University of Berne
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The University of Berne is a university in the Swiss capital of Berne. It was founded in 1834. As one of the German-speaking universities in Switzerland, its official name is Universität Bern, although it is frequently referred to in the French form, Université de Berne. The university is regulated and financed by the Canton of Berne.
[edit] Departments
At the moment, the University has an enrollment of roughly 13,000 students, studying in seven different faculties:
- Christian Theology: Reformed denomination and Old Catholic denomination
- Law
- Medicine
- Veterinary Medicine
- Economics and Social Studies
- Philosophic-historical Studies
- Philosophic-scientific Studies
- Philosophic-humanistic Studies
The Philosophical-Historical Faculty is similar to the Arts & Sciences departments at American universities, with majors (Hauptfächer) in a variety of languages, history, linguistics, economics, philosophy, psychology, etc. The Philosophical-Scientific Faculty is restricted to the "hard" sciences, like chemistry or physics. The philosophic-Humanistic Faculty was founded 2005 and allows studies in Education, Sports and psychological studies. The department of Old Catholic Theology at the Faculty of Theology is the only place in the world to study theology in this kind of denomination.
The Faculty of Theology has the lowest number of students, while the Philosophical-Historical Faculty has the most students.
The University buildings are distributed throughout Bern, but most center around Länggass street, an area immediately northwest of the city center. An elevator from the main train station provides access to the terrace directly in front of the main administration building. The University as well as the City and the Canton of Berne have won many prices for their intelligent, ecological and sustainable application of old buildings. For instance, the Faculty of Theology and parts of the Philosophic-Historical Faculty now use an old chocolate factory as their main building (the so called "Unitobler") and in 2005 the old women's hospital was rebuilt as a university centre ("UniS").
