The story
Founded by Bernardino Rivadavia and Martín Rodríguez on Aug 12, 1821.1
Early years
Unlike other major cities in the Spanish Colonial Americas, Buenos Aires did not count with a university of its own during colonial times. The Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata was relatively less important compared to other regions in Spanish South America, as most economic activity was based around the Andes range. Cultural and educational work in Buenos Aires was carried out by members of the Company of Jesus, and within the viceroyalty, Córdoba, Chuquisaca, and Santiago de Chile already counted with universities.
Following the May Revolution in 1810 and Argentina's Declaration of Independence in 1816, the push for a university in the capital of the newly independent nation strengthened. On 12 August 1821, the University of Buenos Aires was officially founded through a decree by Governor Martín Rodríguez. At the university's inaugural act, the cleric and statesman Antonio Sáenz was appointed as the first Rector.
During the university's early years of existence, the conflict between proponents of a laicist approach to the university's education and defendants of the traditional religious approach divided students and professors alike. From the start, existing institutions were merged into the university in order to guarantee a high level of professionalism and organization: courses on mathematics, drawing, nautic sciences and natural history were transferred from the Consulate of Buenos Aires, the Military Medical Institute and the Colegio de la Unión del Sud. In addition, law professors and courses were incorporated from the Academia de Jurisprudencia. This allowed the university to begin imparting medicine and law degrees from the moment of its foundation.
Developments in the mid-19th century
Free access to the university was suspended during the rule of caudillo Juan Manuel de Rosas, and the number of students decreased considerably. Budget cuts imposed by Rosas's government meant professors were no longer being paid, and the Department of Exact Sciences was nearly forced to close down. During this period, Francisco Javier Muñiz began making the first strides in the field of paleontology in Argentina, and became dean of the Faculty of Medicine. The situation normalized following the fall of Rosas at the Battle of Caseros in 1852. The new government of the State of Buenos Aires made bettering the university's conditions a priority; the political elites began seeing higher education as a necessary part of the country's upcoming consolidation and stabilization stages.
In 1863, the university established the Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires; the Escuela Superior de Comercio followed in 1890. In 1869, the first twelve Argentine engineers graduated from the University of Buenos Aires; they would henceforth be known as the "Twelve Apostles". Among them was Valentín Balbín, who would become president of the Sociedad Científica Argentina. In 1891, the department of natural sciences took the name of Facultad de Ciencias Exactas, Físicas y Naturales, and, in 1896, a special doctorate for chemistry was also established. By 1909, UBA had also created the faculties of Agronomy and Veterinary Sciences, as well as the Instituto de Altos Estudios Comerciales y de Ciencias Económicas.
The federalization of Buenos Aires in 1881 made the university dependent of the Argentine national state. During the Generation of '80, a period marked by the conservative elitism of Argentina's political class, the University of Buenos Aires made great progress in its scientific research, as the governing elites followed the ideals of positivism and scientificism popular in the late 19th century. The 1880s were also marked by the university's first women graduates, Élida Passo (pharmacy) and Cecilia Grierson (medicine). These were, however, still exceptions to the rule in an otherwise male-dominated environment, as it fit the customs of Argentine society at the time.
University Reform of 1918
The newfound prosperity experienced by Argentina at the turn of the 20th century allowed the children of (primarily European) immigrants, the new Argentine middle class, to attend university for the first time. In June 1918, a political and cultural movement impulsed by students at the National University of Córdoba caused a shockwave across Latin America: students were now protesting for further autonomy in universities, democratically elected authorities and co-governance, and open contests for teaching positions. The reform set up the freedom for universities to define their own curriculum and manage their own budget without interference from the central government. This has had a profound effect on academic life at the universities through the nationalization process that boasts academic freedom and independence throughout university life.
The University Reform granted UBA (as well as all other public universities in Argentina) one of the key features of its institutional life, maintained up to this day: co-governed, democratically elected institutions and authorities.
