University of Bucharest

The University of Bucharest (Universitatea din București), in Romania, is a university founded in 1864 by decree of Prince Alexander John Cuza to convert the former Saint Sava Academy into the current University of Bucharest.

Presentation
The University of Bucharest is a very important and influential player within the community, within the sphere of higher education and research. It is part of a global intellectual collectivity activating towards protecting and reinforcing academic values, as well as towards promoting diversity and international collaboration. Being one of the most important institutions of higher education in Romania, it bears both the responsibility as well as the obligation to be a pioneer and a model. In its 145 years of existence, the University of Bucharest has gained solid national and international prestige, being the first Romanian academic institution in the top 600 universities in the world, having the position 501-600 according to the Quacquarelli Symonds top (known from The Times Higher Education Supplement). This is the highest position of a Romanian university, being succeeded by the Babeş-Bolyai University on the position 601+.

In 2010, the University of Bucharest has the position 501-550 in the top QS.

The University of Bucharest offers numerous study programs, for all cycles and forms of organized university training, as well as other numerous higher postgraduate programs, programs for professional re-conversion and enhancement. At the same time, it constantly works with 124 prestigious universities from forty different countries. All programs are accredited or authorized. The degrees granted by the University of Bucharest are recognized in most countries of the world. Many graduates from the University have become important personalities and can be encountered as professors and researchers in great universities around the world, or as members of the Romanian Academy or other academies in other countries, writers, politicians (members of Parliament, ministers, prime-ministers, and presidents), diplomats etc.

Its diplomas are recognized in many countries.

History
In 1694 Constantin Brâncoveanu, ruler of Wallachia, had founded the Princely Academy of Saint Sava in Bucharest with lectures delivered in Greek. In 1776, Alexander Ypsilantis, ruler of Wallachia, reformed the curriculum of the Saint Sava Academy, where courses of French, Italian and Latin were now taught. In 1859, the Faculty of Law was created. In 1857, Carol Davila created the National School of Medicine and Pharmacy. In 1857, the foundation stone of the University Palace in Bucharest was laid. On July 4/16 1864 Prince Alexander John Cuza created the University of Bucharest, bringing together the Faculties of Law, Sciences and Letters as one single body. In the following years, new faculties were created: 1884 – the Faculty of Theology; 1906 – the Institute of Geology; 1913 – the Academic Institute for Electrotechnology; 1921 – the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine; 1923 – the Faculty of Pharmacy, 1924 – the Mina Minovici Institute of Forensic Medicine.

In 1956, student leaders, mainly from this university, planned a peaceful protest against Romania's Communist regime but were forcibly prevented from carrying it out. (See Bucharest student movement of 1956)

Post-1989 history
The area around the old University building (the University Square), adjacent to the C. A. Rosetti, Roman, Kogălniceanu, and Union Squares was the scene of many riots, protests and clashes with the security forces during the Romanian Revolution of 1989. During the months of April-June 1990, the University of Bucharest was the centre of anti-communist protests.

In 1996, Emil Constantinescu, the then rector of the University of Bucharest, was elected President of Romania, after defeating Ion Iliescu in national presidential elections.

Mission
The University of Bucharest contributes through research and higher-education to the development and use of knowledge, at both national and international level. The University of Bucharest is a university with academic integrity and concern for critical thinking, a significant point of reference in society.

Position in National and International Ranking Lists
The Times Higher Education Supplement classification ranked the University of Bucharest among the first 600 in the world in the last three years. The classification, according to fields of interest, is as follows: Arts and Humanities – 277; Social Sciences – 330; Engineering and Information Technology (IT) – 336; Life Sciences and Biomedicine – 427; and Natural Sciences – 447.

Over the last five years, the University of Bucharest occupied the 1st or 2nd place in the national classification regarding quality indicators in the field of scientific research. Furthermore, UB ranked among the first three places, as far as the value of research contracts obtained, within national competitions was concerned.

Departments
The entire structure of the curricula has been made compatible with the Bologna process. This restructuring has involved a considerable effort of readjustment on the part of all of the University’s faculties. The University of Bucharest currently offers thirty-eight graduate domains with approximately 100 majors in all three forms of education: day courses, minimal-attendance, and distance learning. The educational offer at the level of masters’ studies is extremely diversified, the current offer amounting to 180 programmes. This has allowed for the continuous increase in requests for masters’ programmes, from graduates of other faculties, as well as requests for professional re-conversion. The University of Bucharest has the necessary human resources for developing masters’ programmes at an adequate level of quality.

The system of doctoral schools has been generalized in all faculties, ensuring a much more consistent training of the PhD students. The doctoral schools are currently financed by structural funds within three-year projects.

