Austral University of Chile facts for kids

Entrance to Austral University of Chile's botanical garden

The Austral University of Chile (also known as UACh) is a big university in Chile. Its main campus is in Valdivia, but it also has smaller campuses in Puerto Montt and Coyhaique. It was started on September 7, 1954. It's one of the first eight traditional universities in Chile and gets a lot of support from the government.

Discovering the Austral University of Chile

How It All Began

The idea for the Austral University of Chile started in 1942. A group called the Sociedad de Amigos del Arte (Society of Friends of Art) in Valdivia wanted to create a university there.

A senator from Valdivia, Carlos Acharán Pérez de Arce, helped make this dream come true in the 1950s. On February 16, 1954, people who supported the university project chose Eduardo Morales Miranda to lead the effort. The university was built with help from donations from many people and businesses.

The university officially opened on September 7, 1954. The president of Chile, Carlos Ibáñez del Campo, celebrated its opening on March 12, 1955. Important people from other universities and even ambassadors from different countries attended the event.

The first subjects students could study were fine arts, farming (agronomy), forestry engineering, and veterinary medicine. Each of these had its own special department. In 1968, the university became independent. This meant it could decide its own study plans and programs without needing approval from the University of Chile.

Growing and Changing

Picture of one of the "A"-houses of Universidad Austral near Valdivia River in Isla Teja Campus

In the 1980s, the Austral University of Chile grew even bigger. It took over a local college called Instituto Profesional de Valdivia. This helped the university offer more types of degrees, especially in engineering. This new part of the university is now called Campus Miraflores.

In 1993, the university started the Valdivia International Film Festival. This festival celebrates movies and has become one of the most important film festivals in Chile. It began to celebrate 30 years of the university's own movie club.

Recent Times

In 2000, a science center called Centro de Estudios Científicos (CECS) came to Valdivia. This made Valdivia an even more important place for science research. CECS studies things like how our bodies work at a tiny level, physics, and climate change. The university saw this as a good thing because CECS's research was different from theirs, so they weren't competing.

In 2007, a building on the university's Isla Teja Campus caught fire. This building, called Emilio Pugín, was home to many science labs and equipment. A lot of chemicals and scientific tools were lost. The fire caused a lot of smoke, and about 10,000 people had to leave their homes on Isla Teja for safety. Firefighters from nearby cities came to help put out the fire. The damage cost about 10 million US dollars, but the Chilean government helped pay for the repairs. The building was rebuilt and reopened.

In 2008, students at the university went on strike because they felt their requests to the university leaders were not taken seriously enough. The strike ended when the university leaders agreed to some of the students' demands.

University Campuses

The main campus of the Austral University of Chile is called Isla Teja Campus. It covers the whole northwest part of Isla Teja in Valdivia. This campus is where the university's main offices are, along with its movie club, a beautiful botanical garden, and most of its departments.

The botanical garden is a great place to relax and study. It has about 950 different types of plants spread across 12 hectares. Many of these plants are from the Valdivian temperate rain forest, but there are also plants from other parts of the world. The Cau-Cau River flows through the garden, allowing for a special section of wetland plants.

The engineering department is located at Campus Miraflores. This campus is along the Valdivia River, south of Valdivia's main square. There's also a third campus in Puerto Montt where students can study things like business, speech therapy, and aquaculture (raising fish and other water animals).

The university also owns other properties. These include Parque Arboretum on northern Isla Teja, a field station called Calfuco near the coast, and the San Pablo de Tregua forests in the mountains. A smaller campus called Campus Patagonia is in Coyhaique.

Amazing Research at UACh

Faculty of UACh in the forests of San Pablo de Tregua

The Austral University of Chile is one of the top universities in Chile for scientific research. It has been ranked very highly for its research quality. Scientists at UACh have made important discoveries in many areas:

• Archaeology: University scientists, like Tom Dillehay, helped dig up Monte Verde. This is one of the oldest places where humans lived in the Americas! They also studied Chan-Chan, another important ancient site.
• Dairy Science: The university has a special center for milk technology. This center has helped the Los Ríos Region produce more milk than other areas.
• Tree Ring Studies (Dendrochronology): Scientists at UACh have created the longest tree ring timeline in the Southern Hemisphere, going back over 5,600 years! They use tree rings to learn about past temperatures and how global warming is affecting trees today.
• Mapudungun Language: UACh is a key place for studying and teaching the Mapudungun language, which is spoken by the Mapuche people. Professor María Catrileo Chiguailaf is famous for her work on this language. She is one of the few Mapuche people who knows Spanish, English, and Mapudungun very well.
• Palaeontology: Scientists at UACh, including Mario Pino Quivira, have helped dig up ancient animal fossils in Southern Chile. They found remains of a huge, elephant-like animal called a Gomphotherium in Osorno.
• Virology: Researchers from the university have studied Hantavirus, a virus that can spread from rodents to humans. They found important information about how the virus works and helped lower the number of deaths from Hantavirus in the Los Ríos Region.

Scientific Journals

The university publishes several science journals. Three of them, Bosque, Archivos de Medicina Veterinaria, and Estudios Filológicos, are very well-known and are included in a major science database.

BOSQUE is published by the Forestry Science department. It covers topics like managing forests, wood science, and protecting natural resources. It publishes articles in both Spanish and English.

The university also publishes Documentos Lingüísticos y Literarios (DLL). This journal has articles about literature, language, and communication. It's one of the few journals that includes original literature and language articles in the native Mapudungun language.

University Museums

The Austral University of Chile has several museums in Valdivia and southern Chile. These museums are managed by its museology department:

• UACh's Contemporary Art Museum: This museum shows modern art.
• Philippi Museum: This museum tells the story of how southern Chile was explored and settled in the 1800s.
• Maurice van de Maele Museum: This museum focuses on history and anthropology.

The museums have collections of old items from indigenous people, including pottery, Mapuche silverwork, and textiles. There are also items from the early human settlement at Monte Verde. Other collections include clothes and toys from the 1800s, and a large collection of old photographs going back to 1850.

University Rankings

Centro de Educación continua building in downtown Valdivia

The Austral University of Chile is highly respected. In a 2011 ranking of universities in Latin America, it was ranked 30th overall. Among Chilean universities, it was 5th, and it was the second-highest ranked university outside of Santiago.

In a 2006 ranking by El Mercurio newspaper, UACh received the best score for "teaching quality" among all Chilean universities. It was also ranked second for research quality, just after the University of Chile. Overall, it was the third-best university in Chile. Since the top two universities are in Santiago, UACh was the highest-ranked university outside of the capital city.

In a 2009 ranking by AméricaEconomía magazine, UACh was ranked 7th overall in Chile. For specific study programs, nursing was ranked 3rd, medicine and agronomy were 4th, and law was 7th.

In 2006, UACh medical students scored the second-highest marks in Chile on the National Medicine Exam.

See also

In Spanish: Universidad Austral de Chile para niños