University of Guadalajara (Greater Guadalajara)

 university, education

The University of Guadalajara (UdeG) is a public university based in Guadalajara, Jalisco. It is the second oldest university in Mexico, the fourth oldest in North America and the fourteenth oldest in Latin America. Among Mexican universities, only the Autonomous National University of Mexico (UNAM, for its initials in Spanish) has more students.

History

The University of Guadalajara has changed its structure, governing boards and goals throughout its more than 200 year history. Nevertheless it has retained the same educational focus and motivation throughout the years. Due to this consistent focus and motivation, this institution is considered to have its origins in the colonial period instead of at some point during later reforms which resulted from numerous political and social changes throughout Mexican history.

Beginnings

The creation of the university was a slow and tedious process which took approximately 100 years. The first person to request the creation of a university in Guadalajara was Father Felipe Galindo Chávez y Pineda, who asked King Charles II of Spain to elevate the Royal Council Seminary of San José to the rank of Royal University on July 12, 1696.

The second person to take up the cause of the university was Matías Angel de la Mota Pedilla, who in 1750 forced the city council to make the founding of a university one of its priorities. Nevertheless it was not until the expulsion of Society of Jesus (Jesuits) from Spanish territories in 1767 that the necessity of a university in the region of the New Galicia became urgent, because the Jesuits administered the two most important schools in the city: the Colleges of Saint Thomas and Saint John the Baptist.

On December 12, 1771, the person considered responsible for the foundation of the university arrived: the clergyman Father Antonio Alcalde y Barriga, the new bishop of the diocese of New Galicia. In 1775, he responded to a royal certificate from King Carlos III of Spain, in which the king asked for commentary on the placement of a university in the city of Guadalajara. The king received a positive response and noted Fr. Alcalde y Barriga's personal involvement in the project and ability to gain the support of various notable persons in the city. Due to these positive events, in 1791 the king issued a royal certificate pronouncing the foundation of the University of Guadalajara.

The following is an extract from this royal certificate:

Resulting from consultation with my Indian Consul, the fifteenth of March of this year (1791), we elevate and establish a University in that city (Guadalajara of New Galicia), which applies only to the building of the School of St. Thomas, who was expelled, and the capitals of its clearly great and positive works, with the precise obligation to fulfill them, we pay for the erection of the building that was necessary, for the people of the city... I, the King.

Official Website

www.udg.mx/