Currently the University has 18 departments (faculties), covering fields such as natural sciences, humanities, social sciences, and theology:
 * Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science
 * Faculty of Physics
 * Faculty of Chemistry
 * Faculty of Biology
 * Faculty of Law
 * Faculty of Geography
 * Faculty of Philosophy
 * Faculty of Geology and Geophysics
 * Faculty of Journalism and Communication Studies
 * Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures
 * Faculty of Political Science
 * Faculty of Letters
 * Faculty of Sociology and Social Work
 * Faculty of History
 * Faculty of Psychology And Educational Studies
 * Faculty of Baptist Theology
 * Faculty of Orthodox Theology
 * Faculty of Roman Catholic Theology and Social Work

The University also has a publishing house, different research institutes and research groups (such as the Institute for Political Research, the Institute for Mathematics, the Center for Byzantine Studies, the Vasile Pârvan Archeology Seminary, the Center for Nuclear Research, etc.), master and doctorate programmes, and a number of lifelong learning facilities and programmes. It has partnership agreements with over 50 universities in 40 countries, and participates in European programmes such as ERASMUS, Lingua, Naric, Leonardo da Vinci, UNICA, AMOS, TEMPUS, TEMPRA. It is an accredited Cisco Academy, has Microsoft curriculum, and is accredited by Red Hat for its academic programme.

The University of Bucharest has been awarded the 2000 National Academic Excellence Diploma, and the 2004 National Academic Excellence Medal. All of the degrees and diplomas awarded by the university are internationally recognised.

Continuing-Education (Lifelong Learning) Programs
A program for educating adults rapidly developed. The University of Bucharest was one of the first universities in the country that highlighted the importance of lifelong learning programmes. An important part in the rapid development of continuing-education (lifelong learning) programmes is played by the CREDIS department, which offered methodology and infrastructure for the functioning of those programmes, or at least supported certain faculties during the first years when those programmes came into force. By means of its continuing-education (lifelong learning) programmes, the University of Bucharest proves its capacity of adjustment to the dynamic requirements on the labor market, answering important social needs and ensuring increasingly bigger self-financing.

Laboratories
Due to the diversity of academic training domains, the teaching activity at the UB is carried out along nineteen distinct locations, where there are 286 laboratories for undergraduate studies, 187 laboratories for research and activities of master students, and the teaching process is carried out in amphitheatres with a total of 7900 seats, 1941 seats in lecture halls, and 4409 in seminar rooms. The average surface is above two sqm per student.

Practice Bases
For the activities and the practical training, the UB has research stations at Orşova, Drobeta Turnu-Severin, Măcin and Sf. Gheorge (for Geography), Brăila and Sinaia (for Biology), as well as the Dinosaurs’ Geopark in Haţeg County (for the use of Geology and Geography students).

The Dinosaurs’ Geopark of Haţeg County is a natural park with special features. It plays an active part in the economic development of its own territory and offers its inhabitants the opportunity to appreciate the values of territorial heritage.

The dwarf dinosaurs of the fabulous Haţeg County are the best-known dinosaurs in Europe. They remind people about one of the most fascinating episodes of our planet: the great disappearance of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period, 68 million years ago.

Furthermore, the teaching activity of the Faculty of Geography is carried out at the branches of the faculty from Călimăneşti, Măcin, Drobeta Turnu-Severin. The scientific research of the Faculty of Geography from the University of Bucharest covers a large spectrum of domains and issues, geography being exclusively a border science – that is a science of interdisciplinary connections.

Buildings
The University of Bucharest has a number of buildings throughout Bucharest, so in that respect it does not have a single campus. Its two main buildings are:
 * The Old Building, in the University Square (practically right in the center of the city), housing the Faculties of Mathematics and Computer Science, History, Chemistry, Geography, Letters and the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures.
 * The Kogălniceanu Building, near the Opera House, housing the Administrative section and the Faculty of Law.

Other faculties have their own buildings and research facilities, scattered throughout the city, such as:
 * The Departments of Germanic, Slavic and Oriental Languages and Literatures, on Pitar Moş street.
 * The Faculty of Physics, in the small town of Măgurele, situated 16 km south of Bucharest.
 * The Faculty of Political Science, on Sfântu Ştefan street.
 * The Faculty of Orthodox Theology, in the Unirii Square

This, mixed with the fact that student dormitories and other facilities are located in very different locations, prompted the University to print a yearly guide for freshmen.

