University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez

History

The University of Puerto Rico was created by an act of the Legislative Assembly on March 12, 1903, emerging as an outgrowth of the Normal School, which had been established three years earlier to train teachers for the Puerto Rican school system. In 1908, the benefits of the Morill-Nelson Act declared applicable to the island, fostered the rapid growth of the university. Eloquent evidence of that growth was the establishment of the College of Liberal Arts at Río Piedras in 1910 and the College of Agriculture at Mayagüez in 1911 as a land-grant university.

The founding of the institution is credited to D.W. May (Director of the Federal Experiment Station), José de Diego and Carmelo Alemar. In 1912 the name of the institution was changed to the College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts or Colegio de Agricultura y Artes Mecánicas (CAAM).

In 1918, an earthquake and a fire caused significant damage to the institution. The ruins of the entrance of one of the buildings, Degetau Hall — which not only withstood the earthquake, but proved to be almost indestructible after the rebuilt hall was torn down in the late 1940s — would later become the emblem of the institution. In 1988, the archway (the portico) was rebuilt, landcaped and turned into a monument.

The campus rectory was located at the José de Diego building, the oldest standing edification within the campus, built in 1911. The building was inscribed in the National Historic Building Registry as an architectural patrimony. In 1940, a clock tower was built into the main building. In 1993, the building underwent a restoration.

In 1929, the Liga Atlética Interuniversitaria was created at the Mayagüez campus. The LAI is an athletic organization, similar to the NCAA, created with the purpose of promoting and regulating sports activities. It originally consisted of a three event competition: basketball, baseball and track and field. Currently the competition consists of more than 25 sports.

In 1942 as a result of university reform, the campus was organized with a considerable degree of autonomy into the Colleges of Agriculture, Engineering, and Science under the direction of a vice-chancellor. In the 1950s the institution saw more programs added when the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Nuclear Center were established.

The Puerto Rican Legislative Assembly reorganized the University of Puerto Rico's system in 1966. This reorganization of the system lead to the controversial change of its name to University of Puerto Rico – Mayagüez Campus, which is used in the present day as the official name of the institution.

In 2007, 35.4% of all Engineering degrees were granted to women at UPRM, one of the largest percentages in US universities. The University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez is the second largest Hispanic-serving institution in the United States.

To this day, as a matter pride, students and alumni alike still refer to the institution as El Colegio (The College) in reference to its former CAAM name. Such school spirit is evident still in sporting events with the student battle cry and motto of "¡Antes, Ahora y Siempre, Colegio!" ("Before, Now and Forever, Colegio!"). The university is unique in Puerto Rico for creating a strong bond between students and the institution itself. Alumni proudly declare themselves "colegiales" even decades after graduating. Being a "colegial" becomes part of a student's identity. Some students say that, given the shared challenges of academic life there, all alumni share a sense of belonging and trust. "Colegiales" are deeply prized by employers in Puerto Rico, the Caribbean and many parts of the United States.

Administrative Board

The Administrative Board of the Mayagüez Campus consists of the Chancellor as presiding officer, the deans, two academic senators elected among those faculty members of the Senate who are not ex officio, senators, and an elected student representative. The President of the University serves as an ex officio member. The Board acts as an advisory body to the Chancellor, prepares the development plan of the Campus, approves the proposed budget prepared by the Chancellor, and grants tenure, promotions and leaves of absence.

Academic Senate

The Academic Senate at UPRM is composed of the members of the Administrative Board, the Director of the Library, the Director of the Counseling Office, representatives elected from the faculties whose total must not be less than twice the number of the elected ex officio members, an elected member of the Library and Counseling Office, and ten student representatives. The Academic Senate is the official forum of the academic community. Its main task is to participate in the formulation of academic processes within the University’s legal structure.

Campus

The UPR-Mayagüez campus encompasses approximately 315 acres (1.27 km2). The campus has a sports complex that includes a gym, a weight room, rooms for dance/aerobic classes, courts for basketball, a tennis and volleyball complex, a natatorium, an outdoor sports field and the Rafael A. Mangual Coliseum. The campus also offers two cafeterias, a bookstore, a bank, a lounge called La Cueva de Tarzán (Tarzan’s cave) and a computer center, although several academic departments operate their own computer laboratories. Classes are conducted in English or Spanish.

Library system

The Mayagüez Campus General Library serves the local campus community as well as residents of Mayagüez and nearby towns. It fully supports UPRM education and research mission and objectives by providing adequate library and information resources, facilities and services.

Academics

The University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez consists of four major colleges:

UPRM offers 52 bachelor's programs, 28 master's programs and five doctoral programs.

UPRM offers undergraduate and graduate education in all of their four colleges. Doctoral programs are offered in the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Engineering.

The College of Agricultural Sciences includes the Agricultural Experiment Station and the Agricultural Extension Service.

UPRM College of Engineering graduation rates are higher than the University of Wisconsin, Texas A & M, University of Washington and the University of Minnesota. It has increased the percentage of its faculty with doctorates from 66.5% in the 1999-00 academic year to 79.4% in 2007. As of Fall 2013, the Campus had 684 instructional faculty (660 full-time and 24 part-time), which includes those who are tenured, on tenure-track, and not on tenure-track. In terms of student enrollment, a total of 11,838 students were enrolled (10,944 undergraduates and 894 graduates).

