Autonomous University of Madrid
Encyclopedia
The Autonomous University of Madrid is one of the top university of Spain and commonly known by its Spanish initials UAM or as "la Autónoma". UAM is a Spanish Public University
Public university
A public university is a university that is predominantly funded by public means through a national or subnational government, as opposed to private universities. A national university may or may not be considered a public university, depending on regions...

 established in 1968, along with the Autonomous Universities of Barcelona
Autonomous University of Barcelona
The Autonomous University of Barcelona is a public university mostly located in Cerdanyola, near the city of Barcelona in Catalonia, Spain....

 and Bilbao
Bilbao
Bilbao ) is a Spanish municipality, capital of the province of Biscay, in the autonomous community of the Basque Country. With a population of 353,187 , it is the largest city of its autonomous community and the tenth largest in Spain...

 (now University of the Basque Country
University of the Basque Country
The University of the Basque Country is the only public university in the Basque Country, in Northern Spain...

) during of one of Spain's most ambitious educational reforms, which took place during the late 1960s and the early 1970s. Since 1971, the university's main campus has been located in Cantoblanco, a rural area in the northern outskirts of Madrid. Despite of being part of the municipality of Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...

, the campus is nearer the towns of Alcobendas
Alcobendas
Alcobendas is a city located in the Community of Madrid, central Spain. It is located roughly 13 km north of Madrid and 7 km from the Barajas International Airport. It includes a central urban zone, a recently built district known as Valdelasfuentes, La Moraleja and El Soto de la...

 and Tres Cantos
Tres Cantos
Tres Cantos is a township and municipality located in the autonomous community of Madrid, Spain, some 22 km north of the capital city, Madrid. As a "satellite city" of Madrid which was conceived by urban planners as recently as the 1970s, it is the youngest incorporated municipality in Spain, with...

. Throughout its history, UAM has been one of Spain's most prominent higher education
Higher education
Higher, post-secondary, tertiary, or third level education refers to the stage of learning that occurs at universities, academies, colleges, seminaries, and institutes of technology...

 institutions, being ranked first amongst Spanish universities by the El Mundo
El Mundo (Spain)
El Mundo is the second largest printed and the largest digital daily newspaper in Spain and one of the newspapers of record in that country, with a daily circulation topping 300,000 readers for the printed edition and 24 million unique web visitors per month for the...

 University Supplement (known as "Campus"), The Times Higher Education Supplement
The Times Higher Education Supplement
The Times Higher Education , formerly Times Higher Education Supplement , is a weekly British magazine based in London reporting specifically on news and other issues related to higher education...

, and the Academic Ranking of World Universities
Academic Ranking of World Universities
The Academic Ranking of World Universities , commonly known as the Shanghai ranking, is a publication that was founded and compiled by the Shanghai Jiaotong University to rank universities globally. The rankings have been conducted since 2003 and updated annually...

 elaborated by Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Shanghai Jiao Tong University or SJTU), sometimes referred to as Shanghai Jiaotong University , is a top public research university located in Shanghai, China. Shanghai Jiao Tong University is known as one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in China...

. Its Faculty of Law is the most prestigious one in Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

. It is the Spanish university that has more researchers among the most cited according to the Thomson Reuters
Thomson Reuters
Thomson Reuters Corporation is a provider of information for the world's businesses and professionals and is created by the Thomson Corporation's purchase of Reuters Group on 17 April 2008. Thomson Reuters is headquartered at 3 Times Square, New York City, USA...

 ranking citation in 2011.

Cantoblanco Campus

UAM's Cantoblanco Campus holds most of the university's facilities. It is located 15 km north of Madrid and has an extension of over 2,200,000 m². Of these are nearly 770,000 urbanised and about a third of them garden areas. The campus was designed as a university town that was to be self-sufficient, but also would be away from Madrid in order to keep student activity against the Francoist dictatorship away from the capital.

Initially, the campus held the faculties of Philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

 and Liberal Arts
Liberal arts
The term liberal arts refers to those subjects which in classical antiquity were considered essential for a free citizen to study. Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic were the core liberal arts. In medieval times these subjects were extended to include mathematics, geometry, music and astronomy...

, law
Legal education
Legal education is the education of individuals who intend to become legal professionals or those who simply intend to use their law degree to some end, either related to law or business...

