Puerto Rico
University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus
University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
The University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus (Spanish: Universidad de Puerto Rico, Recinto de Río Piedras; UPR-RP, or informally La IUPI) is a public land-grant research university in San Juan, Puerto Rico. It is the largest campus in the University of Puerto Rico system in terms of student population and it was Puerto Rico's first public university campus.
The university serves more than 18,000 students, 20% of whom are graduate students, and grants an average of over 3,000 degrees a year. Its academic offerings range from the bachelor to the doctoral level with 70 undergraduate programs and 19 graduate degrees including 71 specializations in the basic disciplines and professional fields.
In the year 1900 the Escuela Normal Industrial (Normal Industrial School) was established in Fajardo, Puerto Rico, as the first institution of higher education in Puerto Rico dedicated to train those who would become teachers and educators. At the time it only had 20 students and 5 professors.
A year later (1901) the institution was moved to an area previously occupied by farmland immediately north of the town of Río Piedras, today part of the municipality of San Juan. The Normal School was established in La Convalecencia, which was one of the residences of the former Spanish Governors. The school enrolled 273 students on its first year, and its first bachelor's degrees were granted four years later in 1907.
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. The first graduating class (June 1907) consisted of 13 students.
In 1907, the first class graduated from the normal course of four years after the university was legally established. Among the students in that class were Carlota Matienzo, Isabel Andréu, Loaíza Cordero, Marina Roviro, and Juan Herrero.On September 22, 1913, the departments of Law and Pharmacology were established. The university at the time required only an eighth grade diploma, but with the expansion of its courses, this requirement changed. After 1917, the departments of Normal Education, Liberal Arts, Pharmacology, and Law required a high school diploma for admission.
On February 21, 1931, Dr. Carlos E. Chardón was appointed as chancellor of the university. During his tenure the university experienced significant growth in endowments. These were used in the expansion of the physical facilities at the Río Piedras and Mayagüez Campuses. This helped turn the university into a respected educational 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 the rehabilitation of Puerto Rico.
The Río Piedras Campus is located in the northern end of the downtown area of Río Piedras, a former town but now a district (barrio) of San Juan, Puerto Rico. The campus is easily accessible via public transportation by means of the Tren Urbano metro system with a station (Universidad) located in campus, and the public bus system of San Juan (AMA). The campus is home to a rich diversity in architecture and urban planning with old and modern buildings that showcase the architectural development of the past 120 years in Puerto Rican architecture.
In 1936, architect Rafael Carmoega, working under the Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration (PRRA), designed the distinctive University of Puerto Rico clock tower based on the 1924 Parsons Plan. The iconic university clock tower was built in 1937 and christened as the Franklin Delano Roosevelt tower, in honor of the president and his interest in the building of the university. La Torre (as The Tower is nicknamed in Spanish) is located at the entrance of the Román Baldorioty de Castro Building. Right below the tower there is a monument to the nations of the Americas portraying the coats of arms of all American states within a bronze circle, as a symbol of the Panamerican Union. Under the supervision of architect Rafael Carmoega, a group of local architects designed what is known as El Cuadrángulo (The Quadrangle), a plaza-like quadrangle. The campus's central quadrangle and tower were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984.
The University of Puerto Rico was established in Río Piedras in 1903. The first buildings were the Normal School (1902), the Model School (1903), and the Principal's Residence (1903), next to the Central Road (today Ponce de Leon Avenue). Over the years, the development of the university occurred somewhat spontaneously. In 1908 the architectural firm of Clark, Howe and Homer designed a new façade for the Model School in the California Mission Style. In 1909 a milk processing building was constructed in an agricultural area, east of the academic center. Arts and Crafts' Workshop buildings, a Library and a Gymnasium were planned, as well as the grandstand and the fence (all demolished now). In 1912 construction began for the Memorial Hall (Baldorioty Building) and buildings for the Law School and the School of Pharmacy were in the works in 1918. In 1924 the Chicago firm of urbanists Bennett, Parsons and Frost were contacted to design a master plan for the future development of the university. It was not until 1935, with the establishment of the Puerto Rico Reconstruction Administration (PRRA) and the large sum of federal funds that it invested for public works in Puerto Rico, that the partial design and construction of the so-called Parson Plan began. However, from the 1940s onward a new architectural paradigm, which discarded historical vocabularies and incorporated attitudes learned from Germany and from the studio of Frank Lloyd Wright, stemmed from German émigré Henry Klumb. For 20 years Klumb was sole architect for the University of Puerto Rico, designing buildings for the campuses at Río Piedras and Mayagüez until in 1966. At that time chancellor Jaime Benítez assigned the design of the General Studies Building to the architectural firm of Toro & Ferrer. Other buildings for the university have been designed by architects Antonio Marqués Carrión (sports facilities, 1971); José Firpi (student residence Torre Norte, 1971); the firm of Reed, Torres, Beauchamp & Marvel (new Education Faculty Building, 1974 and the first expansion to the Faculty of Natural Sciences Building, 1978); the firm of García & Landray (second expansion the Faculty of Natural Sciences Building, 1989); GDO Arquitectos (School of Architecture Building, 2001) and Toro Ferrer (new General Studies Building, 2007).
