El Colegio de México, A.C. is a prestigious Mexican institute of higher education, specializing in teaching and research in social sciences and humanities. This Institution received the Prince of Asturias Award for Social Sciences in 2001. The library of El Colegio de México is one of the largest academic libraries in Mexico, and it contains one of the most important Latin American collections in social sciences and humanities. The college was founded in 1940 by the Mexican Federal Government, the Bank of Mexico, the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and the Fondo de Cultura Económica. After the Spanish Civil War, the President of MexicoLázaro Cardenas created The House of Spain in Mexico to host the Spanish intellectuals in exile in that country. Under the direction of renowned intellectual Alfonso Reyes, the House of Spain became a higher education center, and was renamed El Colegio de México in 1940. The College now operates under a 1961 charter that allows the institution to provide college-level teaching in the fields of humanistic knowledge and social and political sciences. In 1976, the university's campus was moved from the Colonia Roma to its current location. The college encompasses seven separate academic centers, teaching a total of three degrees, seven master's degrees and eight doctorates. The campus is located in a purpose-built and architecturally striking building on the southern fringes of Mexico City, and it was designed by Mexican architect Teodoro González de León.
History
It arose from an organization of Spanish civil war exiles called "Casa de España en México". In March 1939, Lázaro Cárdenas named Alfonso Reyes to the presidency of the "Casa de España en México". Reyes would be president of the "Colegio" until his death. Historian Daniel Cosío Villegas played an important role in its institutionalization and the Colegio's library bears his name.
Academics
Students
Colmex's student population includes 74 undergraduate and 369 graduate students representing diverse geographic and linguistic backgrounds. Of the entire student population, 83.5% are from Mexico, while 16.05% are from outside the country. International students hail from about 24 different countries, with Colombians comprising about one third of all international students in the entering class of 2011. Undergraduate and graduate admission to Colmex is very selective. El Colegio de México received 936 applications for admission to the Class of 2014 and 181 were admitted. 87% of students graduate within 4 years.
Research Centers
In the 2010–2011 school year, El Colegio de México offered 19 academic programs in seven academic centers, of which 16 are doctoral and master's graduate degree programs. Despite strong increases in university enrollment across Mexico, El Colegio de México has upheld a low and appealing student-faculty ratio of 2.5:1. There are nearly 181 tenured or tenure-track professors and 50 adjunct and visiting professors teaching at the college. 21% of all students are enrolled in the Centre for International Studies, Colmex's largest academic unit. Of the other larger centers, the Centre for Demographic, Urban and Environmental Studies enrolls 19%, the Centre for Historical Studies enrolls 15%, the Centre for Linguistic and Literary Studies enrolls 13%, the Centre for Economic Studies and the Centre for Sociological Studies enroll about 10% each. The remainder of all students are enrolled in Colmex's smaller schools, including the Centre of Asian and African Studies and the Daniel Cosío Villegas Library, which is also one of the richest libraries in North America, with sources in many languages. Since 1991, El Colegio de México is the host institution of , a program established by The Rockefeller Foundation to bring together and train mid-career leaders from all parts of the world in improving their leadership skills around the issues of sustainable development. Led primarily by renowned Colmex professor Boris Graizbord, Lead Mexico responds to calls for acting as consultant, advisor, and policy evaluator at federal and local level.
Daniel Cosío Villegas Library
The Daniel Cosío Villegas Library is a public academic library situated in the center of El Colegio de México's campus, contains around 700,000 volumes, and comprises 30% of the total building real estate. The library is composed of eighteen academic librarians, three IT professionals, and eighty clerical staff and paraprofessionals. The library's curatorial efforts have transformed the collection into one of the most important Latin America collections in its areas of specialty and its staff has played an important role both for the campus and the national academic library practices by driving various initiatives such as the migration to online OPAC systems in the 90's, which spurred other institutions in Mexico to follow.