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In 1923, Ernesto de la Cárcova, a fine arts painter and academic professor, created the Extension Department of Fine Arts Education, known as the Superior Art School of the Nation in Spanish "Escuela Nacional Superior de las Artes", previously guilded in 1905 as the National Academy of Fine Arts in 1905, taking its long origins from the 1875 founding of the National Society of the Stimulus of the Arts by painters Eduardo Schiaffino, Eduardo Sívori, and others. Since 1993, this Arts Extension Department became an independent institution known as IUNA Instituto Universitario Nacional de las Artes, then, in 2014 became the Collegiate University UNA Universidad Nacional de las Artes.
1940s–1960s
The university's co-governance and autonomy were suspended during the presidency of Juan Domingo Perón, beginning in 1946. Perón's government also made access to public universities completely free of cost, through Decree 29.337, in November 1949. This represented the beginning of unrestricted access to culture, higher education and professionalization for the working class. From 1935 to 1955, the number of students enrolled at UBA grew from 12,000 to 71,823.
The 1940s also saw the creation of the Faculty of Dentistry and the Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism, both through laws passed through the National Congress.
The 1955 Revolución Libertadora re-established the university's autonomy and co-governance, but also persecuted peronists and leftists within the university, leading to the expulsion and exile of hundreds of professors. Blacklists for university professors were established, and UBA was among the most affected institutions. Further repression and persecution followed during the dictatorship of Juan Carlos Onganía, which intervened all universities and applied censorship to much of the universities' contents. On 29 July 1966, following a student-led occupation of five of UBA's faculties, state authorities dislodged the legitimately-elected authorities of said faculties and violently removed students, graduates and professors from the premises. The students were protesting the 1966 coup d'état, which had deposed constitutional president Arturo Illia. The event would be known as the Night of the Long Batons (Spanish: Noche de los Bastones Largos).
The Night of the Long Batons ended with over 400 people detained, and several laboratories and libraries destroyed by state authorities. In the months that followed, hundreds of professors were fired or forced to leave their positions. Many went into exile: in total, it is estimated 301 professors, of which 215 were researchers, left Argentina following the events of 29 July 1966.
1970s
The return of Juan Domingo Perón to power through democratic elections in 1973 marked the beginning of a new age for the University of Buenos Aires. In 1974, a new law (Ley 20.654) mandated all national and public universities' right to academic autonomy and administrative and economy autarky. In contradiction with the university autonomy law, Perón's wife and successor, Isabel Perón, appointed professed fascist Alberto Ottalagano as interventor of the university in 1974. Ottalagano launched a fierce campaign of persecution within the university, targeting students and professors suspected of being sympathizers of the Peronist Left. During Ottalagano's administration, up to 4000 professors were fired (including Nobel in Chemistry laureate Luis Federico Leloir), and four students were disappeared by the State.
An enhanced period of state terrorism followed the 1976 coup d'état, which brought to power the dictatorship of the National Reorganization Process. Professors and students were disappeared regardless of their political affiliations, as public universities were suspected of being "breeding grounds" for leftist sympathizers and subversives. In addition, the university's research production and curricula were subject to systemic censorship, and hundreds upon thousands of books were burned (including up to 90,000 books published by Eudeba, UBA's own university press). The dictatorship overran the principles of co-governance and established entrance exams, diminished entrance quotas, eradicated free education, and suspended entire degrees. All of the university's buildings and establishments were put under surveillance by state security forces.
1980s to the present day
The university's autonomy and co-governance were re-established with the return of democracy in 1983. In 1985, the university established the Ciclo Básico Común (CBC; "Common Basic Cycle"), a fixed set of subjects that all aspiring UBA students must approve in order to become enrolled at the university. The CBC replaced the old entrance exams and sought to even the playing field for all students. That same year, the Faculty of Psychology was established, becoming the 12th faculty of the university.
In addition, in 1985 an agreement was signed between the university and the Federal Penitentiary System, creating what would later become the UBA XXII system. UBA XXII allows all people detained at federal prisons to enroll at UBA and study graduate courses whilst deprived of freedom. In 1988, the Faculty of Social Sciences was established, becoming the youngest faculty at UBA.
From Wikipedia’s article on University of Buenos Aires, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.3