Education Minister Jens Byskov and a host of other dignitaries were in attendance when the first chapter in the history of The University of Aarhus was written with the inauguration of "University Studies in Jutland" on the 11th September 1928. The inauguration ceremony was held in the flower-bedecked ballroom of Aarhus Technical College, while flags were raised throughout the city, and schoolchildren had a half-day holiday in honour of this epoch-making event.
Aarhus Municipality had made available a budget of 33,000 kroner for the first year, classrooms had been booked in Aarhus Technical College in the centre of Aarhus at a nominal rent, and a teaching force consisting of a professor of philosophy and four senior associate professors, one each for Danish, German, English and French respectively, had been appointed. By the day of the inauguration, 64 students had signed up for study. In the course of the first semester that number rose to 78.
 The first edition of the university's yearbook - Acta Jutlandica - was published the year after the university's inauguration. In addition to a detailed annual report it also included two academic articles. With this, the fledgling university loudly proclaimed its level of ambition. At the end of the 1950's, it was decided to publish the yearbook separately from Acta Jutlandica, which today exclusively publishes academic papers. |
A long battle had preceded these first steps in Aarhus. Now and again, over a period of several centuries, plans and ideas for the establishment of a university in Jutland would be proposed. Viborg had been a strong contender since the 1720's, and 200 years later came to the fore again alongside Sønderborg, which had been German since 1864 and had only returned to Denmark in 1920. Kolding was also in the picture. The real contest between these cities kicked off when the Ministry of Education appointed a Commission on Universities in 1919.
This commission had been given the task of investigating whether Denmark needed another university; if so, where this should be located; and how, in that case, it should be organised, ie: which subject areas should be represented. In an attempt to influence the outcome, each of the cities involved put their propoganda machinery into full swing in order to promote their own excellence.
It was in this context that a broad cross-section of citizens from the city's business community, organisations and institutions joined forces in 1921 to form the organisation "Aarhus University Association", which, together with Aarhus Municipality, became the driving force behind the campaign to ensure that Denmark's second university should be in Aarhus. Aarhus set about the task with great thoroughness, building up scholarly collections, establishing academic associations, and ensuring that the Municipal Hospital was brought up to such a standard that it was the best in the province.
The afore-mentioned commission sat for all of six years before finally making its report in the autumn of 1925. This suggested that there was a real need to take pressure off Copenhagen University; a large majority of the members favoured Aarhus as the best-equipped to become a university city; and an operational plan was produced that could act as a starting point. Not least, weight was given to the significance of a "Business Faculty".
 Aarhus University Association's fund-raising activities for the establishment of a university took place on many levels. The city's more prosperous citizens could individually subscribe 10,000 kroner (the equivalent of a full year's salary for a professor) and a number did so, but anyone could join in, for example by buying this postcard that was on sale, without profit to the seller, in all of Jutland's bookshops and also in the schools in the counties of Aarhus and Skanderborg. The price was 25 øre. (University History Committee). |
At this point the government discovered that the treasury lacked the funds necessary to set up a new university, not even for such a comparatively modest beginning with only a few buildings and a small number of subjects.
Despite a succession of vain attempts to persuade the government that there was a great deal of generosity to be found in Aarhus (for example, a million kroner bursary for the future university's students, and a sizeable sum that had been collected in contributions towards university buildings), it was like banging one's head against a brick wall, until, in the summer and autumn of 1927 a strategy was formulated which proved to be the one that would carry the project through. The proposal was made to start on a small scale, which meant dropping the demand for medical education departments with expensive equipment and machinery that would also generate high overheads. No, if the right to hold examinations in Propaedeutic Philosophy (the first-year examen philosophicum - oral examination in Philosophy) could be granted, then the philosophy teaching might be supplemented by a little language teaching which could be conducted in rented accommodation. Then Aarhus Municipality offered to pay the teachers' salaries. The government wouldn't have to put its hand in its pocket at all.
 The businessman Christian Filtenborg (1852-1919) bequeathed a very large sum in his will, which was earmarked to fund scholarships at an eventual university. (University History Committee). |
On this understanding, the government was able to take a somewhat different view of the case than hitherto, even though misgivings about the proposal were being expressed in circles at Copenhagen University. To cut a long story short, in April 1928 a Royal Decree was proclaimed granting the right to conduct examinations in Propaedeutic Philosophy for a three-year trial period, while also making it possible to start introductory university courses in the language subjects of Danish, English, German and French. It was stressed that the whole operation should place no burden on government funds.