, economics
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...

, business management, and science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...

, as well as the rectorate, several other service buildings and sports facilities. The university's other facilities, the faculty of medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....

 and the teacher training school "Santa Maria" are in downtown Madrid. There are two other teacher training schools in Segovia
Segovia
Segovia is a city in Spain, the capital of Segovia Province in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is situated north of Madrid, 30 minutes by high speed train. The municipality counts some 55,500 inhabitants.-Etymology:...

 and in Cuenca
Cuenca, Spain
-History:When the Iberian peninsula was part of the Roman Empire there were several important settlements in the province, such as Segóbriga, Ercávica and Gran Valeria...

. Over the years, the faculty of psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...

, the biology
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...

 building of the faculty of sciences, the new faculty of law (that allowed the transfer of the teacher training school to the main campus, and that was later transformed in faculty of education and teacher training) along with its political science
Political science
Political Science is a social science discipline concerned with the study of the state, government and politics. Aristotle defined it as the study of the state. It deals extensively with the theory and practice of politics, and the analysis of political systems and political behavior...

 annex building, the polytechnic
Institute of technology
Institute of technology is a designation employed in a wide range of learning institutions awarding different types of degrees and operating often at variable levels of the educational system...

 school (initially superior technical school of computing engineers), the libraries of humanities
Humanities
The humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....

 and sciences, as well as the Erasmus of Rotterdam dormitory have been built on the main campus.
The original faculties were housed in interconnected buildings with several patios in between them. Characteristic of each building is a large number of stairs in its corridors, initially designed to prevent students from running in case of police raids. Currently, this fact has been considered by many university officials as a setback in the integration of handicapped students. The newest facilities were built in a contemporary style, being more accessible and allowing more free movement to students.

Sporting facilities include two swimming pools (an indoor one and an outdoor one), two multiple-use pavilions, and outdoor tennis, football, basketball, paddle tennis, rugby, and futsal and beach volleyball courts.

Other services on campus include 16 cafeterias and other eating facilities, medical services, a pharmacy with optic care, a foreign languages pavilion, and a bookstore. The campus also houses several research facilities partnered with the Spanish Scientific Research Council (CSIC
CSIC
The Spanish National Research Council is the largest public institution dedicated to research in Spain and the third largest in Europe...

).

Cantoblanco Campus is accessible by train belonging to Renfe
RENFE
Renfe Operadora is the state-owned company which operates freight and passenger trains on the 1668-mm "Iberian gauge" and 1435-mm "European gauge" networks of the Spanish national railway infrastructure company ADIF .- History :The name RENFE is derived from that of the former Spanish National...

 Cercanias
Cercanías
Cercanías is the name given to the commuter rail systems of Spain's major metropolitan areas. In Catalonia and Valencia, however, the term is replaced by Rodalies , while the designation Aldirikoak is used in the Basque Country....

 Commuter service (station Cantoblanco-Universidad), or by the Madrid Region Commuter Bus service. The campus is located in the B1 area of the Madrid Transports Consortium.

Madrid Facilities

UAM faculty of medicine is located north of Madrid near La Paz teaching hospital (that acts as the faculty's main, but not only, teaching hospital). It was inaugurated in 1970. Juan Luis Vives Residence Hall was UAM's first residential facility. It is located in the Plaza Castilla area in northern Madrid. It has 130 residents and holds several cultural activities of the university.

La Cristalera Residence

"La Cristalera" residence is located in Miraflores de la Sierra
Miraflores de la Sierra
Miraflores de la Sierra is a town and municipality in the northern area of the autonomous Community of Madrid, in central Spain, of c. 6,000 inhabitants, located 49 kilometers away from Madrid.-History:...

, a village north of Madrid that was acquired by the university in 1989. It is used for conferences and meetings and is the main centre of UAM's summer courses.

Academic Organization

The UAM is divided into eight faculties and superior schools that support and coordinate most of the university's academic and administrative activity. Each faculty is divided into departments that coordinate the teaching and research of the different subjects. Researchers can organise into research institutes in order to coordinate their activities in a specific research field. The university totals up to 59 departments and eight research institutes. In addition to these, the UAM has seven associate schools, which are not completely part of UAM's administrative structure, but issue UAM-recognised titles and are under UAM's academic regulations.