Students' Campus
“GROZĂVEŞTI” STUDENT COMPLEX (Total accommodation capacity: 2,300) It comprises hostels A, B, C, and D (ground floor + 5 storeys) and rooms with two beds, furniture for two people (wardrobe, PC desk and chair) and a sink. The bathroom is shared by all the students on the floor. There are two bathrooms on each floor at the end of the corridor. A distinct place is occupied by the new hostel A1 (ground floor + 9 storeys). It has rooms with three beds, furniture for three people (a PC desk, wardrobes, bed tables and chairs) and its own fully equipped bathroom. Hostel A1 has rooms for people with physical disabilities, a café and an elevator. Each floor has a kitchen with a stove, as well as a launderette equipped with a washing machine and a room for drying clothes. Address: 204 Splaiul Independenţei Street

“MIHAIL KOGĂLNICEANU” COMPLEX (Total accommodation capacity: 614) It comprises hostels A and B, with rooms having two, three, or four beds and two bathrooms on each floor. The hostels have been renovated, equipped with double-glazed windows and completely new furniture. Address: 36-46 Mihail Kogălniceanu Boulevard

“POLIGRAFIE” STUDENT HOSTEL (Total accommodation capacity: 244) It has rooms with four beds and two bathrooms on each floor. The hostel’s renovation in 2007 consisted in exterior thermal insulation and double-glazing doors and windows. The furniture in the rooms is new. Address: 4 Ficusului Boulevard

“TH. PALLADY 1” STUDENT HOSTEL (Total accommodation capacity: 218) It has studio-like rooms, with an inner hallway, four beds, thermo-pane windows, thermal insulation, their own bathrooms and modern furniture. The hostel was renovated in 2007.

“TH. PALLADY 2” STUDENT HOSTEL (Total accommodation capacity: 194) It has studio-like rooms with two beds, thermo-pane windows, thermal insulation, their own bathroom, and new furniture. It has been in the accommodation circuit since October 2008.

“STOIAN MILITARU” STUDENT HOSTEL (Total accommodation capacity: 471) – An apartment building with rooms having two/three/or four beds, a kitchen and a bathroom. The hostel has been repaired and renovated (including the installation of thermo-pane windows), and the furniture will soon be replaced. Address: 18 Stoian Militaru Street

“FUNDENI” STUDENT HOSTEL (Total accommodation capacity: 204) It has rooms with two beds, furniture and its own bathroom. The hostel has been renovated and thermally insulated. Address: 252-254 Şoseaua Fundeni

“PANDURI” STUDENT COMPLEX (Total accommodation capacity: 224) It is equipped with rooms having two/five beds, common bathrooms, and washing machines on each floor. The hostel was renovated in 2007. Address: 90 Şoseaua Panduri

“MĂGURELE” STUDENT COMPLEX (Total accommodation capacity: 648) It comprises hostels G1, G2, G3, and G4, which have two room layouts, with two/three beds. It also has a hallway and its own bathroom. Address: 3-9 Măgurele, Fizicienilor Street STUDENT HOSTEL “C-LEU”, 1st and 2nd Floors (Total accommodation capacity: 244) it has rooms with two beds and bathrooms on the hallways of each floor. Address: 1-3 Iuliu Maniu Boulevard

THE STUDENT CANTEEN: THE M. KOGĂLNICEANU CANTEEN The Mihail Kogălniceanu Canteen has the capacity to accommodate 1000 people/day, new furniture, and bathrooms. It was renovated in 2007. Address: 36-46 Mihail Kogălniceanu Boulevard Programme: Monday-Friday, 11:30am – 5:00pm; and 6:00 – 8:00pm

“Dimitrie Brândză” Botanical Gardens
Through its structure, the Botanic Gardens of Bucharest – bearing the name of the remarkable professor Dimitrie Brândză – turned the venerable age of 149 years. Located near the city centre, it is a cultural and educational centre, an active factor in the general process of acknowledging the relationship between man and nature.

It hosts important plant collections where the visitor can perceive the diversity of the vegetal world. Specialists may take advantage of the opportunity to use them in research activities or preservation of the natural richness of our planet.

The University Museum
For the Greeks, the museum signified the place dedicated to the inspiring muses of the arts and letters... In times to come, the museums that had been founded—as some sort of sanctuaries of history, art and culture that wanted to be preserved—had structured their themes on several categories: archaeology, anthropology and ethnology, folklore, history, cultural, military, natural history, as well as the history of art, technology and science.

Open to all those willing to know their past, museums exhibit the most representative objects or artefacts from the domain they represent, thus becoming “living schools” for those crossing their thresholds. This is what the Museum of the University of Bucharest has set out to be ever since September 1967, the year of its foundation, when Academy member Gheorghe Mihoc, Rector of the University at that time, ordered “the foundation of a public collection comprising documentary material, original pieces or significant copies, in view of a scientific reconstitution of the history of this University, with the Rector’s Office at the University of Bucharest and within its budget.”

