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The National Autonomous University of Mexico is awarded the 2009 Prince of Asturias Prize in the field of Communication and Humanities
In Mexico City, on October 23, 2009 at 11:30 am, the UNAM received the award.

After two days of meetings held in the Hotel de la Reconquista de Oviedo to weigh the merits of each candidate, the members of the jury elect the UNAM to receive the award.

Soon after the UNAM was nominated for the award on February 19 at the Spanish Embassy in Mexico, it began to gather proponents, as can be seen in the communiqué sent to the Prince of Asturias Foundation by the International Association of University Presidents, which assembles more than 600 educational institutions in Africa, Latin America, North America, Asia, Oceania and Malaysia.

Jury president Ricardo Senabre Sempere read the award certificate describing how the UNAM has served over the course of 100 years as a cornerstone for the academic development of generations of students from the world over, while nurturing the Latin American intellectual and scientific milieu. The UNAM, he added, has taken in leading thinkers exiled during the Spanish Civil War, who drove important liberal, democratic currents in America. Moreover, the UNAM has widened its decisive reach by founding an extraordinary variety of institutions that broaden the academic world while interacting with the society it serves.

UNAM

Ciudad Universitaria was declared a UNESCO Cultural Heritage Site in 2007. At the end of 2009 in a ceremony held in the Campoamor de Oviedo Theater, the UNAM received the prize, consisting of a diploma, a sculpture by Joan Miró and fifty-thousand euros, from the King of Spain Felipe de Borbon.



Hours after learning of the award, UNAM Rector José Narro Robles asserted that the prize comes in recognition of the UNAM’s unyielding defense of academic freedom, dissenting opinion and the values of scientific research. This defense of freedom of thought constitutes the ultimate justification of the efforts, dedication and achievements of many generations. The contributions of the UNAM, its teachers, students and workers through the years have served to enrich the world of ideas and the sense of humanity in academia.

José Narro stressed that this distinction embraces a vast array of scientists, professionals, humanists, artists, thinkers and intellectuals who arrived to Mexico many years ago. Enjoying the generosity of the UNAM´s open door policy, the neophyte and the renowned, including personages such as Adolfo Sánchez Vázquez, José Gaos and Ramón Xirau, found fertile ground to develop their work.

UNAM

In the Javier Barros Sierra de la Torre Auditorium in the UNAM Rectory Building, he thanked the Prince of Asturias Foundation and the hundreds of proponents who supported the UNAM´s candidature to receive one of the world’s most prestigious awards.

The Rector also thanked the University´s founders and contributors from the past, saying: “Today we are privileged to reap this great, transcendent honor, whose seeds were planted over the course of many decades.”

The UNAM, he clarified, is the Nation´s university, belonging to all Mexicans.

Spanish Ambassador Carmelo Angulo emphasized that the prize awarded to the University recognizes its institutional strength, the quality and variety of degree programs, and its research endeavors. Moreover, he stressed the UNAM´s commitment to cultural dissemination, humanism and new technology, which have brought it to the forefront of the Latin American university community. The prize, he added, recognizes the UNAM´s long history as a center of Latin American cultural and academic inurnment, as well as its role as the country´s moral keel.

 
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