Faculties and superior schools:

Associate schools are:
  • "La Paz" School of Nursing
    Nursing
    Nursing is a healthcare profession focused on the care of individuals, families, and communities so they may attain, maintain, or recover optimal health and quality of life from conception to death....

  • Red Cross School of Nursing
  • Community of Madrid School of Nursing
  • "Puerta de Hierro" School of Nursing
  • "Jimenez Diaz" Foundation School of Nursing
  • ONCE
    ONCE
    ONCE , or Organización Nacional de Ciegos Españoles , is a Spanish foundation founded on December 13, 1938 to raise funds to provide services for the blind and people with serious visual impairment....

     School of physiotherapy
    Physical therapy
    Physical therapy , often abbreviated PT, is a health care profession. Physical therapy is concerned with identifying and maximizing quality of life and movement potential within the spheres of promotion, prevention, diagnosis, treatment/intervention,and rehabilitation...

  • LaSalle
    LaSalle
    The LaSalle was an automobile product of General Motors Corporation and sold as a companion marque of Cadillac from 1927 to 1940. The two were linked by similarly themed names, both being named for French explorers — Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac and René-Robert...

     Institute of Higher Education

Administrative Organisation

UAM administration is established according to the 2001's Organic Law of Universities (LOU). The Senior Academic and Administrative Officer of the Autonomous University of Madrid is the rector, who must be, by law, a chair professor serving in the university, elected every four years with a two-term limit by universal graded suffrage. The current rector is Prof. José Maria Sanz, chair of applied physics
Applied physics
Applied physics is a general term for physics which is intended for a particular technological or practical use.It is usually considered as a bridge or a connection between "pure" physics and engineering....

, who substituted his predecessor Angel Gabilondo in 2009, when Gabilondo became Minister of Education. To aid the rector in the management of the university, he or she appoints an indefinite number of vice-rectors leading different administrative departments of the university (such as Student affairs or Graduate academic affairs), and a secretary general coordinating the rector's team and overseeing the legal procedures of the university, as well as university protocol. The rector, in accordance with the university's social board, also designates the manager as part of his team, which oversees the university's economic and administrative activity.

The grades assigned to each sector for rectoral elections in UAM according to its charter are:
  • Full professors: 51% of the final votes
  • Students: 28% of the final votes
  • Other professors: 9%
  • Non-teaching personnel: 9%
  • Teaching and research personnel in training: 3%.


UAM's collective government bodies are the University Assembly, The Board of Governors, and The Social Board.

The University Assembly is made out of 153 full professors, 84 students, 27 hired, associate, or emeritus professors, 27 members of the non-teaching personnel, 9 research or teaching trainees, the rector, the secretary general, and the manager. It is the highest representative body of the university. It elaborates the university's general guidelines, changes or passes a new university charter, elects twenty members of the Board of Governors, and elects the University Ombudsman
Ombudsman
An ombudsman is a person who acts as a trusted intermediary between an organization and some internal or external constituency while representing not only but mostly the broad scope of constituent interests...

.

The Board Of Governors is the ordinary governmental body of the university. It controls and passes regulations on most of the university's academic, personnel, and administrative issues. It is composed of the rector, the secretary general, the manager, 20 members elected by the assembly according to its composition, all the deans and the head of the polytechnic school, 7 heads of department, a head of research institute, 15 members designated by the rector and three members of the Social Board.

The Social Board is the body responsible for the relations between university and society. Its members are designated by trade unions, the municipality of Madrid, employers unions, companies related to the university, the Madrid Assembly and the Board of Governors of the university. It also oversees the universities financial activities and passes the university budget. Its current chairman is Manuel Pizarro.

Faculties are headed by a dean, whilst the responsible of the polytechnic school is called head. They are elected in the same way as the rector and have also a limit of two four-year terms. They are aided by vice-deans or deputy heads. They are overseen by a faculty or school board. Departments are led by the head of department and overseen by the department council.

Undergraduate

UAM offers Spanish undergraduates fully recognised degrees. There are the Diplomatura and Ingenierías Técnicas (technical engineering), which are three year studies equivalent to an Associate Degree. Licenciaturas and Ingenierías Superiores are four to five years studies equivalent to a Bachelor's Degree. Along with that, UAM offers second level licenciaturas, which allow people who have a diplomatura to obtain a licenciatura by taking courses. In other case, they must have at least the first two or three years of a licenciatura and combined degree, which are very popular among Spanish students.