So the process began, posts were advertised, negotiations were conducted with Copenhagen University on the screening of applicants for teaching appointments, a new building was bought as a student hall of residence, and rooms were hired for teaching.
From the university's beginning in September 1928, Aarhus University Association had the job of sitting on the University Board, alongside representatives of the Municipality and a representative of the university teachers. However, equally important was the organisation's task of raising funds for the construction of university buildings on the site which, in 1929, the Municipality had donated for the future University Park.
The three-year trial period (1928-1931) passed off satisfactorily; though not without the accompaniment of sniping comments from representatives of Sønderborg and Viborg. These towns remorselessly stressed that this was no more than a trial period; that it was not to be regarded as a proper university, but only a "university level education", etc. etc. So the university battle was certainly not at an end with the inauguration of "University Education in Jutland".
 Master's student Henning Henningsen (born 1911) captured by a street photographer in Guldsmedgade in February 1931. The Upper Secondary School graduation cap was worn throughout the freshman year at that time - the white cap in summer and the black in the winter. (University History Committee). |
The facts that in 1929 Aarhus Municipality had handed over a site for the future University Park to the University Association, and that this association had not only made plans for a preparatory medical education, but had also collected funds for the first university building, were hardly insignificant in affecting The University Act of 1931.
With this law, it was definitively laid down that the state would be willing to financially support the running costs of the university on condition that the Aarhus University Association financed the construction of university buildings. And that was the way things were for many years. Up until the 1940's the university's buildings were all constructed exclusively by privately-raised contributions. As a result of the 1931 Act, the state financed the lion's share of running costs from 1932 onwards. It was also a natural result of this Act, putting a stop, as it did, to all further talk about Viborg, Sønderborg and Kolding, that an architecture competition was immediately launched. This was won by the architects Kay Fisker, C F Møller and Povl Stegmann.
Before around a thousand invited guests gathered in a huge tent, King Christian X inaugurated the first university building with the following words: "In the desire that the academic research to be conducted here shall be conducted in spirit and in truth, I hereby inaugurate The University of Aarhus". This was on the 11th September 1933, and the institution has borne this name ever since.
Incidentally, His Majesty's enthusiasm for the modern university building's rather functionalist style was not unqualified, and he recommended the architect C F Møller to seek inspiration in the architecture of Danish manor houses.
 Sheep grazing in front of the university's first building, viewed from the south-east in 1934. The building had been inaugurated in September of the previous year, and was the first to result from the architectural competition launched in 1931, which was won by Kay Fisker, C F Møller and Povl Stegmann. In May 1934 the city's head gardener imported twenty sheep from Nymindegab to keep the grass down on the university lawns. However, this idea did not last long for various reasons, and the animals had to be removed. Today the building houses parts of the School of Law. (Photographer unknown. University History Committee). |
Arts education had begun in the autumn of 1928 with Philosophy, Danish, English, German and French, and during the following years a number of other subjects were added, including History, Classical Philology, Slavonic Studies, and Linguistics, while the Department of Jutland Dialects and Culture was established in 1932.
In 1934, the senior associate professors were promoted to professors with the authority to conduct examinations, and in 1935-36 the first Masters of Arts graduates passed out of the University of Aarhus. From 1936 it was possible to take the degree of magister scientiarium within the faculty, and from 1940 there was the further possibility of defending a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
By the time of the university's 25th Anniversary in 1953, a long list of other subjects had arrived, such as Comparative Literature, Classical Archaeology, Prehistoric Archaeology and Music, and in the following decades the range of subjects was expanded further with Art History, Western Scandinavian Studies, Medieval Archaeology, History of Ideas, and Dramaturgy.
Some subjects were initially introduced in the Faculty of Arts, but later moved into other faculties as these were established.
In 1973 the faculty's interdisciplinary programme was introduced in the wake of the student unrest and criticism of the single-subject system. Since the 1980's a number of centres within the faculty have seen the light of day, and in the 1990's the subjects of Music, Dramaturgy, Comparative Literature and Art History have been located together with a common library under the title of "The Aesthetic Subjects". Modern Languages were also relocated and furnished with a common library after moving to Nobel Park in 1999.
