History
In 1870, during the Empire, the American Presbyterian missionary Rev. George Whitehill Chamberlain and his wife Mary Annesley founded a private grammar school inside their home. The classes were held in their living room and, a few years later, the "American School" was established as a center of excellence in São Paulo. The Chamberlains' American School was revolutionary for the Brazilian standards at that time: no corporal punishment on students was permitted, and boys and girls could attend classes. Even though the Chamberlains were openly Presbyterians, students from all ethnic background, social classes, and religious denominations were welcomed. The fame of academic rigour allied to religious tolerance soon reached the United States.
In 1896, John Theron Mackenzie, an attorney from Phelps, New York, and his sisters donated US$50,000 "for the establishment of an engineering school to be built under the auspices of Mr. Chamberlain". The Mackenzie building was built next year, and the college was named in their honor.
After the establishment of Mackenzie College, the institution saw rapid expansion of its activities with the creation of a School of Architecture, a School of Economics, and a Law School, gaining the status of university in 1952.
In 130 years of history (as of 2000), it is estimated that Mackenzie University counts 300,000 alumni, many of them important personalities of Brazilian politics and civil society. Among them are artists such as surrealist André Breton and the modernist painter Anita Malfatti, athletes such as Brazil's most known basketball player Oscar Schmidt, car racer Émerson Fittipaldi, sea explorer Amyr Klink, and Olympic golden medalist Robert Scheidt; journalists Boris Casoy and Ney Gonçalves Dias; businessmen Márcio Cypriano (CEO Bradesco), Ivan Zurita (CEO Nestlé, Brasil) and Emerson Kapaz; jurists Álvaro Villaça Azevedo, Carlos Miguel Aidar (former Brazilian Law Society President), Eros Roberto Grau (Brazilian Supreme Court Justice), José Roberto Batochio (prominent lawyer), Sérgio Pinto Martins (judge and labour law renowned scholar), Roberto Justus, Tales Castelo Branco, Paulo Mendes da Rocha (Pritzker Prize 2006), Antonio Carlos Rodrigues do Amaral (world-renowned lawyer, Harvard Law graduate) and many others.
Read more about this topic: Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“No cause is left but the most ancient of all, the one, in fact, that from the beginning of our history has determined the very existence of politics, the cause of freedom versus tyranny.”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“Jesus Christ belonged to the true race of the prophets. He saw with an open eye the mystery of the soul. Drawn by its severe harmony, ravished with its beauty, he lived in it, and had his being there. Alone in all history he estimated the greatness of man.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“False history gets made all day, any day,
the truth of the new is never on the news
False history gets written every day
...
the lesbian archaeologist watches herself
sifting her own life out from the shards she’s piecing,
asking the clay all questions but her own.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)