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University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus

The University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras (UPRRP) —or Universidad de Puerto Rico, Recinto de Río Piedras in Spanish— is a state university located in the metropolitan area of San Juan, Puerto Rico occupying 289 acres in the heart of Río Piedras. It is recognized by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching as an Intensive Doctoral/Research University, a classification that makes it the only one of its class in the Caribbean and Latin America. UPRRP is the largest campus in terms of student population of the University of Puerto Rico System, and the first public university in the history of Puerto Rico.

History

In the year 1900 the Escuela Normal Industrial (Normal Industrial School) was established in Fajardo, Puerto Rico as the first Higher Education institution of Puerto Rico, dedicated to those who would become teachers on the island. At the time it only had 20 students and 5 professors. A year later, in 1901, it was moved to the town of Río Piedras, because the roads to Fajardo were in a terrible condition. In the mild and studying-favourable nature around what was known by the time as "La Convalecencia" - the summer residence of the Spanish Governors of Puerto Rico- was placed, temporally, the Normal School. Its objectives were still the formation of new teachers for the island. On March 12, 1903, under the administration of the Public Instruction Commissioner, Samuel McCune Lindsay, the 2nd Legislative Assembly approved a law creating the University of Puerto Rico in Río Piedras, transferring all the funding of the Insular Normal School there. This School became the first department of the University, what is now the Faculty of Education, becoming the nucleus of the University of Puerto Rico. Now legally established, the University of Puerto Rico started its first academic year (1903–1904) with an enrollment of 173 students. Due to the scarcity of teachers in the island, most of these students were appointed by the Department of Public Instruction to teach at schools without having finished four years of college. This explains why the first graduation on June 1907, only had 13 graduating students. In 1907, the first class graduated from the normal course of four years after the legal establishment of the University. Here were students like Carlota Matienzo, Isabel Andréu, Loaíza Cordero, Marina Roviro, and Juan Herrero. On September 22, 1913, the Departments of Law and Pharmacology opened. The University at the time demanded only an 8th grade diploma, but with the expansion of its courses, these requirements also grew. After 1917, the Departments of Normal Education, Liberal Arts, Pharmacology, and Law demanded a high school diploma for admission. Curiously, at the time, Demetrio Valdejulli rang the small bell used to call people to class. He did this until 1920. On February 21, 1931, Dr. Carlos E. Chardón was appointed as chancellor of the University. Due to his efforts and influences, a generous quantity of money was assigned to the University, which was used to make an expansion of the buildings, to Río Piedras and Mayagüez Campus. This made the University of Puerto Rico into a prestigious center. Chardón resigned from the post of Chancellor in 1936, being succeeded by Juan B. Soto. The most important part of this period was the expansion of the buildings of the University as part of a plan for rehabilitation of Puerto Rico. The symbolic Tower, constructed in 1937, received the name of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who at the time was President of the United States, in recognition of the interest and help he showed to the University and its construction. The Tower is located at the entrance of the Tower Building. Also at the entrance of the Tower, the coats of arms of the nations of the Americas appear in a bronze circle, as a symbol of Panamerican Union.Translated from "Historia del Recinto de Río Piedras"http://www.uprrp.edu/recinto/index.php (Spanish website) The University was the site of social upheaval during the 1960s and 1970s, when nationalist students protested for civil rights, the independence of Puerto Rico, and taking the ROTC out of the campus. In 1970 Antonia Martínez was murdered by the police when they repressed students. As the shouting started in the street, everyone in the building she was in, on Ponce de León Avenue, went to the balconies to see what was happening. She was, like many others, watching the events, saw policemen attacking at the students, and allegedly shouted at the police ¡Asesinos! (Assassins!). A policeman turned and shot her in the head, killing her and injuring a roommate. A mural of her and her story existed on the College of Humanities, until administrative personnel covered it with paint. Other stories claim that she was shot by mistake. Comisión por la Verdad y la Justicia

Organization

The Rio Piedras Campus is a collegiate university. The Chancellor of the Campus is the top academic and administrative officer and presides over its two deliberative bodies: the Administrative Board and the Academic Senate.

Administrative Board

The Administrative Board, composed of the deans, two senators representing the faculty, and one student senator, advices the Chancellor in matters pertaining to the university program. The Board makes recommendations on leaves and faculty aid applications, and grants promotions and tenures.

Academic Senate

The Academic Senate, in turn, is the official academic forum. It is composed of the deans, the director of the library system, elected faculty representatives from all the colleges and schools, student senators, and representatives from the staff of academic advisors. Its members participate on the institutional processes, establishing academic rules and collaborating with other organisms of the University of Puerto Rico system.

