USP - São Paulo Campus

USP- Bauru Campus

USP was founded with the purpose of fostering research, advancing science, and transmitting the knowledge that enlivens and develops the human spirit and promotes human life. The university aims at the preparation of specialists in all fields of culture and in all scientific and artistic professions, its motto being: "You shall conquer through knowledge." Its objectives include providing the students with a dynamic education which will enable them to keep pace with the transformations in knowledge and maintain permanent dialogue with society in a productive integration that joins education, research and university extension.

USP's teaching units are distributed among its six campuses: one in the City of São Paulo and five in the interior of the state, in the cities of Bauru, Piracicaba, Pirassununga, Ribeirão Preto and São Carlos. The university's administrative infrastructure and 23 of its 35 teaching units are located on the campus in São Paulo, which bears the name of Armando de Salles Oliveira University City. Four other large schools are located off the campus and there are scientific bases and museums in a number of other locations, including Anhembi, Anhumas, Araraquara, Cananéia, Itatinga, Itirapina, Piraju, Salesópolis, São Sebastião, Ubatuba and Valinhos, in the State of São Paulo, and Marabá, in the state of Pará.

USP - Piracicaba Campus

The university offers undergraduate courses in all areas of knowledge, and ten of its 23 national graduate programs were given the maximum grade attributed by the Higher Education Coordinating Office (Capes) of the Federal Ministry of Education.

Data published in the university's 1999 Statistical Yearbook show that 617 courses are taught in its teaching and research units, 130 of which are undergraduate courses attended by approximately 40,000 students, and 487 are graduate courses (including 257 for masters' and 230 for doctors' degrees). USP confers an average of 4,600 bachelor or equivalent diplomas each year. In terms of personnel, the university community is comprised of 4,705 teachers and 14,659 other employees.

To provide support to its research activities, USP has units that are dedicated to elementary and secondary education, including the Application School associated with the School of Education, and the Technical-professional Dramatic Arts School, of the School of Communications and Arts.

USP- Pirassununga Campus

Through its extension activities, such as the Neighbor Project (Projeto Avizinhar), the Community Cooperatives, and the Open University Project for Senior Citizens, USP plays a major role in the growth of the communities near its campus. In addition, its 24 museums and the Practical Science Museum (Estação Ciência) jointly receive one million visitors per year, including excursions made by approximately two thousand schools. The university hospitals in São Paulo and other cities in the state serve over one million persons. Besides these services, the university has a Sports Center, called (Cepeusp), jogging tracks, and excellent psychotherapeutic, genetic and dental services, as well as a clinical analysis service. It also has a university hospital (Hospital Universitário), a veterinary hospital, and partnerships with the General Hospital of the Medical School (Hospital das Clínicas) and with the São Paulo Institute of Social Medicine and Criminology.

USP- Ribeirão Preto Campus

With the purpose of maintaining positive communication with its internal community and with the public in general, all of the university's official media are subordinated to the (CCS). These media include the University Radio Station (Radio USP), the University Television Channel (TV USP), the USP Press Agency, the USP Magazine, the USP Newspaper, the USP Web Portal and the Espaço Aberto magazine.

USP- São Carlos Campus

To support its central activities, USP has a complex administrative infrastructure which includes the Campuses Administration Offices, the President's Office, the Provost Offices, the University Council, and theCentral and Service Organs. The university community also has available such services as bank agencies, post offices, bookstores, luncheonettes, gas stations and bus transportation.

---

A little history

Armando de Salles Oliveira

The University of São Paulo was founded in 1934 in a historical period marked by important social, political and cultural transformations, by the State Decree n. 6.283 of January 25, 1934, by decision of the Governor of São Paulo, Armando de Salles Oliveira. Its intellectual mentor was Júlio Mesquita Filho, editor-in-chief of the O Estado de S. Paulo newspaper, who published numerous articles and studies favorable to the founding of a university in São Paulo and promoted discussions on the problems of higher education in Brazil.

The university's first president was Reynaldo Porchat, of the Law Faculty, and the opening address was given by Professor French Pierre Deffontaines, of the Physical and Human Geography Course.

USP opened its doors with several schools already in operation, the oldest of which being the School of Law, founded in 1827. The Faculty of Philosophy, Sciences and Literature and Languages, was founded concurrently with the university, with the mission of integrating the literary, humanistic and scientific teaching of the new university. It was later subdivided into autonomous units. Many foreign professors, especially from France, Italy and Germany, came to teach at the new institution.

USP - Maria Antônia

In 1949, the School of Philosophy, Sciences and Letters was installed in its sophisticated building on Rua Maria Antônia, in Vila Buarque, near Mackenzie College, and not far from the School of Architecture, the School of Economics, the School of Sociology and Politics, and the Armando Álvares Penteado Foundation. The presence of students in the residential neighborhood of Vila Buarque meant a great enthusiasm in the region, which soon became the most important center of student activities in São Paulo, almost a university campus in the heart of the city.
By the 1950s, Rua Maria Antônia was playing a major role in Brazilian cultural life. In October, 1968, it was the stage for many student's demonstrations, a fact which led the university to transfer the school to an improvised building at the campus at the University City, on the outskirts of the city.

In the context of the worldwide unrest of 1968 - especially the student revolt in France, the students' demonstrations at the University of California at Berkeley, the Prague Springtime, and the Black Civil Rights Movement in the United States - Brazil also participated in the climate of dissension, with its own specific characteristics. The Maria Antônia Faculty of Philosophy actively participated in the political and cultural atmosphere of the period. The street was a meeting point for students, where all stood up as members of the vanguard of critical thinking and took positions in regard to the social, political and cultural conditions of the time. It was a period of student marches, assemblies, manifestations and demands, and it all came to a tragic halt with the burning of the building on Rua Maria Antônia on October 2 and 3, 1968.

The abuses of authoritarianism seriously affected the university in general. Many of its professors, as well as of other institutions of education and research in Brazil, were removed from their teaching positions, frustrating the progressive aspirations of the great majority of students and teachers.

But USP survived the period and through the years other units, research institutions and museums were gradually incorporated into the university, multiplying and diversifying the courses offered.

Today, as ever, the University of São Paulo strives to be a vigorous and dynamic institution, in constant growth and renovation with the arrival of new generations of students and teachers. However, in these almost seven decades of existence, it has already reached sufficient maturity to prepare a solid path for the future.

© Copyright - All rights reserved