Havana, University of

the largest higher educational institution in Cuba. The University of Havana was founded in 1728 by an edict of Pope Innocent XIII as the Royal Catholic University of Saint Jerome. In 1842 it was reorganized and renamed the Royal University of the Humanities. In 1863 it was reorganized again, and in 1871 it was closed. A complex of university buildings was built in 1883, and the university was opened again and its rector appointed head of all Cuban educational institutions. By the end of the War of Independence in 1898, the university had five faculties: natural sciences, pharmacy, medicine, philosophy and literature, and law. Later, departments of civil engineering, electrical engineering, agricultural machinery construction, and architecture were added. From 1930 to 1933 the university was closed as a result of political unrest. In 1943 the university charter was changed, and the university now had faculties of philosophy and literature, agriculture (with special concentration on sugarcane production), engineering, architecture, medicine, pharmacy, odontology, veterinary medicine, natural sciences, pedagogy, and state law and commerce. After the triumph of the people’s revolution in Cuba in 1959, the University of Havana was reorganized. In the academic year 1969-70 it included the faculties of humanities, natural sciences, technology, agronomy, medicine, and economics, as well as the A. J. Mella Faculty for Workers and Peasants and an institute of education. In the 1969-70 academic year there were about 24,000 students and more than 3,000 teachers at the University of Havana.