The story
Early developments
Initially, Aarhus University was founded on 11 September 1928 as Universitetsundervisningen i Jylland ("University Studies in Jutland") with a budget of 33,000 DKK, and an enrollment of 64 students, which rose to 78 during the first semester. The university was founded as a response to the increasing number of students at the University of Copenhagen after World War I. Classrooms were rented from the Technical College and the teaching corps consisted of one professor of philosophy and four associate professors of Danish, English, German and French. Along with the Universitets-Samvirket ("University Association") which consisted of representatives of Aarhus' businesses, organisations, and institutions, the municipality of Aarhus had fought since 1921 to have Denmark's next university located in the city.
In 1929, the municipality of Aarhus gave the university land with a landscape of rolling hills. The design of the university buildings and 12 ha campus area was assigned to architects C. F. Møller, Kay Fisker and Povl Stegmann, who won the architectural competition in 1931. Construction of the first buildings began a year later, but the campus was developed in stages and is still under development as of 2017. Since 1939, C. F. Møller Architects has been responsible for the architectural design of Aarhus University in accordance with the original functionalist design key, perhaps best exemplified by the characteristic yellow brick and tile.
The first buildings were finished in 1933 and housed the Departments of Chemistry, Physics and Anatomy. These departments later moved to newer buildings at the campus and the original building complex now house Department of Psychology and Department of Political Science. The construction of the first stage was funded solely by donations which totaled 935,000 Dkr and the buildings covered an area of 4,190m2. One of the most generous contributors to the first stage was De Forenede Teglværker i Aarhus ("The United Tileworks of Aarhus") led by director K. Nymark. Forenede Teglværker decided to donate 1 million yellow bricks and tiles worth c. 50,000 Dkr and later decided to extend the donation to all bricks needed. The inauguration on 11 September 1933, marked the first official use of the name Aarhus University and was celebrated in a tent on campus, attended by King Christian X, Queen Alexandrine, their son Crown Prince Frederik and Prime Minister Stauning together with 1000 invited guests. On 23 April 1934, Aarhus University was given permission to hold examinations by the king and on 10 October 1935, Professor Dr. phil. Ernst Frandsen was appointed the first rector of the university.
Shortages of materials and a stressed economy postponed and delayed further development of Aarhus University. In 1941, construction of the Main Building (Hovedbygningen) commenced, a complex to house the university aula (assembly hall) and canteen among academic and administrative purposes. The stringent minimalist and uncompromising functionalistic design of the first university buildings from 1933 had stirred some local dissatisfaction and it was decided that the Main Building should possess more traditional romantic and classical architectural inspirations - although in agreement with the original architectural plan - and also make use of more lavish and expensive materials. The Main Building was finished in 1946 and still stands out from the rest of the university campus as somewhat different in its architectural design.
In comparison with the original 4,190m2 floor space of the first buildings, Aarhus University now holds a floor space of 246,000m2 in the University Park alone. A series of buildings outside the main campus adds an additional floor space of 59,000m2.
Faculties
From 1928, Aarhus University offered courses in languages and philosophy, but the students were unable to finish their studies without going to the University of Copenhagen for their final examinations. By request of the Ministry of Education, the Teachers' Association made a draft of how to conduct the final examinations in the humanistic subjects in Aarhus and in the draft, the association proposed that the faculty was named the Faculty of Humanities by analogy with the corresponding faculties in Uppsala, Lund and Turku. After negotiations between the faculties in Aarhus and Copenhagen, the king declared on 8 May 1935 that the final university examinations could be held at the Faculty of Philosophy in Copenhagen as well as at the Faculty of Humanities in Aarhus. This was the first final examinations Aarhus University was allowed to hold, but on 24 July 1936 the king granted the Faculty of Humanities the right to hold examinations for the magister degree and in 1940 for the PhD.
Aarhus University had offered courses in basic medical subjects from 1933 and on 10 October 1935 the Faculty of Medicine was formally established. The establishment of a Faculty of Medicine in Aarhus was met with some opposition from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Copenhagen. The professors thought that the state should not establish a new faculty until the shortcomings of the old one had been solved. In the end, the professors agreed to sign a recommendation for the new faculty as long as improvements to the old one were not delayed. By 1953, the Faculty of Medicine had been fully built, complete with lectures, professorship chairs, final exams, research facilities and the hospitals of Aarhus had been expanded to meet the demands of clinical training. In 1992, the Faculty of Medicine merged with the dental school and changed its name to Faculty of Health Sciences. Later, in 1998, the new faculty emphasized clinical training for students of the third semester who have frequented one year of anatomy and cell biology, and introduced a new not assessed curriculum of pre-clinical skills laboratory (two hours per week for nine weeks) followed by two weeks of social medicine and an eight-week clinical clerkship at county hospitals.
The university established its Faculty of Economics and Law in 1936, but when it offered courses in political science and in psychology (1959 and 1968, respectively), the faculty changed its name to the Faculty of Social Sciences. The faculty had to be funded solely on private donations and once the university demonstrated it had the needed financial means, the Minister of Education recommended the Finance Committee to approve the establishment of the faculty on 27 January 1936 since the state did not have to grant financial support. The Committee approved and by declaration of the king on 5 November 1937, the faculty could hold examinations in economics and law.
