Austral University of Chile

In 1942, the Sociedad de Amigos del Arte (Society of friends of art) was formed in the city of Valdivia. Aside from promoting culture, one of the society's main goals was to establish a university in the city. The idea of creating a university was presented to the national congress in the 1950s by the senator for Valdivia, Carlos Acharán Pérez de Arce, who later succeeded in consolidating the project. In a meeting held on 16 February 1954 supporters of installing a university created a directory and proclaimed Eduardo Morales Miranda as president of it. The initial founding depended on donations from private persons including some industrial businessmen. After have been founded by decree on 7 September 1954 the university was inaugurated on 12 March 1955 by president Carlos Ibáñez del Campo. The inauguration was also attended by the rectors of the University of Chile and the States Technical University as well as the ambassadors of Venezuela and Argentina and representatives of the Netherlands, Germany and the United States.

The first degree programmes to be taught at the university were fine arts, agronomy, forestry engineering and veterinary medicine, each of which had also its own faculty.[1]

On June 3 of 1968 UACh was granted autonomy from the University of Chile as law 16.848 was enacted. The autonomy did that UACh became allowed to decide its own plans and study programs and put the university out of the tutelage of the University of Chile.

Picture of one of the "A"-houses of Universidad Austral near Valdivia River in Isla Teja Campus

During the military regime's privatization of higher education in the 1980s UACh incorporated the successor regional see of Universidad Técnica del Estado, the Instituto Profesional de Valdivia. By doing this, UACh prevented an offshoot university from being created there as it happened around the country with regional sees of major universities. With the incorporation of Instituto Profesional de Valdivia, that corresponds to present day 'Campus Miraflores, UACh started to grant bachelor degrees in engineering and got its Engineering Faculty.

In 1993 the university held the Valdivia International Film Festival for the first time to celebrate the 30th anniversary of its cinema Cine Club which has since then developed to one of the most important film festivals in Chile.

With the arrival of Centro de Estudios Científicos (CECS) to Valdivia in 2000 the city was further outlined as a research center, as CECS brought expertise on biophysics, molecular physiology, theoretical physics, glaciology and climate change to the city. The arrival of CECS was seen as positive by UACh's administration since CECS research do not overlap UACh's main research areas and, as a scientific research corporation, do not compete in student enrollment. However, in 2007 UACh and CECS got involved in a controversy when the Regional Council of Los Lagos Region granted regional funds that had been put into tender to CECS without attending to the meeting where UACh's and University of Los Lagos joint project was presented. Deputy Gabriel Ascencio (DC) accused Claudio Bunster, director of CECS, of using his personal influence among politicians and the Council of Innovation for Competitiveness (of which he is member of) to gain more resources.[2]

On Monday 3 December 2007 the Emilio Pugín building of the Faculty of Sciences caught fire. The building, located on Teja island Campus housed considerable amounts of chemicals and scientific equipment which could not be saved. Several research projects had to be halted or aborted due to loss of equipment, samples and data. Due to the spreading of toxic smoke the police had to evacuate a total of 10,000 people from Isla Teja. Firefighting companies from the neighboring cities of Osorno, La Unión and Paillaco had to come to assist to control and extinguish the fire. The building hosted the institutes of chemistry, physics, zoology, microbiology and botanics, including some laboratories. The cost of the damage was estimated at 5000 million Chilean pesos (about 10 million US dollars).[3] Finally, 22% of the damage were not covered by the according insurances, but directly financed by the Chilean government.[4]

Edificio Nahmias (left) and adjacent Serpentina (right) in Uach's Isla Teja campus

On May 13 of 2008 the student federation of UACh decided to go on strike since they considered that a request list sent to the university administration was answered in too loose terms.[5] The strike and occupation of the university by students ended in late June when the rector Victor Cubillos and the directory ceded on several points but was however still heavily criticized both from students and from sectors of the faculty where they considered that he had ceded too much to students. In April 2010 the reconstruction of the Emilio Pugin building of the Sciencie Faculty, started the competitive bidding. And in this year it would start the reconstruction. Cubillos won the 2010 election with 229 votes, 13 less than the prior election. the second term ended in June 2014.

The university publishes several scientific journals three of them, Bosque, Archivos de Medicina Veterinaria and Estudios Filológicos are part of ISI's bibliographic database. BOSQUE is published by the Faculty of Forest Science. BOSQUE's first number was published in 1975 and was yearly issued until 1985. From 1985 to 2003 it was issued twice a year and from 2003 on thrice a year. The topics covered in BOSQUE are management and production of forestry resources, wood science and technology, silviculture, forestry ecology, natural resources conservation, and rural development associated with forest ecosystems. Contributions are articles, notes and opinions, both in Spanish and English. BOSQUE became part of ISI's bibliographic database in 2009.[17]

In matters of literature, communication science and linguistics the university has published the journal Documentos Lingüísticos y Literarios (DLL) since 1977. Documentos Lingüísticos y Literarios has two sections, one dedicated to articles and comments on literature, linguistics and communication science and another were original literary pieces are published. DLL is one of the few journals containing native Mapudungun literature and linguistic articles.