The University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus (; UPR-RP, or informally La IUPITu Futuro Solo en la IUPI. Universidad de Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras. Admisiones. Accessed 5 October 2019.) 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. History 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.
During the 1960s, the Serie de Cine de la Universidad de Puerto Rico was created. The institution created the Escuela de Comunicación Pública and began teaching classes in film studies.
History of student protests
The university was the site of social upheaval during the 1960s and 1970s, when nationalist students protested for civil rights, against the war in Vietnam, for the independence of Puerto Rico, and to expel the ROTC from the campus. In 1970 Antonia Martínez was murdered by the police during the anti-education reform and Vietnam War protests of that year. 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. The students of the university also had a strike in the Spring of 2017 during which the school was shut down for several months.
Campus and academic facilities
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.
La Torre and the Quadrangle
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.Translated from "Historia del Recinto de Río Piedras" (Spanish website) 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.
Campus architecture
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).
In addition to La Torre and The Quadrangle, several buildings in the UPR-RP campus have been added to the National Register of Historic Places, such as the former female residence hall "Residencia de Señoritas" building which now houses administrative offices.
Library system
The university library serves the research and teaching needs of the university community. It also extends its services to the Puerto Rican community at large. The system comprises eighteen specialized and general libraries, with holdings totaling more than 4,000,000 items, access to which may be gained 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 Building.
In addition to the traditional library services, such as reference, circulation, reserves, photocopying, local interlibrary loan, and the compilation of bibliographies and acquisition lists, the Library System also participates in on-line interlibrary loans with many libraries worldwide. Other services include Dial Order, DIALOG, microfilming, reproduction of photographs, library instruction and orientation, lectures, and exhibits. The Integration of the Information Competencies to the Curriculum Projects promotes the development of information competencies around the campus. The Library System offers facilities for the blind and physically handicapped. The graduate and special collections in the Business Administration, Planning, Public Administration, Social Work, and Library Science programs are integral parts of the Library System, but the libraries of the School of Law, Natural Sciences Faculty, and the School of Architecture, also located on the university campus, operate independently.
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.
University museums
The Museum of Art, History, and Anthropology (MAHA) 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