List of colonial universities in Latin America
The List of colonial universities in Latin America includes all university foundations of the Spanish colonial power in Latin America, from the discovery of America in 1492 to the wars of independence in the early 19th century.
The transfer of the European university model in the American Overseas Territories represented a decisive turning point in the formation history of the continent is:
"In the new world there was nothing that even remotely resembled a university before Europeans came there and settled there. End of the 18th century, universities and other higher education institutions throughout North, Central and South America were widespread. There were no indigenous creations, but offshoots of the European university tradition. "
The Christian missionary work among the Indians and the increasing demand for trained administrative staff for the rapidly growing colonial empire led the Spanish colonizers the need for a university education on American soil in mind. To set up a colonial university was needed, the medieval tradition, outgoing, a papal or royal privilege to award academic degrees, which was sought from the hands of both instances and usually reached. The universities were subject to all the royal supervision, only San Nicolas in Bogota held the status of a private university.
Mostly, the start-up companies based in their constitutions modeled on the University of Salamanca, Spain's oldest and most venerable university. Smaller universities limited their range of training on education in the artes, a kind of basic studies, and Catholic Theology ( with church law). Leaders were gradually developing full universities that offered to the study of medicine and jurisprudence in their curriculum, and thus possessed all four classical faculties. In the colonial centers of power Santo Domingo, Lima and Mexico City emerged the major universities of the first hour, which was in the following period, as evident that the vast distances in the Spanish territory necessitated a greater dispersion of the sites, the development of further ups an important took part.
A major role in the development of the university system played the Christian religious communities, especially the very active in education Jesuits, but also the Dominicans and Augustinians. Construction such as operation of most universities took to the - back initiative of these orders, which sometimes fought out open rivalry over control of the campus and the curriculum - usually local. The ( temporary ) ban the Jesuit order in the late 18th century meant a serious setback for the university landscape in Latin America, more of the closed Jesuit universities were reopened decades later.
The successful export of the University, a private European creation, on a foreign continent proved her " extraordinary effectiveness and adaptability " as the highest educational institution and marked the beginning of its global acquisition in the modern era (see also List of oldest universities). Nevertheless, it can not be denied that at the output of the colonial era the spiritual life and the academic operation was clearly vital in the later founded University College of the British colonies. Nevertheless, the Spanish colonial universities met with the formation of the spiritual and secular colonial elite their main task and could thus after the separation from the mother country an important function in the interior work of the young republics perceive.
In Portuguese Brazil, however, existed far beyond the colonial period, no universities (the first foundation was in 1922 in Rio de Janeiro); the lower local demand for theological and legal specialists covered Jesuit colleges from largely for higher education mute studying overseas are recorded at the University of Coimbra.
List
The list is sorted by the date of recognition. Where more than one university was established in a place, the name of the institution is in parentheses.