Federal University of ABC (, UFABC) is a Brazilian federal public institution of higher learning based in Santo André and São Bernardo do Campo, municipalities belonging to the ABC region, both in the state of São Paulo.
UFABC is the only federal university in Brazil with 100% of its professors holding PhDs and, for the second consecutive year in 2011, emerged as the only university in Brazil with impact factor in scientific publications above the world average according to SCImago Institutions Rankings. The institution was evaluated by the General Course Index (IGC) of the Ministry of Education (MEC) as the best university in the State of São Paulo, being rated as the 1st in the ranking of undergraduate courses among all universities in Brazil. The IGC takes into account in its assessment factors such as infrastructure, faculty and graduates' scores in the National Student Performance Exam (ENADE). It occupies the 1st place among Brazilian universities in the "Internationalization" item in the University Ranking of the Folha de São Paulo newspaper.
The chairman of the committee that formulated the proposal of the university was Luiz Bevilacqua, who became its second rector.
History and expansion
In 2004, the Ministry of Education sent Bill 3.962 / 2004 to the National Congress, which provided for the creation of the Federal University of ABC Foundation. This law was sanctioned by the President of the Republic Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and published in the Federal Official Gazette (D.O.U.) of 27 July 2005, under No. 11,145 and dated 26 July 2005.
UFABC aims to integrate several campuses in the Greater ABC region. The current campuses are based in the municipalities of Santo André (headquarters) and São Bernardo do Campo.
Deans The first rector of UFABC was the ex-rector of the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), professor Hermano Tavares (PhD in Automation at the Université de Toulouse), whose term lasted from 2005 to 2007.
Tavares was succeeded by the former president of the Brazilian Space Agency (AEB), professor Luiz Bevilacqua (PhD in Applied Mechanics at Stanford University and Grand Cross of the National Order of Scientific Merit), who had been his vice-chancellor and presided over the university implantation committee.
For health reasons, Bevilacqua left office in mid-2008, being succeeded, pro tempore, by the former president of the Brazilian Society of Physics, Professor Adalberto Fazzio (PhD in Renewable Energies by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Great Cross of the National Order of Scientific Merit).
In January 2010, President Lula appointed the former Dean of Research at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) and Full Professor at the University of São Paulo (USP), Professor Helio Waldman (PhD in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University and Commander of the National Order of Scientific Merit) to exercise the position of rector of UFABC for the next four years. Professor Waldman had obtained the unanimous preference of the Electoral College in the composition of the triple list and won the Consultation to the Community, obtaining the majority of votes in all categories of voters (students, teachers and administrative technicians).
Recognition The French newspaper Le Monde published an article that highlights the fact that it is the first Brazilian university to rely on 100% of professors with doctorates. Writing in the Mexican Gnoseogénesis, the doctor José Luis Morán López of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México highlights the pleasant surprise of the creation of UFABC and its interdisciplinary project created by 25 Brazilian scientists. The portal of the Methodist University of São Paulo published an article on the inauguration of one of the blocks UFABC made by the then-president of the Republic, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva where it talks about the goal of leaving the UFABC among the 100 best universities in the world, for example, ahead of the Brazilian university USP that was in 138th position among the best universities in the world. Writing in the Portal Luis Nassif, Adalberto Fazzio (professor, USP) and Armando Z. Milioni (associate professor, ITA), highlight the six interdisciplinary axes at AFABC and the fact that less than 50% of the subjects that make up student grades are compulsory. During the presentation of the seminar "Interdisciplinarity", held in April 2009, a professor of Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), doctor Alaor Clark commented that he considers the UFABC the most advanced interdisciplinary project in Brazil and in the world. In a presentation to the Center of Physics of Porto (Portugal), the professor doctor Daniel Zanetti de Florio cites the fact that UFABC have an innovative educational project based on Bologna Process. In an article in the newspaper Diário do Grande ABC by the then-dean of research in UFABC, Helio Waldman comments that the newly created UFABC was born in an advanced stage for the 20th century and achieved in a few years the development in research that universities such as USP and Unicamp, for example, took decades to build. The article is constructed from the result of a notice that shows the UFABC in the first time of Brazilian universities in nanotechnology. Another article published in the Diário do Grande ABC by professor Armando Zeferino Milioni (ITA) said the creation of the Masters and Doctorate of UFABC and highlights its qualified staff.
Undergraduate teaching
Unlike many universities in Brazil, where the curriculum has a fixed order, at UFABC, the student can decide the order in which the subjects will be taken, without prerequisites, only recommendations. That means that anyone can take any subject, given that the class isn't full. Also the year is divided in three four-months periods, instead of two semesters.
