En 1967, a few months after the laying of the cornerstone of the State University of Campinas (Unicamp), which took place in October 1966, rector Zeferino Vaz struggled to begin to give shape to his project of building a higher education school that would be modeling for Brazil. The mission, considered an eccentricity by some, required the collaboration of different segments of society so that it could be carried out. Thanks to the coordination with the region's productive sector, which lacked qualified professionals, the parasitologist found the necessary support for the installation of the Faculty of Engineering of Campinas (FEC), the embryo of the current Faculty of Mechanical Engineering (FEM). An important impetus was thus given to the consolidation of the institution that would contribute decisively to the scientific and technological development of the country.

Mechanical Engineering bring the same history of Electric up to become a unit in 1989

The proposal to create the FEC had been presented months earlier to the State Education Council, which approved it. According to Zeferino Vaz, the implementation of the unit would help promote the regularization of the scientific, didactic and administrative life of Unicamp. Upon learning of the news, directors of industries located in the Campinas region tried to get in touch with the University's Organizing Committee. They wanted to inform that the industrial sector urgently needed qualified engineers. On that occasion, the businesspeople said they were considering founding their own Engineering School, in a building equipped with modern equipment and which had been used until then to offer technical courses. According to the business community, if Unicamp took on the responsibility of training good professionals, the industry would be willing to provide the necessary infrastructure.

The Organizing Committee understood that the industrialists' offer was perfectly compatible with Unicamp's project of providing high-level education to students. Thus, a cooperation agreement was signed establishing that the companies would make their facilities available to the University both for carrying out internships and for the regular teaching of specific subjects. Furthermore, it was agreed that the industry would collaborate in the training of the teaching staff of what would become the FEC, as their staff included highly prepared professionals, some with experience at universities in Europe and the United States.

Also as part of the agreement, it was defined that the first courses would be Mechanical Engineering and Electrical Engineering. In total, 120 places would be created in the first series – 40 in 1967 and 80 the following year. Finally, both parties understood that it was advisable to create a technical-advisory commission for each specialization, as a way of ensuring the effective participation of the industry. The Organizing Committee then recommended that a strong name be chosen to direct the future college. It was up to Professor Marcelo Damy de Souza Santos, a nuclear physicist, to nominate General José Fonseca Valverde, military engineer and professor at the Army Technical School, for the position. With a PhD from Stanford, Valverde was also head of the Electricity Department at PUC in Rio de Janeiro.

Outside classes – Despite the support of the productive sector, the FEC faced adversities at its beginning. On some occasions, improvisation ensured the progress of activities. The first students had, for example, enough desks for everyone, a flaw that ended up being corrected by the industries. The Electrical and Mechanical departments, initially installed in the mansion where the Campinas Technical College (Cotuca) now stands, on Culto à Ciência street, each had a small room and three or four tables. Not even the curriculum escaped adaptations. There was even a regime of academic quarters instead of semesters.

Some practical classes were held outside Campinas due to the lack of laboratories. The first class of the Mechanical Engineering course had to travel by bus to other cities, such as Pirassununga, where they continued their theoretical learning. Faced with so many difficulties and improvisations, there were those who did not believe that Zeferino Vaz's project could succeed. One day, in the middle of class, one of the teachers informed the students that he was leaving Unicamp because he could no longer stand so much precariousness. “We have no structure and we are in the middle of nowhere. There’s no future for this here,” he reportedly said. The problems were not limited to academic issues. There was also the heavy atmosphere imposed by the dictatorship.

Under the command of Valverde, who liked to show off the revolver he carries in his briefcase, the FEC went through difficult times, especially when it came to the free expression of teachers and students. Even so, they found ways to circumvent the repression patrols and promote meetings and acts of resistance, which included the participation of representatives from other segments of the University. At FEC, which was later transferred to a shed on the Barão Geraldo campus, one of the meeting points was the “coffee area”, adjacent to a garden, also frequented by humanities staff.

All the same - There, everyone was equal: teachers, students and staff. Even Zeferino Vaz used to frequent the place, as a way of getting in touch with the most recent discussions taking place in the community. They talked about everything over coffee: from the country's political situation to new productions of Brazilian popular music, including, of course, the drink itself. The great transformation of the FEC occurred with the departure of General Valverde from its leadership. Taking the military man's place was professor Theodureto Henrique Arruda de Faria Souto, who invited Manoel Sobral Júnior, an internationally recognized researcher, to head the Department of Electrical Engineering.

It is said that Sobral Júnior's arrival at Unicamp was more for family reasons than professional ones. Based in the United States at the time, the scientist was initially reluctant to accept the proposal. His wife, on the other hand, wanted to return to the country to join her relatives again. “Either you go back to Brazil or I’ll go back alone,” she reportedly said. The ultimatum would have been the definitive argument for him to land at the University. With the retirement of Theodureto Souto, Sobral Júnior succeeded him as director of the FEC. The researcher had a different vision of what a good Engineering school should be.

For him, the college needed a professional teaching staff, that is, specialists who dedicated themselves full time to teaching and research activities. Therefore, he decided to fire practically all the teachers. Only two of them were retained, as they had a doctorate degree. Then, he went looking for professionals who fit the desired model. Some of FEC's new professors came from the Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica (ITA), from where they had been purged under pressure from the dictatorship. At this point, teaching and research activities had already reached a very satisfactory standard of excellence. In the early years of the 70s, with postgraduate studies fully operational, FEC signed agreements with state and federal organizations, an initiative that brought important resources to the faculty and significant advances in Brazilian knowledge. In 1975, the third department, Chemical Engineering, was created.

Emancipation – With the complete institutionalization of the FEC, in the mid-80s the community understood that the Department of Electrical Engineering should be transformed into a faculty. The proposal was taken to the Unicamp Board of Directors, similar to the current University Council (Consu), which approved it on May 27, 1986, at the behest of rector Paulo Renato Costa Souza, later Minister of Education. In this way, the other two departments, which were also analyzing the desirability of “emancipating” themselves, were equally elevated to the category of faculty. The process, according to some of those involved, was conducted calmly. In the case of Mechanical Engineering, the effective implementation took place in 1989, with its first director being Professor Antonio Celso Fonseca de Arruda, the only candidate at the time.

From this new context, the now called Faculty of Mechanical Engineering (FEM) made additional efforts to further differentiate itself from schools whose teaching was heavily based on two unique resources: chalk and saliva. As a result of this work, and the closer relationship with the production sector, existing laboratories were better equipped and others were created. New lines of research were established, which enabled the country to advance in important sectors, such as new materials and oil, to name just two examples.

Currently, FEM occupies an area of ​​14 thousand square meters. It has 40 laboratories, distributed across seven departments: Energy, Manufacturing Engineering, Petroleum Engineering, Materials Engineering, Thermal and Fluid Engineering, Computational Mechanics and Mechanical Design. The college offers 100 places annually in its two undergraduate courses (Mechanical Engineering and Control and Automation Engineering). FEM also offers postgraduate programs in Mechanical Engineering, Petroleum Engineering, Energy Planning, in addition to the Professional Master's degree, to interested parties.