Located on the ground floor of the left pavilion in the Palace of the Faculty of Law, the Museum has reached a valuable collection made up of 2486 pieces, most of them out of donations of its own teaching staff, former graduates: prints, documents, rare books, pictures, paintings, furniture, medals, plaques, and various thematic accessories.

The visitor has the opportunity to go through the complicated itinerary of the evolution of Romanian education, with the aid of original documents which mark the evolution of the University of Bucharest from its very foundation. Through their documentary importance, the prints and the documents (acts, incunabula) with great historical value are the most representative, entirely covering the most fertile period of progress within the Romanian educational system, from 1649 until the present day.

Sport
The University won the National American Football championship in 1954.

Libraries
Students have free access to the offices and main buildings of the “Carol I” Central University Library (Biblioteca Centrală Universitară „Carol I”), which is the first large university library in Romania to have introduced an integrated computerized system. The ongoing expansion and increasing performance of the computerized infrastructure offers quick-use opportunities and creative use of documentary resources to its beneficiaries.

Offering a permanent dynamics of cultural and educational traditions, which has defined it since the beginning, BCU “Carol I” was inaugurated, on March 14, 1865, as Royal Foundation.

BCU is an integrated library structure, be comprissed of the Central Unit, with an encyclopaedic profile, and 14 libraries organised as specialized branches, which function within the faculties of the University of Bucharest.

Consequently, the current publication fund has a similar encyclopaedic structure, the library owning a total fund of over 1,900,000 volumes from different domains: literature, philosophy, law, psychology, history, geography-geology, management, economics, mathematics, etc.

Here, students, teachers, as well as other categories (unqualified teaching staff, high school students in their senior years, researchers, etc.) can obtain the information needed from the largest university centre in the country. Every year, the BCU halls are visited by over 150,000 students, professors, and other categories of readers; the institution currently has an impressive number of 32,883 individual subscriptions.

The elegant library building has 385 seats, distributed among six specialized reading rooms. In the Europa reading room, one can find publications about Europe, the European Union, the World Bank, other monographic publications and law books. The Minerva reading room offers political works, different specialized dictionaries, catalogues, encyclopaedias, and guides. Also this room displays an important donation of the Chinese Embassy, including works from different domains. As far as periodicals are concerned, 300 magazines and 60 newspapers are available. Moreover, one can read here the Chemical Abstracts, one of the centralizing catalogues, with summaries in the field of Chemistry. As for the fourth reading room, Titu Maiorescu, philosophy, religion, sociology, history, and archaeology books are available on the bookshelves. Şt. O. Iosif reading room features literature, linguistics, folklore and art books. Those interested in astronomy, chemistry, economics, physics, but also in management or mathematics, can find what they need in the Rădulescu-Motru reading room. Finally, the last reading room, Simion Mehendinţi, contains medicine, biology, botany, geography-geology, technical engineering.

BCU offers free access to international academic databases: PROQUEST, EBSCO, and SPRINGER. Here, one can find 20,000 periodicals that can be accessed, in full text, with automatic translation from French into English or vice versa.

Through the INTERNET services, the BCU “Carol I” network is integrated into the dynamics of the world circuit of information. The connection with national and international databases at an academic level ensures synchronization with contemporary tendencies of knowledge, offering users a remarkable potential for study and research. 14 libraries function within the faculties of the University of Bucharest, its branches specializing in different domains: literature, philosophy, law, psychology, history, geography-geology, management, economics, and mathematics; the current publication fund consists of over 1,000,000 volumes.

The university also has a virtual library (eBooks) which is made up of reference sites existing on the Internet. Furthermore, the site of the University, “Unibuc Classica”, hosts seminal works by several famous professors of the institution (Nicolae Iorga, A.D. Xenopol, G. Călinescu).

International Academic Cooperation
One of the main objectives the University pays great attention to is international academic cooperation. There are 200 agreements for bilateral inter-university and inter-departmental cooperation with universities from Algeria, Austria, Belgium, Bolivia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Chile, China, Egypt, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Hungary, Iran, India, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Morocco, the Republic of Moldova, Senegal, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Slovenia, the United Arab Emirates, USA, Sweden, Russia, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, Uruguay, etc. The University has 130 bilateral agreements for joint supervision doctoral studies and an intense collaboration within numerous community programmes – ERASMUS, LEONARDO DA VINCI, and GRUNDTVIG.

