Seal of the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras
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Latin: Universitatis Portoricensis | |
Other name
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IUPI, La IUPI, UPRRP |
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Type | Public |
Established | 1903 |
Budget | $241.5 million USD (systemwide, as of 2016) |
Chancellor | Carmen Haydée Rivera Vega |
President | Dr. Mariella Mestres |
Dean | Grisel E. Meléndez Ramos |
Academic staff
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1,374 |
Administrative staff
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2,406 |
Students | 18,653 |
Undergraduates | 15,186 |
Postgraduates | 3,467 |
773 | |
Location | San Juan, Puerto Rico |
Campus |
Urban 289 acres (1.17 km2) |
Magazine | Diálogo |
Colours | Red and White |
Athletics | LAI |
Sports | Track and field |
Nickname | Gallitos (masculine) and jerezanas (feminine) |
Mascots | The Rooster and the Hen |
Website | www.uprrp.edu |
The University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras (Spanish: Universidad de Puerto Rico, Recinto de Río Piedras), also referred to as UPR-RP and La IUPI, is a public research university located on a 289-acre (1.17 km2) campus in Río Piedras, San Juan, Puerto Rico.
UPR-RP serves more than 18,000 students, 20% graduate, and grants an average of over 3,000 degrees a year. It is recognized by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching as a research university "high research activity" (RU/H). As a public comprehensive doctoral institution, its academic offerings range from the bachelorette to the doctoral degree, through 70 undergraduate programs and 19 graduate degrees with 71 specializations in the basic disciplines and professional fields. UPR‐RP has consistently granted the largest number of doctorate degrees to Hispanics in the US.
UPR-RP is the largest campus in terms of student population of the University of Puerto Rico System, and Puerto Rico's first public university.
In the year 1900 the Escuela Normal Industrial (Normal Industrial School) was established in Fajardo, Puerto Rico as the first Higher Education institution of Puerto Rico, dedicated to those who would become teachers on the island. At the time it only had 20 students and 5 professors.
A year later, in 1901, it was moved to the town of Río Piedras, because the roads to Fajardo were in a terrible condition. In the mild and studying-favourable nature around what was known by the time as "La Convalecencia" (the summer residence of the Spanish Governors of Puerto Rico) was placed, temporally, the Normal School. Its objectives were still the formation of new teachers for the island.
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.