Simón Bolívar University

Founding (1967–1970)

In May 1967, the Venezuelan government created a commission—composed of Luis Manuel Peñalver, Luis Carbonell, Mercedes Fermín, Miguel Ángel Pérez, and Héctor Isava—to study the feasibility of a new university oriented towards the country's scientific and technological development. On 18 July 1967, President Raúl Leoni signed Decree No. 878 establishing the institution as an Instituto Experimental de Educación Superior under the name Universidad de Caracas.

The name proved contentious because the Central University of Venezuela had originally been known by the same name. After the National Academy of History, the Bolivarian Society of Venezuela, and other institutions requested that the new university be named after Simón Bolívar, President Rafael Caldera issued a decree on 9 July 1969 renaming it the Universidad Experimental Simón Bolívar. Days later, Caldera appointed the philosopher Ernesto Mayz Vallenilla as founding rector, ratified Francisco Kerdel Vegas as academic vice-rector, and designated Federico Rivero Palacio as administrative vice-rector.

Academic activities began on 19 January 1970, when Caldera inaugurated the university on the grounds of the former Sartenejas ranch. The institution initially offered five undergraduate programmes: mathematics, chemistry, physics, electrical engineering, and chemical engineering.

Growth and expansion

In 1977, a second campus was opened in the Camurí Grande valley on the Caribbean coast (now Vargas state) to serve the Litoral Central region, initially focused on technical and associate-degree programmes. The university's programme offerings expanded over time to include architecture, urban planning, humanities, and social sciences at the undergraduate level, alongside a broad range of master's, doctoral, and specialisation programmes.

Autonomy

USB operated as an "experimental university" under the direct oversight of the national government until 18 July 1995, when President Caldera—in his second term—granted it full university autonomy by presidential decree.

Identity and symbols

The university logo was designed by Venezuelan graphic designer Gerd Leufert, inspired by a photographic reproduction of an electrical circuit. It consists of eight semicircular lines and a small rectangle at their centre, forming a structure resembling a rounded pyramid; the design is intended to represent a gateway symbolising the unity of various fields of knowledge and their projection into the future. Students colloquially call the logo "La Cebolla" ("the onion").

The Sartenejas campus features several notable works of public art. The Laberinto Cromovegetal (1995) is a circular garden designed by artist Carlos Cruz-Diez. The Estructura Hidrocinética (Hydro-Kinetic Sculpture) was designed in 1975 by architecture student Gabriel Martín Landrove, who won an institutional competition; construction was completed and the sculpture inaugurated on 5 July 1991. The campus also includes an Espejo Solar by Alejandro Otero and a statue of Simón Bolívar by the Peruvian sculptor Joaquín Roca Rey.