Its intense international activity makes the University of Bucharest makes the University of Bucharest increasingly more notorious in Europe and worldwide. The number of ERASMUS students who come to learn with us is close to 100 per year, and many choose to remain a second semester as well, because the learning environment seems favorable to them. The number of students coming from African and Asian countries has also risen. The University has programmes in foreign languages that are offered on a yearly basis to the 1000 foreign students.

The ERASMUS programme is a component of the Community Education Programme (Lifelong Learning Programme – LLP), which sets out to help university mobility – both for undergraduate students / master students / doctoral students as well as teaching staff. Another ERASMUS objective is encouraging the cooperation between universities in Europe in the field of higher-education. The development of the European dimension of graduate and post-graduate studies is supported through ERASMUS, since the programme covers all disciplines and study areas within the University of Bucharest.

The purpose of the ERASMUS programme is to facilitate the creation of European unity and identity by means of study travel from one country to another. It is not a physics or theology programme. The European Union wishes to lay the human foundations of a European identity through a means that are, at the same time, simple and inevitable: travel. Travel favors direct contact between people and cultures. They remove clichés learned through life experiences. They replace memories from books as well as personal memories. They reward you with friends. They offer you the opportunity of speaking another language, of tasting unknown dishes, of seeing new landscapes, of observing how the trade you train for is learned in another country, with a different history, with other customs, with a different social structure. This is valuable in itself, and does not need other excuses or explanations.

Within this programme there are 286 agreements with European universities that offer opportunities for both students and professors to carry out study terms, teaching terms, take part in common projects to be implemented in curricula, intensive courses or activities in thematic networks dedicated to the development of a graduate domain. The mobility offered within this programme is coordinated by the ERASMUS Office for Community Programs within UB. The University is also a member in several European and international academic organizations – the European Universities Association (EUA), the University Agency for Francophony (AUF), the Association of Universities from European Capital Cities (UNICA), and the Black Sea University Network (BSUN). The University has established partnerships with other governmental or non-governmental organizations such as DAAD, USIA, the Humboldt Foundations, Volkswagen, Fulbright, Nippon, and Onassis.

Notable alumni

 * Gheorghe I. Cantacuzino - archeologist
 * Zoia Ceauşescu - mathematician, daughter of Nicolae Ceauşescu
 * George Ciucu - mathematician
 * Iosif Constantin Drăgan - businessman, writer and historian
 * Paul Timitriu - polititician and publicist
 * Mircea Eliade - historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago
 * Mircea Cărtărescu - postmodern writer
 * Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen - economist
 * Eugen Filotti - diplomat
 * Horia Hulubei - physicist
 * Traian Lalescu - mathematician
 * Gheorghe Mihoc - mathematician
 * Grigore Moisil - mathematician and computer scientist
 * Miron Nicolescu - mathematician
 * Grigore Iunian - politician
 * Ştefan Odobleja - scientist, one of the precursors of cybernetics
 * Octav Onicescu - mathematician
 * George Emil Palade - cell biologist, 1974 Nobel Prize laureate
 * Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos - Nuclear Physicist and AIDS denialists
 * Andrei Pleşu - philosopher, essayist, journalist, literary and art critic, and politician
 * Valentin Poénaru - mathematician
 * Constantin Rădulescu-Motru - psychologist and sociologist
 * Mircea Rusu - physicist
 * Mihail Sadoveanu - writer
 * Gheorghe Taşcă - economist
 * Şerban Ţiţeica - physicist
 * Dan-Virgil Voiculescu - mathematician

Notable faculty members

 * Ion Barbu also known as Dan Barbilian - mathematician and poet;
 * Silviu Brucan - political analyst and author
 * George Călinescu - writer and literary critic
 * Mircea Cărtărescu - Postmodern writer
 * Emil Constantinescu - former President of Romania
 * Petru Creţia - philologist
 * Neagu Djuvara - historian
 * Alexandru Graur - linguist
 * Spiru Haret - mathematician, astronomer and politician
 * Iorgu Iordan - linguist
 * Nicolae Iorga - historian, literary critic and politician
 * Traian Lalescu - mathematician
 * Gabriel Liiceanu - philosopher
 * Titu Maiorescu - literary critic
 * Nicolae Manolescu-literary critic
 * Solomon Marcus - mathematician
 * Adrian Năstase - politician
 * Miron Nicolescu - mathematician
 * Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu - writer and philologist
 * Dimitrie Pompeiu - mathematician
 * Alexandru Rosetti - linguist
 * Ion Th. Simionescu
 * Simion Stoilow - mathematician
 * Nicolae Titulescu - politician
 * Tudor Vianu - literary critic, philosopher
 * Dan-Virgil Voiculescu - mathematician
 * Gheorghe Vrânceanu - mathematician