The Río 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.
The Administrative Board, composed of the deans, two senators representing the faculty, and one student senator, advises the Chancellor in matters pertaining to the university program. The Board makes recommendations on leaves and faculty aid applications, and grants promotions and tenures.
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.
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 several representatives to the student council, elected by each School or College, the number of representatives varies depending on the number of students enrolled in the School or College, and the President and Senator of each School and College, for a total of around 50 members. Elections are held in April and representatives are elected for one year, from July 1 to June 30.
Having its origins in the 1920s, the Student Council was dissolved in 1948 while Jaime Benitez was chancellor, and under the council presidency of Juan Mari Brás and it was not until 1968 that the Student Council was re-installed under the name General Student Council and under the council presidency of David Noriega.
The General Student Council is governed by the Board of Directors, which is elected from among the council's members and is composed of:
Additionally, they select Representatives to the Campus' Administrative Board and the university's University Board, both of them with an Alternate Representative. They are members of the board of directors.
Every College and School has a student council of its own, composed by a President, Vice President, Executive Secretary, Treasurer, Records Clerk, Public Relations Chair, the college or School's Student Senator (and, if available for the college/school, an alternate senator), Representatives to the General Student Council (up to four), and representatives of each department or subdivision present in the School or College.
The Campus serves more than 18,000 students, 20% graduate, and grants an average of over 3,000 degrees a year. From 2005 up to 2010 doctorate degrees conferred have maintained an upward trend. UPR‐RP has consistently granted the largest number of doctorate degrees to Hispanics in the US.
As a public comprehensive doctoral institution, its academic offerings range from the baccalaureate to the doctoral degree, through 70
undergraduate programs and 19 graduate degrees with 71 specializations in the basic disciplines and professional fields.
The graduate offer includes 12 PhDs, one Doctorate in Education, and international programs in Law, at both LLM and JD levels. The Campus frontier of knowledge production has been expanded during this period with the creation of a
Master in Cultural Management and Administration in the College of Humanities, and Masters and PhD programs in Environmental Science, the PhD currently under consideration by the licensing board in PR, to be initiated in August, 2010. 56 academic programs are professionally accredited.
The university is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High research activity". It supports research centers and institutes including the Institute for Tropical Ecosystem Studies that conducts long term environmental research on Caribbean islands and similar tropical areas and is part of a global research network, and the Institute of Caribbean Studies (est. 1958) (which publishes the journal Caribbean Studies, ISSN 0008-6533) and the Institute of Psychological Research, among others.
UPRRP is ranked 220th in the U.S. in Biological Sciences in the 2011 edition of U.S. News & World Report.
UPRRP is ranked 129th in the U.S. in Chemistry in the 2011 edition of U.S. News & World Report.
The School of Architecture of the University of Puerto Rico offers a Bachelor of Environmental Design and a Master of Architecture. The Master of Architecture professional degree is offered by the School, accredited by the National Architectural Accrediting Board (NAAB).
The UPR School of Architecture was established thanks to legislation approved in Puerto Rico in 1958 for such purpose. That same year and to that effect, Puerto Rican architect Santiago Iglesias Jr. presented a resolution at the annual convention of the American Institute of Architects, celebrated in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1965, Puerto Rican architect Jesús Eduardo Amaral, was selected as an executive consultant and given the responsibility to establish the school. Proposals were submitted to UPR's Río Piedras Chancellor Jaime Benítez and finally in 1966, the School was officially recognized by the Council of Superior Education.
The College of Business Administration, previously College of Commerce, was established on University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras in 1926 with a roll of 70 students on a nocturnal program. From its beginning, it has offered preparation of university level in many areas of Business Administration. It also offers a bachelor's degree in administration of office systems, which substituted the secretarial sciences bachelor's degree.
In 1958 the Center for Commercial Investigations and for Academical Initiatives with the purpose of promoting investigation and contribute in the creation of knowledge in the area of Business Administration. Eventually, Cooperative Education, Link (Enlace), International Commerce Development and Enterprise Development programs, in order to have a narrower collaboration with business world.
In the academic year of 1970–71, the Graduated School of Business Administration began offering master's degree in Business Administration (MBA) making it the first of its kind in the Caribbean. In addition to master's degree the School offers altogether with Law School and the Doctoral Program of Business Management the MBA/JD Program which is built towards guidance on professional practice, whilst the Doctoral Program is orientated towards research.
Student enrollment in the College of Business Administration is approximately 2,800 undergraduates and 400 graduate students. This college enrollment is the third highest in the Río Piedras Campus. Nearly 530 Bachelor's degrees and 50 Graduate degrees are conferred annually. 63% of the students of the college are female, similar to the 67% of population of Río Piedras Campus being female.
The University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras is a founding member of the island-wide Inter-University Athletic League (LAI) and participates in all of the sports included in that organization. The university is also a member of the NCAA Division II as an Independent and competes in five men's and women's intercollegiate varsity sports: basketball, cross country, outdoor track, tennis, and volleyball.
Students at Río Piedras may participate in cultural and social events organized by the university, in addition to academic conferences and lecture. 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, with multiple events per week.
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.
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