Autonomous University of Nayarit

The university was founded in 1969 by Dr. Julian Gascon Mercado, then governor of the state of Nayarit, through the City Patronage of Culture “Amado Nervo” and decree No. 5162. The founding of the university was made possible through a series of decrees dating back to 1925 by governors Felipe C. Rios and Ricardo Velarde which established a School of Jurisprudence and a Senior High School. By 1955, the School of Jurisprudence was combined with the Institute of the State, founded in 1930, to form the first antecedent to the University of Nayarit. The school continued to expand through the addition of the Normal School in 1958 and the School of Nursing in 1959. A major step toward foundation was made when Francisco Garcia Montero, then governor of Nayarit, issued decree No. 4466 containing the “fundamental laws” of the Institute of Letters and Sciences legally conferring the school a decentralized public body whose duties include teaching at a preparatory and professional level and promoting social and scientific research. After becoming classified as a decentralized public body, Julian Gascon Mercado, created the City Patronage of Culture “Amado Nervo” and passed decree No. 5162 that formally transformed the loosely associated schools into the University of Nayarit. The university sought to achieve autonomous status after a series of reforms to the universities “fundamental laws” by Roberto Gomez Reyes in 1975, granting the university self governance. These reforms were met with resistance, and the university did not achieve autonomous status until 1985.