Graduate

UAM offers 94 PhD
PHD
PHD may refer to:*Ph.D., a doctorate of philosophy*Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*PHD finger, a protein sequence*PHD Mountain Software, an outdoor clothing and equipment company*PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...

 programs in all of the universities programs. It also offers 72 unrecognised Masters Degrees, and with the implementation of the Bologna Process
Bologna process
The purpose of the Bologna Process is the creation of the European Higher Education Area by making academic degree standards and quality assurance standards more comparable and compatible throughout Europe, in particular under the Lisbon Recognition Convention...

 16 recognised Master degrees for the academic year of 2006/2007

Student life

Societies and compromise

The Autonomous University of Madrid has an active student body, having organised one of the Spain's most important events against the dictatorship in 1976 called the Iberian Peoples Festival. It had an attendance of over 70,000. UAM has over a hundred student societies covering activities ranging from student unionism
Students' union
A students' union, student government, student senate, students' association, guild of students or government of student body is a student organization present in many colleges and universities, and has started appearing in some high schools...

 to theatre and music. The oldest active association in UAM is the Law Students Association (AED in Spanish), a left-leaning student union established in 1981. UAM does not have a formal student government body, as it has been rejected by students in several occasions, and instead students elect different student unions (usually with difference on political issues) to the different university government bodies.

In recent years, UAM students have organised massively to protest against terrorism, after the assassination of Prof. Francisco Tomas y Valiente by ETA
ETA
ETA , an acronym for Euskadi Ta Askatasuna is an armed Basque nationalist and separatist organization. The group was founded in 1959 and has since evolved from a group promoting traditional Basque culture to a paramilitary group with the goal of gaining independence for the Greater Basque Country...

 in 1995, against the Organic Law of Universities in 2001, to clean Spain's northern coast after the Prestige oil spill
Prestige oil spill
The Prestige oil spill was an oil spill off the coast of Galicia caused by the sinking of an oil tanker in 2002. The spill polluted thousands of kilometers of coastline and more than one thousand beaches on the Spanish, French and Portuguese coast, as well as causing great harm to the local fishing...

 in 2002, against the War in Iraq in 2003, to assist to the II European Social Forum
European Social Forum
The European Social Forum is a recurring conference held by members of the alter-globalization movement . In the first few years after it started in 2002 the conference was held every year, but later it became biannual due to difficulties with finding host countries...

 also in 2003, and in solidarity with the victims of the 11th March 2004 Madrid train bombings
11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings
The Madrid train bombings consisted of a series of coordinated bombings against the Cercanías system of Madrid, Spain on the morning of 11 March 2004 , killing 191 people and wounding 1,800...

.

Festivals and parties

UAM is also a festive campus, holding several festivals during spring. The most important one was the Spring festival held until 1993, but halted due to massification. Since then minor festivals have been held by student associations. These festivals usually consist of rock concerts by amateur rock bands (many of which have members that are UAM) from midday until dusk. According to university regulations, festival profits have to be destined to charities or to the organisation of cultural events. In 2005, due to massification of the festivals that led to several problems, university officials suspended further festivals until a more convenient place for their celebration would be found. Thus, no festivals were held in 2006.

Saint Canute

In the early 1980s, a group of students noticed the day of Saint Canute
Canute IV of Denmark
Canute IV, later known as Canute the Holy or Canute the Saint , was King of Denmark from 1080 until 1086. Canute was an ambitious king who sought to strengthen the Danish monarchy, devotedly supported the Roman Catholic Church, and had designs on the English throne. Slain by rebels in 1086, he was...

 in the month of January of the Catholic Calendar, whose translation in Spanish (canuto) is also one of the various names used for a spliff. Thus, they decided to celebrate an anti-prohibitionist festival. Throughout the years, the festival consisted of anti-prohibitionist lectures, film projections, and a central activity consisting of a procession of Saint Canute mocking Spanish Holy Week imagery that was held the third Thursday of June. Over the last years, due to the proximity of the autumn-winter semester exams, most of the activities were abandoned, leaving over a massive gathering. At the same time more people, especially from outside the university, were attending. This led to university authorities having to find a way to halt the festival.

