The University of Santiago, Chile (Usach) is one of the oldest public universities in Chile. The institution was born as Escuela de Artes y Oficios in 1849 by Ignacy Domeyko, under the government of Manuel Bulnes. It became Universidad Técnica del Estado in 1947, with various campuses throughout the country. In 1981, as a consequence of a reform on higher education under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, it became what is now known as Universidad de Santiago de Chile, with all activities centered in a single 340,000 m2 campus in the capital Santiago.