Student Councils

The General Student Council (Consejo General de Estudiantes or CGE in Spanish) of the UPRRP is the elected student government of the campus. The Council is composed of around 50 students, elected from different schools or colleges at Campus. Basically, all the Student Representatives to the CGE, College/School Presidents, and Student Senators are elected to the Council. Elections were held usually throughout September, but changes to the General Student Rules have forced elections to change to April, in order of constituting a new council for the academic and fiscal year. Every College and School has a student council of its own, composed by a President, Vice-President, Secretary Executive, Secretary, Press Secretary and/or Public Relations Secretary, Senator (and, if available for the College/School, an alternate senator), Representatives to the General Council (numbers vary from 2 up to 5, depending on the College population), and representatives of each department or subdivision present on the College.

Colleges organisation

Colleges have a dean, an associate dean, assistant deans, department chairs, and other administrative directors. The Campus counts with four administrative divisions known as 'Deans'. These include:

Dean of Academic Affairs

Academic Affairs (DAA in Spanish, Decanato de Asuntos Académicos) promotes academic excellence, giving guidance and orientation for successful planning with the Campus Strategic Plan. It implants academic policies, and looks for the effective improvement of all personnel. It promotes and designs institutional research and coordinates accreditation processes. It evaluates the programs offered at the University, while trying to improve institutional effectiveness. It is responsible for the suitable development of the services in the Libraries, Registrar, Admissions, and Continuing Education. It advises the Rector and the adequate units, such as the Administrative Council and the Academic Senate on the development of new politics, and efficacy of processes, planification, and academic decisions. It is organized with a Dean heading it, with the help of the Associate Dean and 3 Auxiliary Deans, each assigned a certain area of concern such as Foreign Students, General Studies, Business Faculty, the Library System, etcetera. Three schools are under the Dean of Academic Affairs. These include the School of Communication, the Graduate School of Planning and the Graduate School of Informatic Sciences and Technologies and they are represented on the Administrative Board by the Dean of Academic Affairs.

Dean of Student Affairs

The Deanship of Students is the leader organization, compromised with an ever-changing academic population. They try to bring the most advanced technological resources in order to be of help in the services given at the University to Students.

Dean of Graduate Studies and Research

The Deanship promotes, coordinates and facilitates initiatives to develop graduate programs, creative labor and investigations. The DEGI (for Spanish Decanato de Estudios Graduados e Investigación) is to be to the vanguard of changing styles on Higher Education, Academic Management, Learning Communities, and Technological Changes so that changes on the campus' organizations better the institutional environment of all areas, mostly those where Graduate Studies impact more. It should be the catalyst of favorable institutional changes. Faculties included are:

Dean of Administration

The Deanship of Administration is the unit that offers essential services to the university community: it implements and guards for the proper fulfillment of the regulations that rule over administrative processes of the Campus and the entire University System. It plans, coordinates, evaluates and supervises labors related with different administrative and operative processes, but over all, they ensure quality services that have a positive aspect on student life, teaching and learning scenarios, investigation areas, labor areas of conformities, according to the Campus mission and the Public Administration that commands the University.

Campus and academic facilities

The UPRRP is considered the heart of the commercial and cultural area of Rio Piedras, located in the central region of the capital city of San Juan. It is easily accessible via public transportation, including the Urban Train arriving to the vicinity of the enclosure that is easily identified at a distance by its landmark tower. The campus combines sidewalks, and landscaping between old and modern buildings that serve as evidence of architectural development of the past 107 years in Puerto Rican architecture. http://www.upr.edu/?type=page&id=recintos_RioPiedras&ancla=RioPiedras&r_type=items&r_id=1

Library system

The Library System of the Río Piedras Campus incorporates the resources and services of various campus libraries in order to serve the research and teaching needs of the university community. It also extends its services to the Puerto Rican community at large, thus fulfilling, in part, its social and cultural responsibility to the island. The system comprises eighteen specialized and general libraries, with holdings totaling more than 4,000,000items, access to which may be achieved through the university’s online catalog. Of special interest are the Caribbean and Latin American Studies Library and the Puerto Rican Collection, both located in the José M. Lázaro General Library. In addition to the traditional services–reference, circulation, reserves, photocopying, local interlibrary loan, and the compilation of bibliographies and acquisition lists–the Library System also carries out on-line interlibrary loans with libraries all over the world. Other services include Dial Order, DIALOG, microfilming, reproduction of photographs, library instruction and orientation, lectures, and exhibits. The Library System offers special facilities for the blind and physically handicapped. Integral parts of the Library System are the graduate and special collections in the Business Administration, Natural Sciences, Planning, Public Administration, Social Work, and Library Science programs. Independent of the campus Library System are the libraries of the School of Law and the School of Architecture, which are also located on the university campus.

