Central University of Venezuela

History

Origins

The origin of the university goes back to Friar Antonio González de Acuña (1620–1682), a Spanish Bishop born in present-day Peru who studied theology at the Universidad de San Marcos and founded in 1673 the Seminary Saint Rose of Lima in Caracas named after the first Catholic Saint born in the Americas. 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 in Santo Domingo, Bogotá or Mexico City. 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 (then part of the Viceroyalty of New Granada). As a result, on 22 December 1721 Philip V of Spain signed in Lerma a Royal Decree that transformed the School-Seminary into the Universidad Real y Pontificia de Caracas (Royal and Pontifical University of Caracas). The Royal Decree was concurred by Pope Innocent XIII with a Papal bull in 1722. 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.

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 Guipuzcoana Company.

The Royal constitution was displaced by the Republican Statutes proclaimed by Simón Bolívar on 24 June 1827. The new statutes gave the institution a secular character and transferred the main authority to the Rector.

20th century

In December 1908, dictator Juan Vicente Gómez came into power with a coup d'état against the government of Cipriano 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 the Generation 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 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, then President Eleazar 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. 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 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 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 1953 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 designed by a single architect to receive such high honor.

Organization and degrees

The university is organized into 11 schools (Facultades) which are subdivided into 40 departments (Escuelas).

All schools offer undergraduate degrees at the level of Licenciatura (5 years) and graduate degrees at the level of master's degree (2 years) and PhD (3–4 years) from the Graduate School. The Graduate School, founded in 1941, offers 222 different specializations, 109 Master's degrees and 40 PhDs.

Architecture and Urban planning

Agronomy

Dentistry

Engineering

Humanities and Education

Law and Government

Medicine

Social Sciences and Economy

Pharmacy

Sciences

Veterinary

Research ranking

The Ranking Iberoamericano de Instituciones de Investigacion based on the Institute 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.

Other top 25 positions were reached in the following areas:

8th in Law

10th in Social Sciences

12th in Psychology and Education

15th in Physiology and Pharmacology

16th in Philology and Philosophy

16th in Food technology

18th in Mathematics

18th in Medicine

21st in Plant and Animal Biology

21st in History and Art

22nd in Architecture and Civil Engineering

22nd Molecular Biology

The 2010 University Ranking by Academic Performance (URAP), ranked the UCV as the best university in Venezuela and 805th university in the world.

The 2016 QS World University Rankings placed the UCV as 18th overall in their Latin American Universities Ranking.

Notable alumni

Among its faculty, alumni, and researchers include several Founding Fathers, 19 Venezuelan presidents, National Architecture Award winners, winners of National Prize for Science, Technology, and Innovation, members of the National Assembly, 2 Princess of Asturias Award winners, a Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine laureate, a Cervantes Prize and a saint of the Catholic Church.

Humanists

Francisco de Miranda (1750–1816) General, political thinker; fought in the main three revolutionary wars of the 18th century, American, French and South American.

Andrés Bello (1781–1865) Poet, lawmaker, philosopher, educator and philologist.

Sylvia Constantinidis (1962) Pianist, composer, conductor, music educator, author, writer. (Original name: Maria Silvia Castillo Casanova Arismendi de Constantinidis).

Juan Germán Roscio (1763–1821) Lawyer, main redactor of the Venezuelan Declaration of Independence.

Andrés Eloy Blanco (1896–1955) Poet.

Miguel Otero Silva (1908–1985) Writer, journalist and co-founder of the newspaper El Nacional.

María Teresa Castillo (1908–2012) Journalist, activist, politician and founder of Caracas Athenaeum.

Alberto Barrera Tyszka (1960) Writer.

Diannet Blanco, human rights activist.

Scientists

Marisol Aguilera (1971) researcher, professor.

José Gregorio Hernández (1864–1919) physician.

José González-Lander (1933–2000) engineer, chief designer of the Caracas Metro.

Livia Gouverneur (1941 - 1961) murdered psychology student

Alfredo Jahn (1867–1940) engineer, anthropologist.

Manuel Núñez Tovar (1878–1925) naturalist, researcher, parasitologist and entomologist.

Luis Razetti (1862–1932) physician.

Rafael Villavicencio (1832–1920) physician.

Politicians

Carlos Benito Figueredo (1857–1935) journalist, politician and diplomat.

Alexis Navarro (1946–2016), Governor of Nueva Esparta (2000–2004)

Alfredo Peña (born 1944) journalist, member of the constituent assembly which drafted the 1999 Venezuelan Constitution and mayor of Caracas (2000).

Teodoro Petkoff (born 1932) congressman, co-founder of the political party MAS and current chief editor of the newspaper "Tal Cual".

Ali Rodriguez (born 1937) secretary-general of OPEC (2000) and chairman of Petroleos de Venezuela PDVSA.