The Collection of Ancient Art, located under the main building's "Sun Courtyard", has close ties with the faculty, in that it is the result of an expansion of the university's classical archaeology study collection, which was established in 1951, two years after Classical Archaeology had been introduced as a subject.
 Over the years, many renowned academics have been associated with the University of Aarhus, such as Louis Hjelmslev, dr.phil. (1899-1965), who was engaged as a senior associate professor in Comparative Language Studies from 1934 to 1937 and held office as Dean of the Faculty of Arts from 1935 to 1936. Hjelmslev can be seen here (right), in 1936, in his apartment in Aarhus together with the linguist H J Uldall (1907-1957), with whom he collaborated closely in formulating the Glossematic Theory of Language. (Photographer unknown. University History Committee). |
By setting up "The Medical Reading Room in Aarhus" (1898) and establishing the Jutland Medical Society (1913), the hospital doctors in Aarhus had already paved the way for creating a medical community in the city that could form a basis for a university, and several of the proposals for the establishment of a university were built upon this groundwork. As early as 1902, a Copenhagen bacteriologist came forward with a proposal for setting up a "school for doctors" in Aarhus as the first step towards a university. Briefly, the plan involved allowing medical students in the second half of their studies at Copenhagen University to undertake their clinical education in hospitals in Aarhus. For a number of reasons nothing came of the proposal, but it did provide the impetus for a later plan, launched in 1926, involving relatively inexpensive clinical practice education as the spearhead for the eventual establishment of a university. The Ministry of Education did not take a negative view of the plan, but along with a number of other factors, a change of government prevented this plan from coming to fruition.
As far back as 1911 "Holiday Courses for Mature Medical Students" had been held in Aarhus. Each year in June, a dozen medical students from Copenhagen University would come to Aarhus and participate in courses at the hospitals and clinics. The courses covered internal medicine, surgery, obstetrics, forensic medicine, radiology, community medicine, as well as eye and ear illnesses, and they proved to be so popular that from 1924 they were also held in January. Professor Richard Malmros, dr.med. (1905-2000), many years later recalled his own participation in a summer course in 1930, stating that the great attraction had been the opportunity of revising the entire examination syllabus in just one month.
The fact that they had to be pragmatic and make do with a handful of arts subjects when the university first opened in 1928 was the source of some disappointment amongst the medical directors who had been in the front line of the battle for a university in Aarhus, but they acknowledged that, in the circumstances, this was the only way to get a university off the ground, and from here it could be built up step by step. One of these steps was provided by the 1931 University Act, which gave the green light for the first new university building. That which was to be equipped first and foremost for medical teaching.
In 1933 the Faculty of Medicine, as it was then called, began its first Introductory Year teaching in foundation medical subjects. The faculty, which was formally constituted in 1935, achieved full status in 1953. During the period from 1933 to 1953 students had been gradually able to take more and more of the course examinations within the faculty, but it only first became possible to also take the final examinations in Aarhus in 1953. The first defence of a thesis in the faculty occurred in 1952, at which time no less than 42% of the university's total of 1,750 students were registered within the Faculty of Medicine.
At the start of the 1950's, an exploration of cell membranes was conducted in the Department of Physiology; many years later, in 1997, this led to Jens Chr. Skou, dr.med., receiving the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his discovery of The Sodium-Potassium Pump.
In 1992 the Faculty of Medicine was merged with the previously independent higher education establishment, Aarhus Dental High School, whereupon the faculty changed its name to the Faculty of Health Sciences. In 2000 the Health Sciences Library and Teaching Centre was established in the former Jutland State Maternity Home. The home was then renamed as the Victor Albeck Building, after the maternity home's first medical director, who is particularly remembered for his role as a university campaigner and founder. Victor Albeck (1869-1933) was chairman of the University Association from 1926 to 1933 and chairman of the University Board from 1928 to 1933.
A close relationship has existed with all the city's hospitals throughout the years. Not only clinical teaching, but research also is undertaken on a major scale within the walls of the University Hospital. At the beginning of a new millennium, researchers in the faculty's bio- and community medicine departments, together with the clinical departments at Aarhus University Hospital, are publishing more than 1,000 academic articles per year.
