiantil or Student Communist Party) was allowed to exist, and it was only a rubber stamp organization for the Central Committee and the Cuban Communist Party. All weapons were confiscated, all student gatherings were monitored and all literature was screened, in line with governmental ordinances.

[edit] References

[edit] See also

Cuba Portal

[edit] External links

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Cuban universities
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