Hermann Escarrá (born 1952) member of the 2017 Constituent National Assembly.

Irene Sáez (born 1961) mayor of Chacao, Governor of Nueva Esparta and Miss Universe 1981.

Henrique Capriles (born 1972) former presidential candidate who has held many high offices

Juan Requesens (born 1989) National Assembly deputy for the State of Táchira, Primero Justicia leader

Businessmen

Lorenzo Mendoza Fleury (1897–1969) founder of Empresas Polar, a prize in his name honors scientific research.

Carlos Eduardo Stolk (1912–1995) founding member and representative of the United Nations for Venezuela as well as president and chairman of the board of Empresas Polar.

Eladio Lárez (born 1941) ex-president of Radio Caracas Television.

Miguel Enrique Otero (born 1950) mathematician, (also faculty for five years) chairman and owner of the newspaper El Nacional.

Presidents of Venezuela

José María Vargas, (also rector, faculty and alumnus) scientist (1835–36).

Andrés Narvarte, lawyer (1836–37).

Pedro Gual Escandon, lawyer (1859, 1861).

Guillermo Tell Villegas, lawyer (1868–69, 1870, 1892).

Guillermo Tell Villegas Pulido, lawyer (1892).

Antonio Guzmán Blanco, lawyer (1879–1884).

Raimundo Andueza Palacio, lawyer (1890–1892).

José Gil Fortoul, political scientist (1913–1914).

Juan Bautista Pérez, lawyer (1929–1931).

Rómulo Betancourt, (did not finish) (1945–1948).

Rómulo Gallegos, (did not finish) writer (1948).

Germán Suárez Flamerich, (also Faculty) lawyer (1950–52).

Edgar Sanabria, (also Faculty) lawyer (1959).

Raúl Leoni, (did not finish) (1964–1969).

Rafael Caldera, (also Faculty) political scientist (1969–1974), (1994–1999).

Carlos Andrés Pérez, (did not finish) (1974–1979), (1989–1993).

Luis Herrera Campins, (did not finish) (1979–1984).

Jaime Lusinchi, physician (1984–1989).

Medicine

Fernando Valarino Hernández, Phd in Medicine, Psychiatrist, President and Vice President of the Universidad Central de Venezuela (1984–1985)

América González, (differed student)

Notable faculty

18th century

Lorenzo Campins y Ballester (1726–1785) Spanish born scientist, founder of the studies of medicine.

Fr. Baltasar de los Reyes Marrero (1752–1809) (also alumnus) began the teaching of modern science and philosophy based on the theories of Newton, Kepler, Copernicus, Stahl, Lavoisier, Locke, Condillac, Leibniz and Wolff. In 1789 he was convicted by the Crown as an infidel for teaching doctrines forbidden by the King.

19th century

Juan Manuel Cagigal (1803–1856) mathematician.

Alejandro Chataing (1873–1928) (also alumnus) mathematician, architect.

Agustin Codazzi (1793–1859) Italian military, scientist and geographer

Domenico Milano (1810–1880) Italian agronomist engineer, started in 1843 the Faculty of Agronomy ("Escuela Normal de Agricultura").

Fermín Toro (1806–1865) politician and linguist.

Alejandro Ibarra (1813–1880) scientist.

José Gregorio Hernández (1864–1919) (also alumnus) physician, began the teaching of Microbiology in Venezuela.

Adolf Ernst (1832–1899) Prussian born scientist, started the teaching of natural history based on Charles Darwin and Lamarck.

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.

20th century

Abraham Abreu (born 1939) pianist and harpsichordist.

Mario Briceño Iragorry (1897–1958) writer.

José Balza (born 1939) novelist, critic.

Rafael Cadenas (born 1930) poet.

Manuel Caballero (1931–2010) (also alumnus) historian, journalist.

Alejo Carpentier (1904–1980) writer, musicologist, journalist.

Isaac Chocrón (1930–2011) economist and theater writer. Director of the School of Arts.

Nicolas Curiel (born 1931) writer and director of theater.

Gustavo Herrera (1890–1953) lawyer and diplomat.

Gaston Diehl (1912–1999) French art historian, recipient of the Academy Award for Live Action Short Film in 1950.

Juan David García Bacca (1901–1992) Spanish born philosopher; translator of the complete works of Plato.

Gertrude Goldschmidt (1912–1994) German born artist.

Joaquín Gabaldón Márquez (1906–1984) lawyer and diplomat.

Ezra Heymann (born 1928) Romanian born philosopher.

Martha Hildebrandt (born 1925) Peruvian linguist.

Chibly Abouhamad Hobaica (1929–2005) lawyer, professor and writer

Saber UCV

Saber UCV is the institutional repository of the university. It provides open-access to the intellectual output of the university and hosts several academic journals, usually licenced under Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND. It makes use of the Open Journal Systems.