Polytechnic José Antonio Echeverría
Universidad Tecnológica de la Habana José Antonio Echeverría (CUJAE) | |
Type | Public |
---|---|
Established | 1964 |
Rector | Alicia Alonso Becerra |
Administrative staff | 770 |
Students | 8,100 |
Location | Havana, Cuba |
Website | cujae.edu.cu |
The "Havana University of Technologies José Antonio Echeverría" (Spanish: Universidad Tecnológica de la Habana José Antonio Echeverría), originaly named "José Antonio Echeverría Higher Polytechnic Institute" (Spanish: Instituto Superior Politécnico José Antonio Echeverría, Cujae) is an undergraduate, post-graduate and doctoral research university located in Marianao, Havana, Cuba. It is still known as CUJAE (Spanish: Ciudad Universitaria José Antonio Echeverría), due to the popularity and all iconografies based on that short name.
History
CUJAE was founded in 1964 as a spin-off from the Faculty of Technology of the University of Havana. Today, it is the most respected technical university in Cuba organized in 7 Faculties and very estimated in other countries as well. The Campus is very interesting due to its brutalist architecture where the tropical foliage interacts with the buildings in a pleasant manner.
Names and confusion
It should be differentiated between ISPJAE and CUJAE. The last one stands for University Campus José Antonio Echeverría (Spanish: Ciudad Universitaria José Antonio Echeverría). ISPJAE was the official name until early 2016, which included the academic institution, i.e. the classrooms, laboratories, etc. while CUJAE included the ISPJAE plus the rest of the campus, i.e. students’ accommodation, restaurants, etc. However, CUJAE was normally used due to its easier catchy pronunciation instead of ISPJAE. The first web site the University had was ispjae.cu and later ispjae.edu.cu to finally use the actual address cujae.edu.cu. Sometimes, CUJAE is written as Havana Polytechnic University in some English literature, such as journals, etc. This might be one of the motives for it to have been officialy renamed in 2016 to Universidad Tecnológica de la Habana José Antonio Echeverría, even when the cuban marthir after whom CUJAE is named is unknown to the outside world.
International aid
CUJAE received support from UNESCO, UK (through the British Council), Soviet Union, Canada and other countries during the 1960s, 70s and early 80s by means of guest lecturers, post-graduated training (Master, PhD, etc.) to its academic staff abroad, etc. Most of this aid came to an abrupt end when a military department was introduced in the University for the solely purpose to train the students.
After the early 1990s
The technical university reduced its number of students to half, after the collapse of the soviets’ subventions in the early 1990s.
Organization
These are the 9(*) faculties in which the university is divided into :
- Faculty of Architecture
- Faculty of Civil Engineering
- Faculty of Electrical Engineering
- Faculty of Industrial Engineering
- Faculty of Mechanical Engineering
- Faculty of Chemical Engineering
- Faculty of Computer Engineering
- Faculty of Telecommunications Engineering
- Faculty of Engineering in Telecommunications
- Faculty of Faculty of Automation and Biomedical Engineering
(Faculty of Engineering in Telecommunications and Faculty of Faculty of Automation and Biomedical Engineering were created in 2016. The careers that can be studied in these, previously belonged to Faculty of Electrical Engineering)
Notable alumni
- José Angel Navarro (graduated engineer) Concert Guitarist
- Angel García "Virulo" (graduated architect) Comedian
- Felipe Perez Roque (excanciller)