The Universidad Santo Tomás de Aquino (or University of Saint Thomas Aquinas) in present-day Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic) was the first university in the New World. Founded as a seminary for Roman Catholic monks of the Dominican Order in 1518, it was made a university by a papal bill on October 28, 1538. But the school was not officially recognized by the Spanish Court until a Royal Decree was granted in 1558. The university closed in 1823 but was revived nearly a hundred years later, in 1914, and renamed The Universidad Autónoma de Santo Domingo (Autonomous University of Santo Domingo), also known as UASD.