| University of Campinas[1] | |
|---|---|
| Established | October 5, 1966 |
| Type | Public university |
| Budget | R$2,087 billions[2] |
| Rector | Fernando Ferreira Costa |
| Academic staff | 2,069[2] |
| Admin. staff | 7,841[2] |
| Students | 36,801[2] |
| Undergraduates | 17,083[2] |
| Postgraduates | 19,718[2] |
| Location | Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil |
| Website | www.unicamp.br |
Universidade Estadual de Campinas (University of Campinas[3], short UNICAMP) is one of the three public universities of the Brazilian state of São Paulo, along both USP and UNESP.
Its main campus is located in the Barão Geraldo district, 6 miles (10 km) away from downtown Campinas, with additional campuses in Limeira and Piracicaba.
The Unicamp is recognized as the Brazilian most prolific research center and has 53,6% of its students at the graduate level[2]. The Unicamp is also regarded as the university with the highest professor/student ratio at the undergraduate level in Brazil, with roughly 8 students to one professor[2].
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Created in 1962 and physically installed in 1966, Unicamp's original goal was to promote science education in the industrial pole of São Paulo's interior region. As of 2011, the university had about 17,500 undergraduate and 19,000 graduate students, as well as 2,069 faculty members.
Unicamp, which is responsible for around 15% of all Brazilian research,[4] has courses, colleges and institutes of Medicine, Nursing, Speech therapy, Pharmacy, Dentistry, Biology, Physical Education, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics (Pure, Applied and Computational), Statistics, Computer Sciences, Engineering (Control and Automation, Chemical, Food, Electrical, Computer, Mechanical, Agricultural and Civil), Architecture, Geography, Geology, Economics, Arts, Music, Social Communication, Literature, Linguistics, Philosophy, History and Social Sciences. It also runs two professional vocational high schools, COTUCA (in Campinas) and COTIL (in Limeira).
Unicamp's teaching hospital, Hospital de Clínicas, is the largest public hospital in the region. Unicamp also has a semi-independent structure of more than 20 interdisciplinary centers, labs and groups.
According to the Times Higher Education 2007 World University Rankings, Unicamp is the 177th best university in the world, and the 2nd best in Latin America (after the University of São Paulo in 176th place).
Links to specific colleges and schools can be found here (in Portuguese).
UNICAMP became extremely well known and respected in the higher education and research community for its pioneering work regarding policies for interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary work. Beginning 1982, the University established a system of interdisciplinary groups, nuclei and centers.
The University devotes a fair area of its central campus to sports activities. There are courts for basketball, volleyball, a regulation soccer field, a complete athletics field with running tracks, a competition swimming pool, a huge covered gymnasium for indoor spectator sports, which houses also a convention center. Spaces for many other classes of sports and physical activities are also contemplated, including for indoor climbing, rugby union, martial arts, baseball and softball, aerobic exercise, and so on.
The SBU ("Sistema de Bibliotecas da UNICAMP" or UNICAMP Library System) comprise of a central library and more than 20 other thematic libraries located in its colleges and institutes. It is considered one of the best organized and most complete of university libraries in Latin America. A number of historical libraries and historical and media archives, such as the Arquivo Edgard Leuenroth, have also been established. The library system is fully automated and its collections may be freely accessed and searched on the Internet. Its Digital Library section supports a database with more than 25,000 dissertations presented in the University, in full text, as well access to the largest electronic libraries of academic journals in the world.
The admission for undergraduate courses is based on an annual open competition called vestibular. The only requirement to be filled is to have a complete high school diploma. Vestibular comprises two stages: the first one is usually accomplished in November, with three essays of various themes and a 48-multiple choice test on Mathematics, History, Geography, Physics, Biology, Chemistry and English. Those who get the minimum scores accomplish the second stage in January, taking tests with 12 questions of each subject, two subjects a day: Portuguese (including Brazilian and Portuguese Literature) and Biology; Chemistry and History; Physics and Geography; Mathematics and English. Until 2005, the candidate had option to take a French test instead of English, but it is no longer an option. Classes usually start in March.
For graduate programs, the university applies tests, interviews and analysis of CVs. Some graduate programs also requires a specific exam on the area (such as ANPEC (in Portuguese), for Economics, and PosComp (in Portuguese), for Computing).
As most Brazilian universities, Unicamp's administration is centralized on the figure of a rector. Unicamp rectors have a mandate of 4 years, and are chosen by the state governor from a list of 3 candidates. The candidate list is formed by the 3 most voted by the university community (staff, faculty and students), and the governor has always chosen the most voted candidate as rector. Zeferino Vaz, who drove the installation and establishment of the university, was the first rector and held the position for 12 years.
Carlos Henrique Brito Cruz left the office early in 2005 to become the scientific director of the research funding agency FAPESP, and elections were anticipated to choose the new rector.
As of August, 2005 the University Council had granted 24 honoris causa doctorate in recognition of valuable contribution made to society by people through their scientific or humanitarian work. This is the full list of the granted people (the date in parentheses designates when the title was delivered).
The honoris causa doctorate of Luiz Heitor Correa de Azevedo has been approved on 18 July 1989 but as of August, 2005 had not been delivered.
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