Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara

The Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara (Spanish: [uniβeɾsiˈðað awˈtonoma ðe ɣwaðalaˈxaɾa], Autonomous University of Guadalajara), commonly abbreviated to UAG or Autónoma, is a coeducational, independent, private university based in the Mexican city of Guadalajara. Established in 1935, it was the first private university and medical school in Mexico. The creation of the university was a conservative response to a more-left wing direction being taken in Mexico in public higher education at the time. It was first conceived with the name Universidad del Occidente (University of the West), but would later be styled to Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara (UAG).

Established University in the Community (UNICO) was the first community college in Mexico. It also operates an elementary school, two middle schools, and three high schools and postgraduate studies. The university has become one of the most important educational institutions in Latin America, attracting students from 25 different countries.

History

Background

After the triumph of the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920) the governments that followed focused on making systemic changes to promote the goals of the revolution. On July 20, 1934, general Plutarco Elias Calles, a politician, revolutionary leader and former president, pronounced the speech known as "Grito de Guadalajara":

"Eternal enemies stalk her and try to make her triumphs nugatory. It is necessary that we enter the new period of the Revolution, which I call the psychological revolutionary period; we must seize the consciences of childhood, the consciences of youth because they are and must belong to the Revolution. It is absolutely necessary to get the enemy out of that trench where the clergy are, where the conservatives are; I mean school. It would be a very serious blunder, it would be criminal for the men of the Revolution, if we did not wrest the youth from the clutches of the clergy and from the clutches of the conservatives; and unfortunately the school in many states of the republic and in the capital itself is run by clerical and reactionary elements."

Articles 3 and 24 of the Constitution of Mexico enshrined respectively secular education and freedom of belief. They seriously restricted the influence of the Roman Catholic Church in Mexican education. In 1934, article 3 was amended to mandate a "socialist education" in public school.

In 1933, Marxist and traditionalist factions in the National University were in conflict to determine the ideology of the university. On the conservative side, Antonio Caso, former university rector, argued under the banner of "academic freedom" that this freedom was essential to academic life and to the advancement of science and national leadership as stipulated in the Constitution of 1917. While Vicente Lombardo Toledano argued for a university of Marxist orientation.

The conflict culminated with the first Congress of Mexican Universities voting in 1933 for instituting a socialist orientation in the National University. The proponents of that model proceeded with efforts to implement it in other public universities throughout the nation, but were met with strikes in the University of Guadalajara. That led to multiple arrests and deaths and the closure of the school. The public university was reopened in 1935. The strikes ended when the governor of Jalisco, Everardo Topete, gave permission for the creation of the first private university in Mexico: Universidad Autonoma de Occidentes (University of the West), later renamed Universidad Autónoma de Guadalajara.

Nuñez building 28, was the first seat of the university. The founders started dividing the foundational tasks such as renting houses for schools and colleges, set curricula, organizing the team of teachers and initiate enrollment, while incorporating studies of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

First classes

The first dean of the Autonomous University of the West was the lawyer Agustin Navarro Flores, under whose leadership the first faculties were organized. On May 5, 1935, named Director of the School of Jurisprudence to Mr. Alberto G. Arce.; On May 15 were designated as Director and Secretary of the School of Medicine medical doctors Adolfo Esteban Saucedo and Cave Brambila; Dr. Agustin Hernandez was the first Director of Dentistry; the engineer Luis Ugarte was of Engineering and Professor Maria Villanueva assumed the leadership of the High School.

On April 21, 1956, the second dean of the UAG Dr. Fernando Banda, with the Lic. Manuel Calvillo, Director of Schools Incorporated, sent on behalf of Dr. Nabor Carrillo Flores, at that time Rector of the UNAM, the foundation stone of the University City, First Section, where there is now the Institute of Biological Sciences. From 1965 to 1973 the objectives of the first stage of the Master Plan were fully met. The Autonomous University City, whose construction had begun in 1968, was inaugurated on April 30, 1970, for the third dean Dr. Luis Garibay Gutierrez. In 1970 the Central Library building was completed, where technical processes are concentrated and simultaneously the School of Library. In 1972 the works of the Women's School educational complex were completed.