A History of Medicine collection found a home in the medical director's residence at the maternity home in 1983, which functioned as the History of Medicine Museum until the beginning of the 1990's when the collection was moved into the Steno Museum.
 When the departmental building shared by Physiology and Biochemistry became too cramped, a new Department of Biochemistry was built in the 1960's. At the 'topping-out' ceremony on the 20th March 1965 are the university architect C F Møller (left), and the rector, Erling Hammershaimb. (Photo: Carl Zimmermann-Nielsen. University History Committee). |
 Medical students participating in chemistry practicals 1947-1948. Between Lise Jessen (far left) and Gerda Florian Sørensen are Erik Brandt (standing) and Folmer Petersen. (University History Committee). |
The faculty was founded in 1936 under the name of the Faculty of Economics and Law. Even before 1920, local business people had time after time expressed the desire for a "Faculty of Commerce", or a "Business Faculty" where the future managers for business and other organisations could be educated. The local magnates, who had donated very significant sums for the university's buildings, were not entirely impressed that the setting up of such a faculty was such a long drawn-out process. However, finally in 1934 once medical teaching had started, the University Association was able to appoint a sub-committee to examine the case. After a couple of years in preparation, a faculty was established, with the Economics Department temporarily based in a building in the harbour area, made available by Aarhus Oil Mill, while Law teaching was actually lodged in the university's own building, where Medical and the Arts subjects were already in residence.
After the years of the German Occupation, both subjects moved into the new Main Building along Nordre Ringgade. While the Economics course of studies was granted full rights of examination from the very beginning, Law studies were confined to the right to offer Part 1 exams only. It was a few years before it became possible to sit Law finals within the faculty. The Department of Economics has supplied a host of managers for the business world and other organisations both in Denmark and abroad, and, since the arrival of Political Sciences in 1959, the faculty as a whole can count amongst its graduates many who later became government ministers.
Following the addition of Psychology to the faculty's establishment of subjects in 1968, the name was changed to the Faculty of Social Sciences. Political Sciences, a completely new subject with no equivalent at Copenhagen University, occupied a wooden building "Statskassen" (The Treasury) north of Aarhus Municipal Hospital. Psychology was housed within the Psychiatric Hospital until 1971, when the subject moved into a temporary building in the suburb of Risskov. At the beginning of the new millennium, Psychology is moving into Nobel Park, while other Social Science subjects are taking over part of the building that runs around the University Park's north eastern corner.
 When the rector invited professors and their wives to a function at the university, evening dress was a must. The picture stems from the period when Professor Ad. Stender-Petersen was rector from 1945-1947. From left to right are: Mrs Kjeld Philip (alias Grethe Philip, the first female cand.oecon. from the University of Aarhus, later government minister's wife and member of parliament), Professor Jens Holt, Stender-Petersen with the rector's chain of office, Professor Heinrich Bach, Mrs Inger Bach, and the newly appointed Professor Erik Strömgren, Medical Director. (Photographer unknown. University History Committee). |
As early as 1928, 14 years before the foundation of the Faculty of Theology, there were a number of students who had registered for Theology as their course of study. They received tuition in Hebrew and Elementary Greek from local people with the appropriate abilities (a secondary school master and a librarian from the State Library) and otherwise followed the course of study for Propaedeutic Philosophy. There was no question of a theological education in the proper sense. A private education in Theology was established four years later, led by the Dean of the Diocese and employing learned local priests as teachers. Teaching was financed by three local savings banks and took place in university classrooms. The students had to sit their exams in Copenhagen, with all the problems that this entailed, such as having no previous acquaintance with the examiners. Demand grew for the establishment of a proper, fully-approved course with examination rights, until 1938's successful persuasion of the government to finance a Senior Associate Professorship in Hebrew. At the same time, the right was granted, but not the funds, to appoint a Professor of New Testament Exegesis. Aarhus Municipality stepped in with the necessary funds (until the state took over in 1941), and the two subjects were introduced within the Faculty of Arts. A vacancy for the Senior Associate Professor in Hebrew's post provided the opportunity to redesignate the post as Senior Associate Professor in Old Testament Exegesis, and when this was filled in 1942, the two theological teachers constituted the Faculty of Theology. At this point there were 70 students of Theology at the university, and the faculty grew quite quickly from that time, making it possible to take the full final examinations in Theology for the priesthood. In 1947 the faculty conferred its first doctoral degree.
