[1] The institution's historical background dates back to 1540, the year in which Catholic Bishop Don Vasco de Quiroga founded the College of San Nicolás Obispo in the city of Pátzcuaro, with the purpose of training priests to help him in the evangelization of the natives of the vast territory under the jurisdiction.

Faced with the demands of the post-Tridentine Church, to impart a new orientation to the formation of priests, in 1574 the chapter decided to transfer academic responsibility to the meritorious Society of Jesus.

Upon the death of Bishop Guerra, it fell to his successor, Fray Domingo de Ulloa, to receive – on October 17, 1601 – from Clement VIII a bull in which, taking advantage of the infrastructure of San Nicolás, he ordered the establishment of a Council Seminary.

[2] The council's reaction was immediate: in open contempt, by legal means it undertook an energetic defense that involved the civil and ecclesiastical authorities of New Spain in a confrontation that would last until the year 1610, when Pope Paul V he reversed his predecessor's order.

However, during that time the Colegio de San Nicolás regularly maintained its activities, without incorporating transcendental changes in its classrooms, where essentials were taught to attend the religious services of the Spanish and evangelize the indigenous.

[1] Once Mexican independence was achieved, the main concern of the new government focused on national reorganization based on a new project in which, for the first time on this soil, within the priority items, public education was considered.

After a long and painful negotiation between the Church and the State, on October 21, 1845, the ecclesiastical chapter ceded the patronage of the campus to the Michoacán Subdirectorate Board of Studies.

This project was consolidated with the triumph of the Mexican Revolution when, a few days after the Michoacán government took office, the engineer Pascual Ortiz Rubio adopted the initiative, and on October 15, 1917, he managed to establish, with the characteristic of autonomy, the Michoacan University of San Nicolás de Hidalgo, made up of the College of San Nicolás de Hidalgo, the schools of Arts and Crafts, Industrial and Commercial for young ladies, Superior of Commerce and Administration, Normal for teachers, Medicine and Jurisprudence, in addition to the Public Library, the Michoacan Museum, the Museum of Independence and the State Meteorological Observatory.

Faced with this setback, the nascent institution was adrift, until, in 1918, Dr. Alberto Oviedo Mota was appointed as the person in charge of initiating university activities.

Ignacio Chávez, a young doctor from Michoacán recently graduated from the National University School of Medicine, occupied the rectory.

When Dr. Ignacio Chávez was rector, in 1921, a substantial transformation occurred in the coat of arms, by which the edges of the plaque were perfected, which remained divided into four quarters.

In this regard, Chávez informs that he chose that shield for the nascent university based on the quartered family crest of its illustrious founder: Don Vasco de Quiroga.