Federal University of Viçosa

The Federal University of Viçosa (Portuguese: Universidade Federal de Viçosa, UFV) is a public university with the main campus located in the city of Viçosa, Minas Gerais, Brazil. It also has campuses in the cities Rio Paranaiba and Florestal.

Recognized as one of the best public universities of Brazil, it is known for agricultural sciences and exact sciences. Other highlighted courses are law, food engineering, agronomy, zootechny, electrical engineering, nursing, nutrition, and medicine.

Founded in 1922 as the Higher School of Agriculture and Veterinary Science (Portuguese: Escola Superior de Agricultura e Veterinária, ESAV), classes did not begin until 1927. In 1948 it became the Rural University of Minas Gerais. It was federalized in 1969 with its present name. The university houses the Technological Park of Viçosa (tecnoPARQ), and one of the biggest networks of junior enterprises in the country.

History

Foundation

The Federal University of Viçosa was founded via law number 761 in September 1920 signed by the President of the State of Minas Gerais Artur Bernardes, along with the Secretary of Agriculture of Minas Gerais Clodomiro Augusto de Oliveira, who authorized the implementation of a superior school of Agriculture and Veterinary in the state.

Clause number 4 - This School will have as its objective to lecture the practical and theorical tuition of Agriculture and Veterinary and so to realize experimental studies that take part in the development of those sciences in the state of Minas Gerais.

In 1920, determined by Artur Bernardes to the Brazilian ambassador in the United States José Cochrane de Alencar the mission to indicate a specialist capable of "founding, organizing and directing a modern agricultural school". This way, by the action of the Department of State and of Agriculture of the United States, the Director of Florida Agricultural College, the doctor Peter Henry Rolfs was entrusted in 1921 after accepting the challenge of serving the State of Minas and managing the physical and academical construction of the Superior School of Agriculture and Veterinary.

The professor Rolfs was contracted with the function of founding, organizing and directing the School. With a considerable title for the time, and a deep knowledge and experience in the area of modern agriculture in the United States, Rolfs came with the function of implementing in the Superior School of Agriculture and Veterinary a modern agricultural model, based on the pragmatic scientific methods of the Land Grant Colleges, which would supply a big progress for the local, regional, and national agriculture. The Superior School of Agriculture and Veterinary was created with the goal of becoming an icon of the agricultural science in Brazil, being necessary in its beginning human and physical resources that gave support to receive the innovator teaching method that was imported from the United States. Thinking in the excellency of the teaching that would be offered by the institution, the School was populated in its beginning by teachers of different parts of the world and of Brazil, also from employees and students that came from different parts of Brazil, including from Viçosa itself.

Four pilasters

The main entry from UFV's Viçosa campus is demarcated by four pilasters, each one with one part of UFV's motto written in: Ediscere, Scire, Agere, Vincere (to study, to know, to act, to win). The four initials of the motto's words form "ESAV", the abbreviation of "Escola Superior de Agricultura de Viçosa". The idea of having four pilasters as the gateway of the campus refers to Purdue University, old UFV's partner. According to the tradition, there are also four pilasters in the main gateways in the campuses of Rio Paranaíba and of Florestal.

Эх сурвалж: Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)