From the end of the 1930's until the new main building on Nordre Ringgade was ready for occupation, Theology held court in the basement of a departmental building that had been newly built for the subjects of Physiology and Biochemistry (commonly known as "Fy and Bi"). Here the Theological Library was set up, which also functioned as the Theological Lecture Theatre. It was also here that the first Theological final examinations were held in circumstances of deepest secrecy in the winter of 1944/45. (During an examination elsewhere in the city shortly before this, a law student was liquidated by the Danish Resistance Movement, and there were fears of reprisals). In 1999, after half a century's residence in the main building, the whole faculty moved into new premises on the northern side of Nordre Ringgade in renovated buildings which had been home to the Orthopaedic Hospital since 1938. A lecture theatre building has been built on the same site, primarily for the use of theologists.
 Theology students deep in study, ca. 1942, in the basement area allocated to Theology in the Department of Physiology and Biochemistry. (Photographer unknown. University History Committee). |
In 1908, 40 years before the foundation of the Faculty of Science, a private German astronomer offered to donate his expensive astronomical equipment to Aarhus Municipality if the council would, in return, build an observatory where he himself could be director. The offer was accepted, and three years later, in 1911, in his inaugural speech for the new observatory, the city's mayor was able to mention that this was, perhaps, a small step towards a university in Aarhus. The observatory, which stands on high ground near Marselisborg Palace in the south of Aarhus, was designed by the architect Anton Rosen and named after the renowned Aarhus scientist Ole Rømer (1644-1710).
In the years around 1920, that is before the foundation of the University Association, great efforts were being made in Aarhus to build up a scientific milieu in the city. It was in this connection that a factory director, who was also a strong university supporter, made funds available for the purchase abroad of large collections of natural history specimens with a view to establishing scientific collections for study. Together with those smaller collections which already existed in the city, the new items, not least the zoological and mineral specimens, came to constitute the nucleus of the Museum of Natural History which was set up on the upper floor of the newly built school in Læssøesgade in 1921, and which got its own building some twenty years later, in a beautiful spot beside the lake in University Park.
The fact that the setting up of the Faculty of Science dragged on until 1954 (when the University of Aarhus had celebrated its 25th Anniversary in the previous year) was primarily due to the government's unwillingness to subsidise the development of more than one major faculty at a time. By 1953, the Faculty of Medicine was in full flow, so the following year it became possible to take on the establishment of yet another faculty. Three of the four subjects which would come to constitute the faculty in 1954 were already running at the University of Aarhus; Physics and Chemistry had constituted the foundation introductory subjects within the Faculty of Medicine since 1933, and Geography had been introduced within the Faculty of Arts in 1943. These three subjects were now supplemented by Mathematics, for which subject a new building was erected. The Department of Mathematics, which was built as an extension to the first University building from 1933, very soon became too small, and it was necessary to construct a new building. Naturally, this was also the case for Physics, Chemistry and Geography, which had all expanded quite quickly in terms of student numbers and subject areas. The foundation of the faculty also meant that Physics and Chemistry, while naturally retaining their roles within the medical studies area, were no longer exclusively "service subjects", but independent research and teaching subjects. In 1956, two years after the faculty was set up, the Municipality handed over the Ole Rømer Observatory to the Faculty of Science, and in the following year a professorship in Astronomy was introduced. A string of further subjects were later introduced, such as Geology, Biology, together with History of Science, Computer Science and, most recently, Sports Sciences. Following the end of admissions to the Geography course in 1985, the winding down of the Department of Geography began.
Of the museums in University Park, it is not only the Museum of Natural History that has a close working-relationship with the faculty (particularly through Zoology); the same applies to The Steno Museum - The Danish Museum of the History of Science and Medicine - which originally (as far as the museum's History of Science material is concerned) developed from the collection which had been founded in the Physics Department as far back as 1956, and as a consequence of which the department now bearing the name of The History of Science Department was introduced. The Steno Museum was opened to the public in 1994. In addition to the museums, there is also the Institute of Biological Sciences' 2,000 square metres of greenhouses in the Botanical Gardens, which anyone is welcome to visit during opening hours. In these five greenhouses, built during 1970-71, there is the opportunity to study no less than 4,000 different types of sub-tropical and tropical plants.
