Goethe University Frankfurt
| Goethe University Frankfurt am Main | |
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| Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main | |
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| Established | 1912/1914 |
| Type | Public |
| Rector | Prof. Werner Müller-Esterl |
| Academic staff | 535 (2009) [1] |
| Students | 38.000 (4100 International students) (2009) [1] |
| Location |  Frankfurt am Main, Germany |
| Website | www.uni-frankfurt.de |
The Goethe University Frankfurt (or Frankfurt University)[2] was founded in 1914 as a Citizens' University, which means that while it was a State university of Prussia, it had been founded and financed by the wealthy and active liberal citizenry of Frankfurt am Main, a unique feature in German university history. It was named in 1932 after one of the most famous natives of Frankfurt, poet and writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Today, the university has 38.000 students.
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Organization
The university is located on four campuses in Frankfurt am Main:
- Campus Bockenheim: Social sciences, Pedagogy, Psychology, Mathematics, Computer science, Human geography
- Campus Riedberg: Pharmacy, Physics, Chemistry, Biochemistry, Geosciences and Geography
- Campus Westend: Theology, Philosophy, History, Philology, Archaeology, Jurisprudence, Economics and Business Administration
- Campus Niederrad: Medical science, Dentistry, University hospital
Other facilities include the university sports complex on Ginnheimer Landstraße in Frankfurt-Bockenheim, the Bio Campus which houses the Botanic Garden of Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Main at the Palmengarten in Frankfurt, and Art history in Frankfurt-Hausen.
History
The University of Frankfurt has at times been considered liberal, or left-leaning, and has had a reputation for Jewish and Marxist scholarship (or even Jewish-Marxist). Thus, during Nazi times, "almost one third of its academics and many of its students were dismissed for racial and/or political reasons—more than at any other German university." (University homepage) It also played a major part of the German student riots of 1968.
The University of Frankfurt is historically best known for the Institute for Social Research (founded 1924), institutional home of the Frankfurt School, an important 20th century schools of philosophy and social thought. Some of the most famous University of Frankfurt scholars are associated with this school, including Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer, and Jürgen Habermas, as well as Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm, and Walter Benjamin. Others include the sociologist Karl Mannheim, the philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer, the philosophers of religion Franz Rosenzweig, Martin Buber, and Paul Tillich, the psychologist Max Wertheimer, and the sociologist Norbert Elias.
In recent years the University turned its attention especially to law, history and economics, creating new institutes like the Institute for Law and Finance (ILF) and the Center of Financial Studies (CFS). One of the university's ambitions is to become Germany's leading university for finance and economics, given the school's proximity to one of Europe's financial centers.[3] Therefore Frankfurt University’s Goethe Business School developed a new M.B.A. program in cooperation with Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, and has established an international award for research in financial economics, the Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics.
Notable faculty
- Paul Ehrlich Nobel Prize Winner 1908
- Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969), double Ordinarius of philosophy and sociology and member of the Frankfurt School
- Walter Hallstein (1901–1982), first President of the European Commission
- Boudewijn Sirks, Professor of the History of Ancient Law from 1997 to 2005, later Regius Professor of Civil Law at Oxford
- Max Born Theoretical Physicist and Mathematician (Nobel Prize 1954)
- Hans Bethe Theoretical Physicist (Nobel Prize 1967)
- Horst Stöcker Theoretical Physicist
- Walter Gerlach Theoretical Physicist
Points of interest
- Botanischer Garten der Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main, a botanical garden