At the end of each period, the student chooses the classes they want to take. On each class, the students are listed by their CR (which is UFABC's version of the GPA) and the first ones will attend that class on the next period. However, if the class is from a specific course, the criteria becomes the CP (a number ranging from 0 to 1 that indicates how much of that specific course was completed by that student). All disciplines have an associated "credit", which represents the number of classes per two weeks.
After their basic university education, the student has several options: they can enter the job market with a bachelor's degree in Science and Technology or may continue at the university and attend one or two years in a bachelor's program specifically or eight forms of engineering. There is also the possibility of holding a master's degree and moving to master's degree programs in other national and international programs.
The graduate of an interdisciplinary bachelor's program of a university may enroll in up to two of 21 options for undergraduate courses as their basic training, divided into bachelor's degrees and.
The UFABC was the first institution of higher education in Brazil to adopt the interdisciplinary bachelor's degree.
Disciplines There are three types of disciplines at UFABC, mandatory, limited option and free. The type of any given discipline is different for each course, meaning that the same discipline might be of one type on a course, but of other type on another. Mandatory disciplines are the ones required by a course in order to finish it. For computer science students, Databases discipline required, so for the computer science course, it is mandatory. Limited option disciplines are meant to enhance the student's knowledge on a certain field of study. Molecular evolution, for example, is a limited option discipline for Biology students. Free disciplines are all disciplines that don't fit in either one of the previous categories. LIBRAS is a free discipline on all non-licentiate courses.
Evaluation The fact that the curriculum has no fixed order introduces some disadvantages, for example, one professor may apply harder exams than the others, creating a disparity between grades on the same discipline. Some, however, are "unified", meaning that the same exams and evaluations will be applied to all students, preventing that disparity. Excluding Quantum Physics and Structure of Matter, all Physics related disciplines are unified.
Different disciplines have different evaluation systems. One may have three, two, one or no exams at all (in this case, the evaluation is made via a project developed by the student). There may also be a student project and one or two exams.
Students who get a lower than C grade have the option to do one last exam, which is sometimes referred to as "recovery exam", that can increase their grade up to a C. If one gets an F and doesn't do well on the recovery exam, they will have to redo the discipline.
Coefficients
Source:
At UFABC, all undergrad students have four coefficients. They are the , the , the and the .
CR ("Coeficiente de Rendimento", orYield Coefficient) It represents how well the student is doing at the disciplines. As mentioned, it is the equivalent of the GPA. It can be calculated by the following formula:
Where is the number of completed disciplines, is the grade on that discipline, is the discipline's credits and is:
and .
CA ("Coeficiente Acadêmico", or Academic Coefficient)
It is similar to the CR, however, if a student takes the same discipline multiple times, only the one with the higher grade will be accounted. It is calculated using the following formula:
Where is the number of different disciplines taken by the student, is the number of credits on that discipline is the greatest grade on that discipline. is:
and .
CPk ("Coeficiente de Progressão", or Progression Coefficient) Represents the ratio between the approved disciplines' credits on a course and the total of credits on that course. It grows as the student finishes disciplines according to their category (mandatory, limited option and free). When it reaches 1, it means that student has finished all the required credits on that course . Its formula is:
Where:
is the number of approved credits on the mandatory disciplines; is the number of approved credits on the limited option disciplines; is the number of approved credits on the free disciplines; is the total number of required credits on mandatory disciplines for the course ; is the total number of required credits on limited option disciplines for the course ; is the suggested number of credits on free disciplines for the course .
Ik ("Coeficiente de Afinidade", or Affinity Coefficient) It combines the , the and the number of periods a student has studied on the university. The calculation is as follows:
Bachelor of Science and Technology (BC&T) Bachelor of Science and Technology is a general course that teaches the foundation on mathematics, physics, biology, chemistry and computer science, while giving a slight introduction on human sciences. The idea behind that is to have students working with interdisciplinary subjects via a methodology that encourages an investigative approach to situations and stimulates scientific research and production.
Examples of subjects studied are:
Classical mechanics Thermodinamics Electromagnetism Quantum mechanics Epistemology Interactions between science and society Calculus Basic programming Origins and evolution of life Basic chemistry
The course takes a total of 2,400 hours of study to be completed.
Bachelor of Science and Humanities (BC&H)
The Bachelor of Science and Humanities is a course of general science. The initiation in Natural Science, Formal, Social, and Philosophy is through lectures with participation in research groups, under the supervision of a senior researcher.
The course also takes 2,400 hours to finish.
Post-BC&T and post-BC&H degrees