The Catholic University Center of Eastern Minas Gerais (Unileste) is a Brazilian private higher education institution based in Coronel Fabriciano, in the interior of the state of Minas Gerais. It was created as part of the social works of the Padres do Trabalho Congregation in 1969, configuring itself as the first technical and higher education level school in the current Steel Valley Metropolitan Region (RMVA).
Recognition as a University Center occurred in 2000, and the Brazilian Catholic Education Union (UBEC) became the maintainer in 2005. Its complex is distributed over two campuses - one main campus in Coronel Fabriciano, which also includes the Padre de Man School, and another in Ipatinga.
History
Origin and development
The implementation of large industries in the current Steel Valley Metropolitan Region, as well as in other cities of eastern Minas Gerais, implied a strong process of socioeconomic and cultural transformation in the region. The accelerated and, sometimes, uncontrolled demographic growth favored the increase of the housing deficit and of violence. Thus, the Catholic Church began to intervene with religious teachings and the organization of social projects. In this sense, the Padres do Trabalho Congregation was established in Rio Doce Valley, under the leadership of Father José Maria de Man, a native of the Netherlands, on October 28, 1963, three weeks after the episode known as the Ipatinga Massacre.
The Padres do Trabalho worked on social projects in the Steel Valley region and proposed the construction of the University of Labor (UT), at first in the so-called Buraco Street, in the current downtown area of Ipatinga, when it was still a district of Coronel Fabriciano. This location was desired because it was a poor slum with a high incidence of prostitution, at the same time as it was close to the Usiminas plant, which could provide both educational training and professional opportunities to this population. However, the Mariana Archdiocese donated the land of Caladinho Farm, where the installation of the university was initiated by the Padres do Trabalho in 1965.
With the support of the then Diocese of Itabira, the UT was built and, attached to it, the Technical School of Coronel Fabriciano (CTCF) - now the Padre de Man School. Thus, the complex became the first technical and higher education school in the Steel Valley. The "T" shape expressed at the top of the tallest building, where the Padre de Man School is located, refers to the first emblem and acronym and means "work (trabalho), tenacity (tenacidade)". The CTCF became operational in 1967 and the university's higher education courses in Literature and Social Studies were started in 1968, but the founding of UT occurred on April 1, 1969, with the inauguration of the School of Engineering. Initially the unit served about 300 students, while the CTCF had started its activities with another 400.
In 1972, the Padres do Trabalho Congregation gave rise to the Educational and Technical Society (SEUT), which was in charge of building the university neighborhoods, a set of elitist housing created in order to house students, teachers and employees in Coronel Fabriciano. On October 13, 1976, SEUT's property was donated to the Minas Gerais Culture Society (SMC), the same maintainer of the Catholic University of Minas Gerais (UCMG), now the Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais (PUC-MG). This was one of the last actions of José Maria de Man, who died in Contagem in 1981.
Reformulation and consolidation
The donation of the former UT to the SMC kept the institution in Coronel Fabriciano as a PUC campus until 1990. In this year, demands that were not met by PUC, such as the creation of new courses, investments, and social and economic autonomy in relation to the main campus in Belo Horizonte, associated with financial problems in the last years of the 1980s, led to the announcement of the closure of the Steel Valley campus by PUC. This event was a direct effect of the crisis generated by hyperinflation, a situation that plagued the entire country at this turn of the decade and that led to a significant reduction in the amount of students.