Completion of autonomy

In 1991, the Mexican federal government issued the 158th Agreement which granted the university full academic independence and the right to award degrees in all levels of education. This agreement was made effective in July 26 of that year when it was published in the Official Gazette. The university sought and obtained support from other educational institutions in Mexico and in the international context, especially in Latin America and the United States. In the seventies and eighties, UAG expanded its network of cooperative agreements around the world, also playing a leading role in the founding and development of groups and international organizations such as the Latin American University Group for the Study and Improvement of Education (GULERPE) associations; Ajijic Center for the Improvement of Higher Education in America (CAMESA); the Instituto Ajijic on International Education (IASEI) and the council. Inter University for Economic and Social Development (CUIDES). In 1987 the International Association of University Presidents (IAUP), elected as its President Dean of the Autonomous University of Guadalajara. UAG plays a leading role in the IAUP and in several international educational organizations.

Innovation

The school runs a program called "Strengthening Teachers", whose purpose is the academic aspects of the institution. This program includes the participation of professors and experts from other countries who, through short visits, participate in training programs at UAG. Teachers from UAG also provide the opportunity to participate in such programs, with sister universities in other countries.

Medical School

It is the oldest private medical school in Mexico. The first class was taught on June 5, 1935, the same year of the school's birthdate, its first residency quarters were located on Tolsa Avenue (current Enrique Diaz de Leon Avenue) in Guadalajara, in an area donated by Ramón Garibay which later became the university's hospital. Later the hospital was named Hospital Ramón Garibay in honor of its patron.

In 1963, the basic science courses of the Medical School were moved to Lomas del Valle campus that houses the Institute of Biological Sciences. The clinical courses were in the Hospital Ramon Garibay. Later, in 1974, the second university hospital opened; This hospital is named after one of the most prominent founders of the university, Doctor Ángel Leaño, it was designed with specific requirements for different types of learning, offering new facilities for students during their clinical semesters. Doctor Ángel Leaño university hospital and Ramón Garibay University Hospital began the internship program and specialty residencies since 1970 in pediatrics, gynecology, obstetrics, anesthesiology and pneumology. Medical School currently offers training in ophthalmology, neurosurgery, psychiatry, ENT, orthopedics and dermatology. There are master's programs in health services administration, morphological sciences, physiology and health.

The UAG Faculty of Medicine has over 15,000 graduates practicing medicine in all 50 states of the US, in over 15 countries. The school has affiliation agreements and partnerships with a number of hospitals; in Mexico there are agreements with over 100 hospitals, and with other countries.

Medicine in the community program

Education program and community care started in 1955 as a project of multidisciplinary practices involving students and professors of medicine, architecture, dentistry, social work, psychology, nursing, law and chemistry for the purpose of helping poor communities. In 1973 it was formally established as the Medicine in the Community (PMC) program as part of a plan called Education in the Community, to support the actions of the Medical Brigade (WB) and the Mobile Hospital Disaster. In 1998 the Primary Care Mobile Unit (UMAP) was created which helped in the development of basic health within the concept of Medicine in the Community (PMC) program, the activities focused on community, education and welfare, allowing an adequate and varied exercise of medical education for the poor and sick.

Notable recognition and accreditation

It is approved for listing in the World Health Organization, World Directory of medical schools, United States Department of Education approval (title IV), recognized and approved by the government of Mexico to confer the degree of Physician Surgeon, accredited by the Mexican Council for the Accreditation of Medical Education (COMAEM) the U.S. Department of Education has determined that COMAEM's (Mexican Council for the Accreditation of Medical Education) is comparable to the LCME process, Mexican republic senate recognition, The Institute for International Medical Education (IIME), Mexican Fed…