Information system

The Information Systems Office serves the educational, research and administrative efforts of the institution. As a member of Internet2 and the Internet, the University enjoys instant communication with institutions all over the world for the purposes of correspondence and information access. Improvements to existing telecommunications infrastructure include the installation of structured cabling in campus buildings and fiber optics as a means of interconnecting them. Currently, campus buildings are configured to ATM (155Mbits / s) and Gigabit Ethernet interfacing equipment, providing greater capacity to transfer video, voice and data. The campus is capable of offering video conferencing over ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode), ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network), or via the Internet in H.323 format. The academic community has access to computer facilities all over campus. The types of equipment and laboratory hours vary, so you should request information directly from each service location.

University museum

The Museum of Art, History, and Anthropology was created in 1951 by legislative act to “complete and preserve our art, history, and anthropological heritage,” as a means to educate and enrich our culture. The current building, designed by the architect Henry Klumb, was inaugurated in 1959. Since its establishment, the museum has actively contributed to the growth of Puerto Rican cultural life by holding art, historical, and anthropological exhibits and sponsoring lectures, seminars, publications, and workshops–to the benefit of both the academic and the general communities.

Housing

The Rio Piedras campus provides housing in three residence halls:
  • Torre del Norte; a 22-story building localized within a block of the campus. It has capacity to house 437 students in double and single units.
  • ResiCampus; located within the campus consists of a structure of nine floors and have a capacity to house 354 students.
  • Plaza Universitaria Residence hall; administered by a private company in consortium to UPR offers housing to graduate students.
There is also a Guest House within the Student Center, with rooms at affordable rates for visitors to the university, faculty, or students. 10% of first-year and 4% of all undergraduates live in college housing. No married student housing is available. Also private housing is available in surrounding areas of the university.

Academics

The UPRRP offers over 80 bachelor's programs, more than 55 master's and 14 doctoral programs. Adittionaly to this is added: post-bachelor's certificates, post master's certificates, continuing education programs and the UPR Law School that is localizated on campus (which offers Juris Doctor and Master of Laws).

Research

In 2005-2006, the Rio Piedras campus was placed as the 4th among the top 25 institutions selected by the federal government of the United States for support in the acquisition of equipment for chemical research. http://www.upr.edu/?type=items&id=6&string=Investigaciones

Schools and colleges

School of Architecture

The creation of the School of Architecture at the University of Puerto Rico in 1966, was the culmination of several efforts by renowned architects and educational institutions in Puerto Rico. During the first 38 years was housed in the old building of the Faculty Center of Río Piedras. From the second semester of the academic year 2003-2004 the School of Architecture opened new facilities, which allow better comply with the requirements for a better job of teaching and learning and student growth in the volume. The School of Architecture offers a Bachelor of Environmental Design and a Master of Architecture. The Master of Architecture professional degree is offered by our School, accredited by the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB).

College of Business Administration

See UPRRP College of Business Administration

School of Communication

The School of Communication (COPU, formerly known as Comunicación Pública in Spanish, from where the acronym comes COmunicación PUblica) was established in 1972 with a masters degree in Public Communication. A bachelors degree was created in 1977. Following a curricular revision that went into effect in 2002 three undergraduate majors were developed: In addition, two concentrations were developed for the masters program:

College of Education

The Eugenio María de Hostos College of Education (in Spanish Facultad de Educación Eugenio María de Hostos) is the biggest and oldest college of the University of Puerto Rico, founded in October 1, 1900 as the Normal School of Teachers (Escuela Normal para Maestros) in the Puerto Rican eastern city of Fajardo. The College has an estimate of 3,400 students who study in six different colleges of the University. The College headquarters are located in the New Building of Education in the south of the campus, and administrate 9 buildings in all the campus, including a house in down town Río Piedras District in San Juan. The academic offers of the college include Philosophy of the Education, Human Development, Sociology, Psychology of the Education, Studies of Special Education and Students with Disabilities, Junior Elementary Literature, Nutrition, Cooking, Technology, Graphic Arts, etcetera. Even thou, the college make affairs with other faculties in the campus to prepare the High School Education schedule as Spanish, English, Science, Mathematics, History, Social Studies, Art, Theatre, Commerce, Secretary and others. Physical Education and Sports are offered in the Sports Complex at the north side of the campus, also belong to the College. The dean is Angeles Molina Iturrondo Ed. D. and the other three administrative deans are: Dr. Hector Claudio, Assistant Dean of Student Affairs; Dr. Lizette Velazquez, Associate Dean of Academic Affairs; and Mrs. Luz María Rivera, Assistant Dean of Administration. Since December 22, 2009, the college does not count with official students representatives. Since then, there has been intents to full in election quorums to form an official students council and inter struggle between students belonging to the Socialist Youth Union (Unión de Juventudes Socialistas) with International Socialist Organization and students identify with "general population" for the power of representation. In 21 July 2010, the College students finally formed a new Council after attaining the 25% quorum established for its existence, becoming the first council in 2 years to be fully elected for the College. The college moved to Río Piedras once the University was founded in March 12, 1903

