Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo

The council's reaction was immediate: in open contempt, by legal means it undertook an energetic defense that involved the civil and ecclesiastical authorities of New Spain in a confrontation that would last until the year 1610, when Pope Paul V he reversed his predecessor's order.

However, during that time the Colegio de San Nicolás regularly maintained its activities, without incorporating transcendental changes in its classrooms, where essentials were taught to attend the religious services of the Spanish and evangelize the indigenous. Concerned as the Valladolid society was in consolidating itself, it was little interested in its instructional institutions reaching the development of the European ones. The affirmation of the colonial project must have been necessary for the Creoles to feel the need to match their knowledge to that which was in vogue in the Spanish cloisters.

Viceroyalty

Consequently, at the end of the 17th century, the Colegio de San Nicolás undertook a profound reform of its regulations and constitutions, which served as the basis for modifying the study plan of the beginning of the 18th century, in which, among other disciplines, they included the subjects of Philosophy, Scholastic Theology and Moral Theology.

By royal decree of November 23, 1797, San Nicolás was granted the privilege of incorporating the chairs of Civil Law and Canon Law into his teaching.

It can be affirmed that at the beginning of the 19th century the campus was going through the most solid stage of its existence. Everything seemed to indicate that in the New Spain intellectual world he was embarking on an ascending career. However, the consequences of the independence movement, led by a select group of Nicolaita teachers and students, including Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, José María Morelos, José Sixto Verduzco, José María Izazaga and Ignacio López Rayón, led the government to Viceregal decided to close it.

Independent Mexico

Once Mexican independence was achieved, the main concern of the new government focused on national reorganization based on a new project in which, for the first time on this soil, within the priority items, public education was considered. In this way, the actions aimed at the reopening of the campus began during the decade of the 1820s. After a long and painful negotiation between the Church and the State, on October 21, 1845, the ecclesiastical chapter ceded the patronage of the campus to the Michoacán Subdirectorate Board of Studies.

Provided with this legal basis, on January 17, 1847, Governor Melchor Ocampo proceeded to reopen it, under the name of Primitivo y Nacional Colegio de San Nicolás de Hidalgo. This marked the beginning of a new stage in the existence of the institution.

In the second half of the 19th century, chemistry, physics, cosmography, mathematics and biology burst into Nicolaitan classrooms. Laboratories and libraries were enriched by important acquisitions made by the Michoacan government in European countries, while their heritage increased through donations conferred by the state executive from secularized assets to Michoacan temples and convents. The winds of renewal that spread throughout the state during those years were carriers of solid foundations for the creation of a university in Michoacán.

This project was consolidated with the triumph of the Mexican Revolution when, a few days after the Michoacán government took office, the engineer Pascual Ortiz Rubio adopted the initiative, and on October 15, 1917, he managed to establish, with the characteristic of autonomy, the Michoacan University of San Nicolás de Hidalgo, made up of the College of San Nicolás de Hidalgo, the schools of Arts and Crafts, Industrial and Commercial for young ladies, Superior of Commerce and Administration, Normal for teachers, Medicine and Jurisprudence, in addition to the Public Library, the Michoacan Museum, the Museum of Independence and the State Meteorological Observatory.

As members of the first University Council, the directors of each campus were appointed; as rector, the engineer Agustín Aragón, who a few days later, for not accepting the constitutional protest to which the members of Congress forced him, resigned from his position. Faced with this setback, the nascent institution was adrift, until, in 1918, Dr. Alberto Oviedo Mota was appointed as the person in charge of initiating university activities.

The following year, Congress appointed Professor José Jara Peregrina as rector, who also promoted actions aimed at consolidating the university. Of these, the Constitutive Law and the creation of the first budget item stand out, which allowed it to correct the pressing needs. In 1920, according to the opinion of Governor Francisco J. Múgica, the university continued "as a group of schools that were independent of each other."

To remedy this abnormality, General Múgica modified the Constitutive Law and appointed new authorities. Ignacio Chávez, a young doctor from Michoacán recently graduated from the National University School of Medicine, occupied the rectory.

During his administration, profound academic and administrative reforms were undertaken, which included modifications to the study plans and programs of all schools. Medicine was the most favored, as the new rector incorporated a host of Michoacán doctors into his teaching staff: his colleagues Salvador González Herrejón, Adolfo Arreguín Vidales and Manuel Martínez Báez, in addition to Ignacio Chávez himself, who promoted a momentous turn to medical teaching in Michoacán.

Annually, the university awards the Father of the Nation Award to the students with the best average.