University of Aarhus

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

University of Aarhus Aarhus Universitet
Latin: Universitas Aarhusiensis
Motto	Solidum petit in profundis (Seeks a firm ground in the depths)
Established	1927
Type	Public university
Rector	Lauritz Broder Holm-Nielsen
Staff	5,000 (2,800 teaching staff and researchers)
Students	30,500
Doctoral students	740
Location	Århus, Denmark
Affiliations	EUA
Website	www.au.dk

Aarhus Universitet or the University of Aarhus is the second largest university in Denmark (after the University of Copenhagen), based in Århus.

Contents 1 History 2 Enrollment 3 Student unions 4 Courses 5 Partner Universities 6 Campus 7 External link

[edit] History

It was founded in 1928 as Universitetsundervisningen i Jylland ("University Teaching in Jutland") in classrooms rented from the Technical College and a teaching corps consisting of one professor of philosophy and four Readers of Danish, English, German and French. Until then the University of Copenhagen was the only university in Denmark. The use of the name Aarhus Universitet began in 1933. Even though the name of the city, Århus' has been spelled with Å since the reform of Danish orthography in 1948, the name of the university insists on the old spelling with Aa. The official English translation of the name is The University of Aarhus.

The entire campus was designed by the late C.F. Møller, whose architectural practice C.F. Møller Architects has been in charge of its further development up until its most recent addition; 5 new auditoria, which was completed in 2001.

The university is organised in eight faculties:

1. The Faculty of Arts, recently renamed the Faculty of Humanities (in accordance with the Danish equivalent Det Humanistiske Fakultet), has offered courses right from the beginning in 1928.
2. In 1933 the Faculty of Medicine began its courses in basic medical subjects. When the dental school was included in 1992 the name was changed to the Faculty of Health Sciences.
3. The Faculty of Economics and Law was established in 1936. The name was changed to the Faculty of Social Sciences when Political Science and Psychology were added. From 1938 - 1940 Theodor Geiger was professor of sociology at the university -- Denmark's first ever professor of sociology.
4. The Faculty of Theology was established in 1942. Courses in theology had been offered from 1932, being previously taught at the Faculty of Arts.
5. The Faculty of Science was established in 1954 by moving Physics and Chemistry from the Faculty of Medicine and Geography from the Faculty of Arts. Mathematics was established as a new subject, followed by Biology and Geology. In 1997 professor Jens Christian Skou received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his discovery of the sodium-potassium pump.
6. The Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, the former Danmarks JordbrugsForskning (DJF), was amalgamated with the university in 2007.
7. The School of Business, founded in 1939 and amalgamated with the university in 2007.
8. The National Environmental Research Institute (NERI) was amalgamated with the university in 2007.

[edit] Enrollment

In 1999 the number of students passed 20,000 students and is still growing. Enrollment as of October 1 2004 was 20,547. Each year more than 500 international exchange students come to the University of Aarhus to study for one or two semesters.

[edit] Student unions

There are four student unions at the University of Aarhus. The largest and oldest of the unions is the Student Council (Studenterrådet) which is also the only non-partisan. The partisan unions are: Social-Democratic Students (Frit Forum), Conservative Students (Konservative Studenter) and Liberal Students (Liberale Studerende).

All student unions work to improve the university's environment and opportunities for its students.

The unions represents the students in the various councils and committees, however the Student Council is the only union represented on the Board of the University. The Student Council arranges annual concerts and seminars and publishes the student magazine "Delfinen" (The Dolphin). Conservative Students publish the student magazine Critique.

[edit] Courses

It has both undergraduate and postgraduate programmes in the following subjects:

• Aesthetic Subjects
• Archaeology
• Biology
• Chemistry
• Chinese
• Classical Philology
• Comparative Religion
• Computer Science
• Czech
• Dentistry
• Economics
• Ethnography
• European Studies
• Geology
• Greek
• History
• History of Ideas
• Hungarian
• Information Studies
• Japanese
• Latin
• Law
• Linguistics
• Management
• Mathematical Economics
• Mathematics
• Media Studies
• Medicine
• Modern Languages
• Molecular Biology
• Nanotechnology
• Philosophy
• Physics
• Political Science
• Psychology
• Russian
• Serbocroatian (Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian)
• Scandinavian Studies
• Semitic Philology
• Sports Science
• Statistics
• The Study of Religion
• Theology

[edit] Partner Universities

• Ernst Moritz Arndt University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany
• member of the Coimbra Group

[edit] Campus

The campus master plan competition was won in 1931 by the collaborative scheme of famous Danish architects, Kay Fisker, C.F. Møller, and Poul Stegmann with landscape architect C. Th. Sørensen. The design hosts a wide variety of buildings over a large space that is all unified through scale and material. Each building is composed of the same yellow brick and roofing tile. Construction commenced in 1932 and has continued into the 1990s. C.F. Møller and his company continued alone on the campus after 1942.

[edit] External link

• University of Aarhus