STUDENT SERVICES

The Office of the Dean for Graduate Studies and Research and the Dean of Students offered conjointly a wide range of services to students, including graduate students. Some of them are the following.

The Student Center

The Student Center features an information desk, stage, meeting rooms, guesthouse, bookstore, game room, food services, graphic arts workshop, and Student Services Office. The Student Center schedules and provides a place for extracurricular activities that foster the social and cultural growth of the university.

The Student I.D. Office

The Student I.D. Office furnishes Student I.D. cards, which enable students to use library facilities, the sports complex, and medical services, and to attend cultural, social, and recreational activities. The cards, which cost $5, can also be activated at a bank for use at cash machines.

Cultural Activities

The Department of Cultural Activities is the oldest organization in Puerto Rico promoting culture. During its 75 years of uninterrupted service, this program has been in the spotlight on a national and international level, and its high quality presentations have contributed to the academic development of our students. The department promotes activities in the areas of dance, theater, music, plastic arts, cinema, and photography, as well as poetry, literature, music composition, anthropology, and other fields.

Student Organizations

The Student Organizations Office of the Dean of Students Office coordinates the activities of campus student groups and organizes elections to the student councils of the various colleges and schools, as well as of student representatives to the Academic Senate. The office provides guidance to students on how to develop and establish their own organizations. This office also plans and sponsors for activities for the university community. Chapters of national organizations and student organizations focusing on specialized professional and academic fields are associated with many graduate programs.

Social and Recreational Activities

The Social and Recreational Activities Department coordinates a program of concerts–from pop music, to Puerto Rican, folk, and Latin American music–and theater festivals, art fairs, lectures, panel discussions, cultural field trips, plastic arts, and photography competitions, dances, and film festivals through the Student Center. Faculty and the general community are welcome.

Sports and Athletics

The university is a founding member of the island-wide Inter-University Athletic League and participates in all of the sports included in that organization. Intramural activities, emphasizing the recreational and educational benefits of sports, are organized by the Department of Physical Education of the Dean of Students Office.

Use of physical education facilities

Regulations approved in 1979 establish the standards for the use of the Sports Complex by students, professors, and other interested parties. The regulations are available at the Department of Physical Education.

Living Arrangements

Housing

Housing for graduate students at Plaza Universitaria

Automobile Permits

The campus Traffic and Security Office issues access permits to students, along with maps of student parking areas, during the registration period and throughout the academic year. Permits must be renewed at the beginning of each academic year. If you need to park on campus you must go to the Security Office between 8:00-12:00am and 1:00-4:30pm with the following documents: official class schedule, copy of your driver's license, and car registration. For additional information, you can call (787)764-0000, extensions 2222 or 5308.

Health and Well-Being

Student Health Center

The Student Health Center includes a walk-in clinic, dental clinic, and first-aid center. Diagnosis, treatment, and referrals are provided for registered students. The first-aid center is open from 7:30 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., Monday through Thursday, and on Fridays until 4:30 p.m. If you need to contact the Student Health Center, please call (787)764-0000, extensions 5629 and 5630.

Health Education Program

The Health Education Program is a resource center that provides information related to preventive health care and improvement in quality of life. The center offers educational materials that cover such topics as violence, crime, campus security, drug and alcohol prevention, domestic violence, sexual harassment, family planning and other information related to health. Additional services offered by this center include: long-term loan of infant car seats, coordination of health fairs for various colleges of the university, CPR classes, and prenatal education for students, as well as research concerning safety in public transportation. This center depends on the active participation of student volunteers.

Guidance and Counseling Center

The Guidance and Counseling Center for Student Development (CODE), under the Dean of Students Office, offers counseling and clinical services to students at the undergraduate and graduate levels. It provides individual or group counseling and psychotherapy to students who are experiencing vocational, educational, personal, and developmental, or relationship difficulties.

Specifically, it assists students in identifying and learning skills that will help them in meeting their educational and life goals effectively. It offers programs and activities that help students acquire skills, encourage positive and realistic self-appraisal, foster appropriate personal and occupational choices, enhance the ability to relate mutually and meaningfully with others, and increase the capacity to engage in a personally satisfying and effective style of living. Referral for vocational and psychological tests, and other assessment tools is made available, when appropriate, to foster self-understanding and decision-making.

