Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México


The Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México, commonly known as ITAM, is a private Ph.D.-granting research university. It is one of Mexico’s most important institutions of higher learning; highly prestigious in the social sciences; regarded as the best undergraduate Economics, International Relations, Law, and Political Science school in Mexico; and the best Accounting and Business School in Latin America. Also, it is considered one of Mexico's think tanks and has the highest rank of admission to the Mexican Foreign Service.

History

It was originally an Economics School and one year later it opened its undergraduate business school. Due to the opening of the Accounting School, the institute grew from 52 students in 1947 to 500 in 1951. In 1963, by government decree, the ITAM was recognized as a “Free University School” and the school added the word "autonomous" to its name. However the inclusion of the word autonomous in its name was not recognized officially by the government until 1985.
During the 1970s new programs were added including Applied Mathematics, Social Science and a Master of Business Administration. In the 1980s and '90s the additions were: Law, Actuarial Science, Computer Science, Political Science, International Relations, Telematics and Industrial Engineering. During the last decade the academic offer was increased by the establishment of Business Engineering, Financial Management and Mechatronics.

Campuses

During its first four years the ITAM was originally located in a house in Mexico City's centro in 518 La Palma street. In 1950 the institute moved to 65 Serapio Rendón street in the Colonia San Rafael. During the late 1950s it moved once more to a new building built specially for the institute at the corner of Marina Nacional street and Lago Zirahuen street in the Colonia Anáhuac. Finally, in 1978, ITAM moved to its current campus in 1 Río Hondo, in San Ángel. In 1991 the smaller graduate school campus, in 939 Camino Santa Teresa, was opened.

Administration and organization

Rectors

During its 60 years ITAM has had eight rectors:
Today the institute has 38 academic programs dependent organized on 5 academic divisions, subdivided in 14 academic departments. The academic programs include Licenciaturas and Ingenierias, as well as Masters and a Ph.D. program.

Academic Division of Economics, Law and Social Sciences (School of Economics, Law and Social Sciences)

This division is in charge of:
The ITAM, through this department, offers an education in modern economics, with a considerable emphasis on analytic techniques and economic models, in line with the subjects being taught in economics departments around the world. The Department of Economics has been especially influential. It is a major feeder for Latin American candidates into top international graduate programs, and has played an important role in the economic liberalization process that the Mexican Government started in the mid 1980s; in the last 20 years most of Mexico's Secretaries and Deputy Secretaries of Finance have been either ITAM professors or alumni. The department is ranked as the best Economics school in Mexico, depending on the survey, and one of the Top 75 Economics departments globally.
Department of Political Science
The Department of Political Science has been considered the leading faculty in the field since the mid 1980s. With the formal change of the major in 1991, the program was adapted to modern American political science, and thus incorporated important tools like mathematics, economics and statistics. The program has since been a tremendous success, becoming a leading school in the subject. This is largely due to the number of students and full-time faculty with PhDs from other leading universities such as Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Duke, Chicago, Michigan, Princeton, UCLA, UCSD, and Yale. Many of its undergraduate students are recruited in the best universities in the United States and Europe and others are employed in the federal and local governments and political parties.

Academic Division of Management and Accountancy (Business School)

The division is in charge of:
The division is in charge of:
The Department of Mathematics at ITAM consists of full-time researchers with graduate degrees who follow active research lines and publish in internationally renowned journals. The department has also participated in the global mathematics community by hosting several international applied mathematics conferences over the years. Its main strengths lie in numerical analysis, financial mathematics, stochastic processes, real analysis and dynamic systems applied to the social sciences. Both BSc programs it maintains have been hugely successful in providing high level technical skills to its students, which often obtain graduate degrees abroad in Math, Finance, Economics, Statistics and Operations Research.

Academic Division of General and International Studies (School of General and International Studies)

This division is in charge of:
The Department of International Studies is one of the main research centers of diplomatic studies in Mexico and Latin America. It also coordinates the Institute of European Integration Studies and the Inter-American Studies Center. Also, ITAM publishes the Latin American edition of Foreign Affairs, the American journal of international relations, and has the highest rank of admission to the Mexican Foreign Service.
Department of General Studies
Despite being known for as a technocratic education center, ITAM has maintained a large group of faculty devoted to the study of Philosophy, History, Religion and Society in its Department of General Studies. This department provides the bulk of the teaching for the core courses at ITAM: History, Ideas and Socio-Political Institutions, and Problems of the Current Society. This department edits a journal by the name of Estudios which contains mostly essays by Mexican philosophers and historians.

Academic Division of Engineering (School of Engineering)

This division is in charge of:
The Institute is proud of teaching humanities and philosophical courses inside every major, this with the objective of developing a higher sense of ethics even with majors like economics and business management.

Accreditations

All the programs at ITAM are officially accredited by the Secretaría de Educación Pública. In 2005 ITAM Business School became the first in Mexico to hold simultaneous accreditation of its programs by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business of the United States, the Association of MBAs of the United Kingdom and the European Quality Improvement System. Since 2009 the Computer Science and Industrial Engineering B.S. degrees have been accredited by .

Faculty

ITAM has 239 professors and researchers, 85 percent of whom are full-time professors. 90 percent of the faculty have a graduate degree and 68 percent have a PhD. Furthermore, 20 percent of the professors are part of Sistema Nacional de Investigadores.

International Programs

ITAM is currently collaborating with SciencesPo in the ITAM/SciencePo Bachelor in International Relations dual program; the Tulane University in the ITAM/Tulane Executive MBA Program and the ITAM/Tulane Global Master in Business Administration; the Illinois Institute of Technology in the ITAM/IIT Master in Information Technologies and Management; the Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona in the ITAM/UAB Master in European Integration; the Florida International University in the ITAM/FIU Master in Accountancy.

''Honoris Causa'' degrees

Some of the Honoris Causa degrees awarded by the ITAM include:
As a research university, ITAM has several centers dedicated to economics, law, political science, foreign affairs and business. Some include:

Alumni

Mexican Presidents
Mexican Secretaries of Finance
Other Secretaries in the Mexican Government
Government
Politicians
Business persons
Others
Some famous faculty members include: