University of Puerto Rico

uni­ver­si­dad-de-puer­to-rico

University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras CampusThe Uni­ver­si­ty of Puer­to Rico, Río Piedras Cam­pus, was estab­lished in 1903.  It is the main cam­pus of a gov­ern­ment-owned sys­tem com­prised of 11 cam­pus­es through­out the Island.

For many years the Río Piedras cam­pus includ­ed only the build­ings sur­round­ing the square that sits direct­ly behind the bell tow­er.   You can tell because the archi­tec­ture of those orig­i­nal struc­tures is a lot more elab­o­rat­ed and dif­fer­ent.  But today the Río Piedras cam­pus is run­ning out of land, main­ly because of poor plan­ning.  Most of the build­ings are just a few sto­ries high.  This uncon­trolled sprawl­ing has left the cam­pus with hard­ly any green areas.

Many years ago I used to see tourist bus­es on the cam­pus.  But nowa­days they are few and far between.  Even so, the place is beau­ti­ful, clean and more or less secure.  So if you find your­self in the Río Piedras area dri­ve by and take a look.

Like many oth­er gov­ern­ment-run insti­tu­tions on the Island the Uni­ver­si­ty of Puer­to Rico’s once pris­tine image has been tar­nished by cor­rup­tion, polit­i­cal strife, finan­cial trou­bles and dimin­ish­ing edu­ca­tion­al stan­dards. Today our beloved “yupi” (pro­nounced [you pe]) (like we locals love to call it) is strug­gling to dig itself out of finan­cial and ped­a­gog­i­cal ruin.

But hey, it’s still our “alma mat­ter” and we love it!!!

Orlando Mergal buys all his photo equipment at B&H

Dis­clo­sure of Mate­r­i­al Con­nec­tion: Some of the links in this post are “affil­i­ate links.” This means that if you click on a link and pur­chase an item, I will receive an affil­i­ate com­mis­sion. Regard­less, I only rec­om­mend prod­ucts or ser­vices that I use per­son­al­ly and believe will add val­ue to my read­ers. I am dis­clos­ing this in accor­dance with the Fed­er­al Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Con­cern­ing the Use of Endorse­ments and Tes­ti­mo­ni­als in Advertising.”

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