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Courses had been offered in theology since 1932 at the Faculty of Humanities, but in 1942 the Faculty of Theology was formally established. Already on 22 June 1928, Reverend Balslev of Aarhus had proposed that Universitetsundervisningen i Aarhus (not yet university) taught basic courses in theology. Though the proposal was greeted by the management, the Faculty of Theology in Copenhagen pointed out that it would take three full-time teachers of the New Testament, Old Testament and ecclesiastical history, respectively as well as education in Latin, Greek and Hebrew by the Faculty of Humanities. At this time, Universitetsundervisningen i Aarhus did not have the financial means to meet these criteria so the case was shelved for the time being. In April 1931, the case reopened, this time by Bishop Skat Hoffmeyer who proposed free teaching in the required subjects. The management asked the faculty in Copenhagen if this was acceptable, but because the teaching was free, the faculty saw it as tutoring rather than actual teaching and they neither approved or disproved of such an approach though they did not see it as actual university teaching. The municipality of Aarhus did not aid with funds and the management deemed a request of the state to be futile so they decided to disregard getting the teaching approved and start it anyway under the supervision of Skat Hoffmeyer. On 5 September 1932 the Reverend Asmund held the first lecture in theology. This private education in theology continued until the university could hire its own professors in 1938, and in 1942 Aarhus University could at long last establish the Faculty of Theology. The Aarhus New University Hospital shares Masonic architectural elements related to its history of seat of the Danish Order of Freemasons.
Main Building and World War II
In 1938, the university management acknowledged it was time to consider an expansion due to lack of space and overcrowding of the auditoriums. The solution was the Main Building (Hovedbygningen), containing both rooms and facilities for new academic areas, as well as housing for the general administration, an assembly hall and a canteen. The building was to be organized according to a principle of institutes so that teaching and research took place in certain rooms with their own library and study for the professor.
The construction of the building took place during the German occupation of Denmark (1940–45) in World War II, which affected the process in more than one way. No state funds had been involved in the construction of the first university building and a second building for physiology, biochemistry, and a high voltage laboratory, but because the Nazis were against civil use of materials and work forces, the state contributed to the main building. In 1943, the Gestapo, Sicherheitsdienst, Geheime Feldpolizei and Abwehr set up their regional headquarters in the five student halls of residence on campus. Fearing that the same would happen to the new main building, its completion was delayed. C. F. Møller later wrote that for once there was plenty of time to work on the details of the building, like patterned brickwork, acoustic screens and furniture. Furniture designer Aage Windeleff, designed the furniture specially for the main building, while Børge Mogensen's industrially produced furniture designs are the most commonly used elsewhere on campus.
The presence of the Gestapo in Aarhus led to multiple arrests of Danish resistance fighters and the resistance movement soon realized they needed outside assistance. On 15 October, the leader of the illegal Danish underground army in Jutland, Niels Bennike, sent the following telegram to London:
Undergrunden i Jyland ved at blive revet op af Gestapo. Vigtigere at få ødelagt arkiver og bevare vore folk end at bevare arkiver og få ødelagt vore folk. Jeg beder indtrængende om, at kollegium 4 og 5, gentager 4 og 5, må blive ødelagt ved luftangreb. Det er de to vestligste, gentager vestligste, bygninger i universitetskomplekset. Haster, gentager haster.
("Underground in Jutland getting torn up by the Gestapo. More important to get the archives destroyed and save our people than getting our people destroyed and save the archives. I implore that residence hall 4 and 5, repeat 4 and 5, be destroyed by air strike. They are the two farthest to the west, repeat farthest to the west, buildings of the university complex. Urgent, repeat urgent.")
On 31 October 1944, the Royal Air Force bombed the Gestapo's headquarters in residence halls 4 and 5, also killing ten civilian workers. 2 Group Bomber Command carried out the bombing by using 25 Mosquito planes. The air strike on the University of Aarhus took place in a heavily populated area and the campus was surrounded by three hospitals. To avoid civilian casualties, the RAF prepared with a model of the campus, shooting at residence halls 4 and 5 with chalk bags. The architect C. F. Møller was in the main building during the air strike but survived and was later dug free from the rubble. The reconstructed main building opened on 11 September 1946.
Since 1970
Aarhus University was an independent institution until 1970, but with management representatives from the city council and the organization of Universitets-Samvirket. Hereafter, the university became a state-run institution under the first University Act. With the next University Act in 1992, external organizations were once again represented in the administration and under the 2003 Act, all Danish universities are governed by a nationwide university board. This board appoints the rector, deans and heads of departments instead of the students. It commenced in January 2004 for the first time and in August 2005, a new rector was appointed.
Earlier, in 1994, the university was a scene of a shooting; three people (including the perpetrator) were killed and two more were injured.
Aarhus University has hosted significant musical events. The Grateful Dead played there on April 16, 1972; the recorded performance was part of the group's Europe '72 tour.
In the 21st century, several higher education institutions have been merged with Aarhus University. Following the Danish University reform of 2006, AU merged with the Business and Engineering School in Herning (now part of faculty of Business and Social Science) and the Danish School of Education in Copenhagen (now part of Faculty of Arts), making the university nationwide and adding 6,000 students. In 2007, the National Environmental Research Institute (NERI), until then part of the Ministry of Environment and Energy, and the Danish Institute of Agricultural Sciences (DJF), until then part of the Ministry of Agriculture, were merged into AU. The two institutions initially formed separate faculties, which later merged with the Faculty of Science to form the Faculty of Science and Technology.
In 2012, Aarhus University's School of Engineering was merged with the university proper, making it Denmark's largest.
A major reorganisation of the university effective 1 Jan 2011 reorganised departments into four faculties: Arts, Science and Technology, Health, and Business and Social Sciences. A further reorganisation occurred effective 1 Jan 2020, where Science and Technology was split into two new entities: Faculty of Technical Sciences and Faculty of Natural Sciences.
From Wikipedia’s article on Aarhus University, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5