Villarrica Campus
The Villarrica Campus is located in one of the most beautiful cities in southern Chile. It houses the local university officers and offers the degrees of Primary and Early Childhood Education.Study at Villarrica Campus
It is UC Chile’s only campus outside the Metropolitan Region and it aims to contribute to the development of the Araucanía Region through education and sustainable development. It offers teaching degrees in the fields of general basic and pre-school education.
Campus Images
Afunalhue
Library
Leandro Penchulef Museum
We tripan antü, Mapuche New Year
Privileged environment
Campus History
Villarrica is UC’s only campus outside of Santiago. It was founded as the San José de la Mariquina teaching school in 1936 by the Roman Catholic Prefecture of the Araucanía.
Because the students were trained as religious teachers, their degrees were not recognized by the Ministry of Education, which prevented the graduates from teaching in public schools. To standardize the degrees, Universidad Católica in 1952 was asked to sponsor the school, which became part of the College of Philosophy and Education Sciences.
In 1959, after a fire broke out at facilities in Loncoche, the school was moved to Villarrica. It opened again in 1963 and five years later became the UC's first campus outside of Santiago.
Since then it has developed different lines of research and undertaken projects geared toward cultural diversity and environmental conservation.
New facilities were built in 2000 to house university activities. The facilities are located near the shoreline of lake Villarrica, bringing the university closer to nature.
The Leandro Penchulef museum opened at the Villarrica Campus in 2002 to promote the study of archeological and ethnographic pieces that are part of the area’s history.
Check out the video with the history of Villarrica Campus