TheCentral University of Venezuela (Spanish:Universidad Central de Venezuela;UCV) is apublic university located inCaracas,Venezuela. Founded in 1721, it is the oldest university in Venezuela and one of the oldest in theWestern Hemisphere.
The origin of the university goes back toFriar Antonio González de Acuña (1620–1682), a SpanishBishop born in present day Peru who studiedtheology at theUniversidad de San Marcos and founded in 1673 theSeminarySaint Rose of Lima in Caracas named after the firstCatholicSaint born in theAmericas. In the following years, Friar Diego de Baños y Sotomayor broadened the scope of the seminary by creating the School and Seminary of Saint Rose of Lima in 1696. Yet, in spite of the creation of the seminar, students who wished to obtain a university degree had to travel great distances to attend universities located inSanto Domingo,Bogotá orMexico City. Given such harsh circumstances, theRector 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 (then part of theViceroyalty of New Granada). As a result, on 22 December 1721Philip V of Spain signed inLerma a Royal Decree that transformed the School-Seminary into theUniversidad Real y Pontificia de Caracas. The Royal Decree was concurred byPope Innocent XIII with aPapal bull in 1722. The university offered degrees inphilosophy, Theology,Canon law andMedicine. Until 1810, when the Seminary of SaintBonaventura located inMérida became theUniversidad de Los Andes, theUniversidad Real y Pontificia de Caracas was the only university existing in the country.
The old campus in 1911. The building also served as the location for theNational Library when it was founded in 1833. It is currently known as thePalacio de las Academias which is Spanish for "Palace of Academies"
The Royal constitution was displaced by the Republican Statutes proclaimed bySimón Bolívar on 24 June 1827. The new statutes gave the institution a secular character and transferred the main authority to theRector.
In December 1908,dictatorJuan Vicente Gómez came into power with acoup d'état against the government ofCipriano Castro. Gómez stayed in power until his death in 1935 and during this time, having ambivalent feelings about the purpose of educating free minds when he could hire foreigners to exercise any technical requirements for the nation, decided to close the university from 1912 to 1922. When it reopened, the Rector Felipe Guevara Rojas had reorganized the traditional division of only a few schools, separating them into departments.
1928 became a very important year for the university when a group of students, known as theGeneration of 1928, organized events during the "Students Week" protesting the dictatorship which culminated in an attempt to overthrow Gómez on 7 April of that year. This group, which shared a common front against Gómez, was conformed by people likeRómulo 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, then PresidentEleazar López Contreras, ordered a decree suspending the Constitutional rights and declaring a general censorship of the press because the oil workers decided to start a strike (an unprecedented deed at the time). The rector of the university, Francisco Antonio Rísquez, led the protest that followed through the streets of Caracas against the policies of López Contreras.
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. Theadministration of PresidentIsaías 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 architectCarlos Raúl Villanueva after a visit to theUniversity City 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.
The new campus was going to become a vast urban complex of about 200 hectares and included 40 buildings. Villanueva worked with 28 avant-garde artists of the time, from Venezuela and the rest of the world, to build what continues to be one of the most successful applications ofModern 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 1953Floating Clouds byAlexander Calder, murals byVictor Vasarely,Wifredo Lam,Fernand Léger and sculptures byJean Arp andHenri Laurens. TheCiudad Universitaria de Caracas was declaredWorld Heritage byUNESCO, and it is the only modern university campus designed by a single architect to receive such high honor.
In 1958, after the fall of dictatorMarcos Pérez Jiménez, a government commission established a new law for the universities. The new law came into place on 5 December, guaranteeing that faculty and students could work in an environment of freedom and tolerance. This very important legal foundation was however abused during the 1960s whenguerrilla rebels, supported byFidel Castro took refuge inside the university campus to escape prosecution from the government. This tense situation came to a stalemate in 1969 when students asking for a reform took over the university. On 3 October 1970, the administration of PresidentRafael Caldera ordered the university to be raided by the military and Rector Jesús María Bianco was forced to resign. 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, the second half of the 20th century was a time when the Central University's faculty body benefited greatly from the influx of European immigrants. Many intellectuals settled in Venezuela after the end of theSpanish Civil War andWorld War II and found jobs at the university. Those scientists and humanists helped develop lines of research and teaching at the university and educated many of the present generation of faculty members.
The university is organized into 11 schools (Facultades) which are subdivided into 40 departments (Escuelas).