The Mayagüez campus is one of two land-grant universities in the tropics and the only one where Spanish is the native language (although English is also used extensively). The campus provides a unique setting and, to some extent, it is in a privileged position to serve as an international center for studies, training, and research in the fields of agricultural sciences.

The academic calendar has two semesters: fall (early August to mid-December) and spring (early January to mid-May). While textbooks and research materials used at the University of Puerto Rico are often in English, Spanish is the language of instruction in most courses at UPRM, and students are required to have a working knowledge of the English language. The individual professor decides the language used in class lectures and in student evaluation activities.

Research

UPR-Mayagüez is one of the most important centers in the Atlantic region for the study of tropical marine science due to its location, facilities, and first-rate researchers. The research facilities includes the Puerto Rico Water Resources and Environmental Research Institute, the Caribbean Coral Reef Institute (CCRI), the Research and Development Center, the Agricultural Research Station and the Caribbean Atmospheric Research Center (ATMOSCarib).

The College of Engineering offers modern computerized laboratories for teaching, measuring fatigue and fractures in different materials, designing manufactured products and the processes to build them, and computer design. There is a Center for Civil Infrastructure used to design structures resistant to natural disasters and transportation systems. Other research areas include development of solar powered vehicles and boats, use of satellite photography to study earth phenomena, and study of the environmental impact of industrial toxins.

The Departments of English, Humanities, and Hispanic Studies also produce first-rate scholarship that is recognized around the world. Some of the most important fields include digital humanities, Caribbean cultural studies, and transnational topics. The campus hosts several conferences on cutting-edge humanitic topics each year.

In addition to the numerous research laboratories under direct faculty supervision, the Mayagüez campus has several research and development institutes that provide valuable support for research activities. Arts and Sciences is the College with the largest portfolio of funded research at the university and the highest number of patents, mostly from the Physics Department. Most of the science education funded efforts are in the following areas: science and mathematics education, detection of explosives, environmental sciences, biotechnology, ecosystems and conservation, oceanic processes, nanotechnology and ddvanced materials, human behavior and energy.

Its researchers, faculty, graduate and undergraduate students are at the forefront of areas such as tsunamis, nanotechnology, protein, oceanic processes, bio‐markers, coral reefs, applied economics, disasters, monitoring of seismic activity, biodiversity and physical oceanography.

The research facilities includes a campus-wide wireless network available to the whole university community (over 80 access points), Internet 2 Institution with an OC3 access line, robust video conference facilities, online course development platform, 42 academic computer labs for students (1,032 computers estimated), about 5,000 computers estimated including administrative, faculty and research facilities and a strong campus network backbone infrastructure interconnecting over 40 buildings fiber optics.

The Puerto Rico Seismic Network, in charge of monitoring seismic activity for the Caribbean region, is on the campus.

Rankings

According to Stateuniversity.com it ranked number 15 in 2012 amongst Public State Universities in the United States of America up two ranks from 2011. It is ranked number 1 in the Caribbean according to Webometrics Ranking of World Universities.

College of Engineering

The college is accredited by ABET. It is among the top 10 U.S. universities in the field of engineering in number of students enrolled.

The University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez produces around 600 engineers every year. A National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering, Inc. (NACME) report for the 1996-1997 academic year indicates the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez graduated by far the largest number of Hispanic engineers.

Puerto Rico's large pool of engineering students is not going unnoticed by U.S. employers. In October 2002, UPR's job fair had a record-setting number of companies and federal agencies recruiting engineers: 74. The list includes the likes of Motorola, Raytheon Systems, IBM, the U.S. Department of Energy, and the U.S. Geological Survey.

Athletics

The University's mascot is a bulldog named Tarzan. Tarzans for men and the Janes for women sports team, respectively. The Mayagüez campus is a member of the LAI (Liga Atlética Interuniversitaria). It is the only university that participates in all sports sponsored by the LAI. It currently participates in 16 men's sports and 12 women's sports with a total of 373 athletes. Its main building is the Rafael A. Mangual Coliseum.

The University will have its new Natatorio RUM and Tennis Center in 2010 after the Central American and Caribbean Games are over.

Since September 1, 2003, the Mayagüez campus competes as an independent university in the NCAA's Division II. It participates in men's basketball, baseball, cross country running, soccer, swimming, tennis, track (outdoor), volleyball, taekwondo, and sport wrestling and in women's basketball, cross country running, swimming, taekwondo, and tennis.

Activities

With over 100 student organizations, there is always something to do on campus. The Cartelera Semanal (Weekly Bulletin) lists all these activities online. Some annual events include:

Radio Colegial

In 2007 a group of students from the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE)-UPRM Chapter, took on the task to build a Internet Radio Station starting with one weekly radio program and transforming soon into a "Collegial" radio station broadcasting its programming through the portal www.radiocolegial.com or uprm.edu/radiocolegial. This project has been worked in conjunction with the General Student Body, the Campus Administration and the Association of University Students Radio Colegial, which is composed by students from different departments and faculties.

Some of their goals are:

Student Organizations

Greek Life

The University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez has a number of fraternities and sororities. Until the early 1990s most of the established fraternities owned a house in the nearby Bosque Street in downtown Mayagüez, yet a law was passed in Puerto Rico that no fraternity houses may be in residential areas. Now only Phi Epsilon Chi and Phi Sigma Alpha have houses.

Greek lettered service, professional and/or honor societies

Alumni Association