Crisis intervention and emergency services are provided, either directly or through cooperative arrangements with other resources on campus and in the surrounding community, to students who are going through psychological or behavioral problems, such as sexual and physical abuse, emotional distress, or attempted suicide, or who are in need of immediate hospitalization.

Consultative services are offered to members of the university community to make the environment as beneficial as possible to the intellectual, emotional, and physical development of the student.

Also provided are seminars on professional development, continuing education, training for interns and practicum students, and other professionals within and outside the university community.

The Counseling Center guarantees the confidential nature of the counseling relationship. The office is open Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon, and from 1:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.

Handicapped Services

The fundamental function of the Handicapped Services Program is to foster the integration of students with disabilities into university life, especially in activities with an educational, recreational, cultural, or social focus. This office coordinates with government programs and offers campus transportation, academic tutors, expedited transactions during pre-registration and registration, special parking permits, note-takers, rental equipment with special features, including wheelchairs, canes, and tape recorders, among other services.

You can request these services by calling (787)764-0000, extensions 3450 or 5615 or you can visit Room 101-D at the University Center.

Vocational Rehabilitation

The Vocational Rehabilitation Program offers services to students who suffer from some type of impediment–whether physical or mental, long term or short term–that affects their academic performance, such as severe visual, hearing or neurological conditions, amputations, or any chronic illness for which the student is receiving treatment, such as severe asthma, uncontrollable diabetes, lupus arthritis, scoliosis or speech problems. Students may receive counseling and orientation as well as medical, psychological and social evaluations, prosthesis, orthopedic equipment, audio phones, eyeglasses, readers for the seeing-impaired, sign interpreters for the hearing-impaired, assistants, maintenance, transportation and technological aid apparatus.

To request these services, please visit the Music Hall, on the first floor of the University Center or contact us at (787)704-0000 extensions 3091 or 3100. You will need to show your class schedule and students Identification.

Veterans

The Veterans Office offers orientation about university studies, academic tutors, and opportunities for study and work through the Veterans Administration. This service is available to veterans who are students, dependents of veterans, and members of the National Guard and National Guard Reserves studying at the Río Piedras Campus.

University Day Care Center

The University Day Care Program provides Río Piedras Campus students with an on-campus day care as part of the institution’s agreement with the Puerto Rican Department of the Family and its commitment to improve the quality of life for student parents who are preparing to enter the professional workforce. The program covers the cost of day care for children between birth and up to 5 years and 11 months of age, and for handicapped children up to 8 years of age. Workshops on nutrition and parenting are also provided.

To request day care services you must go to Day Care Center (SENDEL) at the Student Services Office Building Carlota Matienzo, inside patio. The hours are from 8:00 to 11:30 and from 1:00-4:00pm. For more iformation, you can call us at (787)764-0000, extensions 7456 or 7457. Aplications are available all year long.

Child Development Center

The Child Development Center is free for children of students, under the auspices of the Puerto Rico Department of the Family. The program offers education and day care for 20 children up to 2 years and 11 months of age. Activities are focused on strengthening the child physically, emotionally, socially, and intellectually. In addition, this innovative model laboratory provides child development education for participants through observation, lectures, and clinical experience.

Career Development

The Center for Occupational Development and Placement is one of the several programs offered through the Dean of Students Office, whose primary responsibility is to identify employment sources in the private and public sectors, and facilitate contact through orientation and referral. The services include placement in off-campus work experiences, arrangements and preparation for internships and job placements, and orientation of both current students and recent graduates on the labor market and in making contact with potential employers in Puerto Rico and the United States.

International and Exchange Students Office

The International and Exchange Students Office promotes diversity and serves the international community of the Río Piedras Campus. Exchange programs are available to qualified Río Piedras Campus students, who may take classes at universities outside Puerto Rico. Students from other countries may study at the University of Puerto Rico for one semester or one year, through agreements made with other universities and consortia. The office offers information, orientation, and support for foreign students visiting the campus, coordinates educational, cultural and social activities, and assists in obtaining visas for international students who want to study at the University of Puerto Rico.

The International and Exchange Students Office is located on the second floor of the University Center, Room 101-C,Monday to Friday from 8:00 to 12:00am, and from 1:00 to 4:30pm. For additional information you can contact us at (787)764-0000, extensions 5601 or 3055.

If you're a International Student, born outside the United States and its territories and not a resident of Puerto Rico, and need inofrmation for international students need to understand the requirements of the State Department and the United State Inmigration Services for international students.