All schools offer undergraduate degrees at the level ofLicenciatura (5 years) and graduate degrees at the level ofmaster's degree (2 years) andPhD (3–4 years) from the Graduate School.[14] The Graduate School, founded in 1941, offers 222 different specializations, 109 Master's degrees and 40 PhDs.[15]
School of Architecture. Mural byAlejandro OteroSchool of Engineering. Mural byAlejandro OteroSchools of Humanities, Social Sciences and Economy
TheRanking Iberoamericano de Instituciones de Investigacion based on theInstitute for Scientific Information ranked the Central University of Venezuela as the most productive research institution in the country and as the 20th most productive in Latin America.[27]Other top 25 positions were reached in the following areas:
Luis Razetti (1862–1932) (also alumnus) physician, began the teaching of modern surgery in Venezuela and wrote an influential code of ethics for the practice of medicine.
Arístides Bastidas (1924–1992) journalist and scientist winner of theKalinga Prize, was one of the pioneers of what is termed as "science journalism" in Venezuela.
Werner Jaffé (1914–2009) founder of the National Institute of Nutrition. Studied under Nobel prize winnerPaul Karrer.
Tobías Lasser (1911–2006) (also alumnus) botanist, founder of the Botanical Garden of Caracas, the modern School of Sciences and the Department of Biology.
ÁVILA BELLO, JOSÉ. y CONVIT, JACINTO. 1992: "El Instituto de Biomedicina. Evolución reciente". En: Ruiz Calderón, Humberto et al. "La ciencia en Venezuela pasado, presente y futuro". Cuadernos Lagoven. Lagoven, S.A. Caracas Venezuela pp: 92–101.
BARROETA LARA, JULIO. 1995: ""Nuestra y trascendente Universidad Central de Venezuela"". Universidad Central de Venezuela, Dirección de Cultura. Caracas – Venezuela.
CADENAS, JOSÉ MARÍA. 1994; "Relaciones universidad empresa: una aproximación a su situación en Venezuela". EN: "Agenda Académica". Universidad Central de Venezuela. Caracas Venezuela.
CUENCA, HUMBERTO. 1967: ""La universidad colonial"". Universidad Central de Venezuela. Caracas – Venezuela.
HENRIQUEZ UREÑA, PEDRO. 1955: ""Historia de la cultura en la América Hispánica"". Colección Tierra Firme. Fondo de Cultura Económica. Ciudad de México – México. 243p.
HERRERA Z, HENRY. y ORTA, SOLANGE. 1995: ""Universidad Central de Venezuela"". En:Diccionario multimedia de Historia de Venezuela. Fundación Polar. Caracas – Venezuela.
LEAL, ILDEFONSO. 1963: "Historia de la Universidad de Caracas (1721–1827)". Universidad Central de Venezuela. Caracas – Venezuela.
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LEAL, ILDEFONSO. 1979: "El Claustro de la Universidad y sus Historia II". Tomo I (1721–1756) Estudio preliminar y compilación; Universidad Central de Venezuela. Caracas – Venezuela. 362p.
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LEAL, ILDEFONSO. 1981: "Historia de la Universidad Central de Venezuela, 1721–1981". Universidad Central de Venezuela. Caracas – Venezuela.
LEAL, ILDEFONSO. 1983: "La Universidad de Caracas en los años de Bolívar 1783–1830". Universidad Central de Venezuela. Caracas -Venezuela 2 volúmenes.
MACHADO ALLISON, ANTONIO. 2005: "Memorias 40 años del Instituto de Zoologia Tropical". Editorial Brima Color. Caracas – Venezuela. 155p.
MÉNDEZ Y MENDOZA, JUAN DE DIOS. 1912: "Historia de la Universidad Central de Venezuela". Tipografía Americana. Caracas. 2 volúmenes.
PARRA LEÓN, CARACCIOLO. 1954:Filosofía universitaria venezolana 1782–1821. Editorial J. B. Madrid – España.
TEXERA, YOLANDA. 1992: "La Facultad de Ciencias de la Universidad Central de Venezuela". En: Ruiz Calderón, Humberto et al. "La ciencia en Venezuela pasado, presente y futuro". Cuadernos Lagoven. Lagoven, S.A. Caracas Venezuela pp: 50–63.
UNIVERSIDAD CENTRAL DE VENEZUELA. 1990: "Instituto de Zoología Tropical (IZT)". Universidad Central de Venezuela. Caracas – Venezuela. 16p.
UNIVERSIDAD CENTRAL DE VENEZUELA. 1978: "UCV prospecto de estudios Facultad de Ciencias". Universidad Central de Venezuela. Caracas – Venezuela. 123p.
USLAR PIETRI, ARTURO. 1961: ""La universidad y el país"". Imprenta Nacional. Caracas – Venezuela.
UNIVERSIDAD CENTRAL DE VENEZUELA. 1981: ""Plano de Ubicación de las obras de arte de la Ciudad Universitaria de Caracas"". Universidad Central de Venezuela. Caracas – Venezuela.
