In 1957 the highly regarded Marxist historian :es:Severo Martínez Peláez return to Guatemala after his exile and joined the university as a faculty member. The College of Economics dean, Rafael Piedrasanta Arandi, and the university president, Edmundo Vásquez Martínez, approved a scholarship for Martinez Pelaez to research the Archivo General de Indias in Sevilla, Spain between 1967 and 1969. From this research comes his main work, "La patria del criollo", published in 1970, as well as the program of Economic History of Central America of the College of Economics and the total reform of the School of History in 1978.