Politics

  • Diego López Garrido
    Diego López Garrido
    Diego López Garrido is a Spanish politician, university professor and Secretary of State for the European Union in the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, He was also Minister of the Spanish government.-Biography:...

    , Socialist parliamentary spokesman at the 8th legislature, PhD Law in 1981
  • Gaspar Llamazares
    Gaspar Llamazares
    Gaspar Llamazares Trigo is a Spanish politician. He was the leader of the leftist coalition Izquierda Unida from 2001 to 2008, in the post of General Coordinator. He is a member of Communist Party of Spain ....

    , Former United Left Party
    United Left (Spain)
    The United Left is a political coalition that was organized in 1986 bringing together several political organisations opposed to Spain joining NATO. It was formed by a number of groups of leftists, greens, left-wing socialists and republicans, but was dominated by the Communist Party of Spain...

     leader, Medicine (graduated at Oviedo University)
  • Beatriz Corredor
    Beatriz Corredor
    Beatriz Corredor is a Spanish lawyer and politician, who served as Minister of Housing from April, 14 2008 to October 20 2010.-References:...

    , Former Minister of Housing, Law in 1981
  • Cristina Garmendia
    Cristina Garmendia
    Dr. Cristina Garmendia y Mendizábal is a Spanish businesswoman and politician, who is currently serving as Minister of Science and Innovation....

    , Minister of Innovation and Science, PhD Biology in 1985
  • Ángel Gabilondo, Minister of Education and Universities, Philosophy in 1980 (he also obtained his PhD taught at UAM and was rector of the university from 2002 to 2008)
  • Trinidad Jiménez
    Trinidad Jiménez
    Trinidad Jiménez García-Herrera is a Spanish Socialist Workers' Party politician and is currently Spain's Foreign Affairs Minister....

    , Minister of Foreign Affairs, Law
  • Cristobal Montoro
    Cristóbal Montoro Romero
    Cristobal Montoro Romero is a Spanish politician andMember of the European Parliament with the People's Party,part of the European People's Party and sits onthe European Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs...

    , Former Minister of Finance, Economics 1973 (Also obtained his PhD and Taught at UAM)

Noted Faculty and Researchers

  • Severo Ochoa
    Severo Ochoa
    Severo Ochoa de Albornoz was a Spanish-American doctor and biochemist, and joint winner of the 1959 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Arthur Kornberg.-Early life:...

    , Medicine Nobel laureate
  • Margarita Salas
    Margarita Salas
    Margarita Salas Falgueras, 1st Marquise of Canero , commonly known as Margarita Salas, is a well-known Spanish scientist in the fields of Biochemistry, and Molecular genetics....

    , neurobiologist and member of the Royal Spanish Academy
  • Francisco Tomas Y Valiente, chief justice of the Constitutional Court of Spain
    Constitutional Court of Spain
    thumb|300px|The [[Domenico Scarlatti]] Building located in [[Madrid]], seat of the Constitutional Court of Justice of Spain.The Constitutional Court of Spain is the highest judicial body with the power to determine the constitutionality of acts and statutes of the Spanish Government. It is...

     (1986-1992), murdered by ETA
  • Pedro Cruz Villalón, chief justice of the Spanish Constitutional Court (1998-2001)
  • Enrique Tierno Galvan, Mayor of Madrid
    Mayor of Madrid
    The Mayor of Madrid is an elected politician who, along with Madrid City Council, is accountable for the strategic government of Madrid....

     (1986-1989)
  • Aurelio Menéndez Menendez, former justice of the Spanish Constitutional Court
  • Javier Solana
    Javier Solana
    Francisco Javier Solana de Madariaga, KOGF is a Spanish physicist and Socialist politician. After serving in the Spanish government under Felipe González and Secretary General of NATO , he was appointed the European Union's High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy, Secretary...

    , EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy
  • Nicolas Cabrera
    Nicolás Cabrera
    Nicolás Cabrera , was a Spanish physicist who did important work on the theories of crystal growth and the oxidisation of metals. He was the son of another famous Spanish physicist Blas Cabrera and the father of American Physicist Blas Cabrera. He spent many years in exile during the dictatorship...

    , physicist
  • Federico Mayor Zaragoza, former UNESCO director general

External links

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