College of General Studies

The General Studies Division was created in 1943 and became a College in 1945. The creation of the general studies program was the cornerstone of the 1942 University Reform. Within the University's system, the College has the particularity of being constituted as a multi- and interdisciplinary one, wherein three great sections of knowledge converge: Humanities (including Vernacular Spanish, its literary and linguistic components), Social Sciences and Natural Sciences, and English as a second language, including its literary and linguistic components. The College of General Studies offers these courses, which will vary depending on the requirements asked by the different Colleges the student heads to: Humanities, Spanish, English, Biological Sciences, Social Sciences, Physical Sciences and General Studies. The main building of the College of General Studies is called Domingo Marrero Navarro, after one of its deans. Interdisciplinary Interamerican University of Puerto Rico. Datos Biograficos.

College of Humanities

Established in 1943, the faculty currently has about 2,000 students in the undergraduate program and about 300 students in its graduate program. This faculty offers undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degrees in various disciplines such as Fine Arts, Drama, Hispanic Studies, English, Comparative literature, Philosophy, History, Modern Languages, Linguistics, Music, Translation, Interdisciplinary Studies, among others. It has various investigation centers, as well as seminars, specialized libraries in Fine Arts, Philosophy, Music and English, and counts with the publication of several educational magazines. UPR-RP Facultad de Humanidades

School of Law

See University of Puerto Rico Law School. The University of Puerto Rico School of Law is accredited by the American Bar Association.

College of Natural Sciences

See UPRRP College of Natural Sciences

College of Social Sciences

The College of Social Sciences (CISO, Ciencias Sociales in Spanish, from where the acronym comes CIencias SOciales) was established in 1943 and bears with the mission of teaching Universal Knowledge on Social Sciences and social comprehension of the nation. It offers studies in the Departments of:

Graduate School of Planning

In April 1965, the Board of Education approved the establishment of the Graduate School of Planning (EGP), which commenced its first academic year in August the same year. The program was funded with commingled funds from the University of Puerto Rico and the Ford Foundation. The orientation of the curriculum was influenced by the dominant planning perspectives during the sixties in the United States and the Economic Commission for Latin America United Nations. At this early stage, the Faculty had distinguished colleagues from Cornell University and other international mining. In addition, educators and researchers prestigious island and abroad participated in the design and priorities of the curriculum. Areas of specialty was economic planning, regional, urban and social. Already in 1975 it established a new discipline of environmental planning.
  • Regional and Urban Planning
  • Social Planning
  • Economic Planning
  • Environmental Planning

Graduate School of Informatic Sciences and Technologies

EGCTI (Escuela Graduada de Ciencias y Tecnologías de la Información) - Graduate School of Informatic Sciences and Technologies
  • Masters in Information Science
  • Librarian Teacher Certificate (Post Baccalaureate)
  • Certificate of Records and Archives Manager (Post Baccalaureate)
  • Certificate Manager Academic and Special Libraries (Post Master)
  • Certificate of Special Libraries Administration (Post Master)

Continuing Education Division

Continuing Education and Professional Studies

Student life

Athletics

Cultural Activities

One of the most enriching aspects of student life in Río Piedras is the vast number of cultural and social events organized by the University. In addition to the usual academic conferences and lectures, there are a host of activities to choose from on any given day. Cultural Activities, run by the Dean of Students, is the central agency at Río Piedras that plans and sponsors major events on and off campus. They run a busy schedule with a cultural activity virtually every day of the week and on many weekends, too. The Serie de Cine al Aire Libre runs every month throughout the school year, presenting classic and contemporary films in the Baldorioty de Castro Plaza in front of the Tower. Admission is always free. Additionally, there are indoor concerts by musical groups such as the Orquesta Filarmónica de Puerto Rico, the Tuna of UPR-Río Piedras and others.

Greek life

Social Societies:
  • ) Member of Concilio Interfraternitario de Puerto Rico (Inter-Fraternity Council of Puerto Rico)
Greek Lettered Service, Professional and/or Honor Societies:

See also

References

External links

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This article based upon the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Puerto_Rico,_Rio_Piedras_Campus, the free encyclopaedia Wikipedia and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
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