 Before the Faculty of Science was established in 1954, Physics and Chemistry had been part of the Faculty of Medicine, but now these subjects moved into the new faculty, and in 1956 Physics and Chemistry began to be taught as distinct subjects in their own right. From the first Physics class, the students seen working on a practical experiment are (from left to right): Poul Thomsen, Johannes Wilhjelm and Preben Østergaard Sørensen. (Photo: Knud Maack Bisgård. University History Committee). |
The University of Aarhus operated as an independent institution up to 1970, when (under the first Higher Education Act) it became a state-owned Institute of Higher Education. As a consequence, the University Association and the Municipality both dropped out of the university's governing body. Nevertheless, even as a state institution, the university continues to work in close co-operation with the city authorities, business community and other institutions, of which Aarhus Science Park is a fine example. With the Universities Act of 1992, circles outside of the university again gained representation within the governing body. According to the Universities Act of 2003, the universities are governed by a university board. Rector, deans and heads of department are no longer elected by staff and students, but appointed by the board. The board commenced in January 2004 and appointed a rector in August 2005.
 Student unrest. Demokraten. 23rd February 1969. (University History Committee). |
 After four years as rector and pro-rector respectively, Professor Søren Sørensen (1920-2001) (left) and Professor Sigvard Kaae (1913-2001) took their leave of the university's administration on the 1st June 1971. (University History Committee). |
The buildings of The University of Aarhus are located within and fringing the University Park, which has expanded somewhat over the years. The first building to be finished in 1933 stands on a projecting promontory on the eastern edge of the natural hollow, and today houses a number of the Social Science subjects.
With only slight modifications, the architectural style in the University Park has been sustained since the time when the architects Kay Fisker, C F Møller and Povl Stegmann won the architecture competition launched in 1931. Since 1939 C F Møller's has been responsible for building projects. The harmonious balance between the undulating park and the homogeneous style of building creates a beautiful campus that has achieved international renown.
The characteristic yellow-brick buildings in the University Park have a total floor area of 246,000 square metres. In addition to this, the university occupies a number of buildings outside of the park with a further floor area of 59,000 square metres.
A new building housing five lecture theatres was opened in 2001. The walls and ceilings inside the building feature a major painting by the artist Per Kirkeby.
 The University of Aarhus viewed from the east, ca. 1953. |
A very important priority for the university's founders was that Aarhus should seek to establish a "residential institution", which was interpreted as students from outside of Aarhus being guaranteed a room in a hall of residence at the university and thereby enjoying both the security of the supervision of a resident warden, together with the stimulation of living with students from other subject areas. For this reason, the University Association had, in September 1928, already ensured that a new hall of residence would be ready to welcome 27 male students from outside of the city. The hall was called "Marselisborg Studentergaard" and was situated in what had formerly been the premises of an eye specialist on Marselis Tværvej, near Marselisborg Forest. From 1941 until the sale of the building in 1946, it functioned as a women's hall - apart from the period between November 1944 and May 1945 when it was commandeered by the German forces of occupation.
From 1935 and for the next quarter of a century, the University Association was able to use the funds that they had raised to build a total of nine halls of residence in the University Park, but even by the beginning of the 1950's it had to be acknowledged that only a quarter of the students moving into the city could be offered a room in one of the university's halls. Here it is worth mentioning that one of the key figures amongst the university's founders, the medical director Victor Albeck, dr.med., had speculated that at some point in the distant future the university might have a student population of 1,000 (there were fewer than 200 students on the university's books when Albeck died in 1933). The halls of residence in University Park are located on three sites, with three halls in each group. A warden's lodge stands alongside each of the three locations. The warden would have been a lecturer of the university, who, assisted by the porter, had the task of supervising the residents in the halls. The warden system was abolished in the 1970's. (Shortly before this, segregation of the sexes within the halls had also been abolished). The wardens' lodges still exist, but are now used for other purposes.
Conversely, five other houses for professors were pulled down at the beginning of the 1970's to make room for the building that runs around the north-eastern corner of the University Park. These professors' houses had been built by the University Association between 1933 and 1946 to provide living quarters for five professors and their households, including maids. The background for the building of these houses was primarily the idea (as expressed in the university report of 1925) that the university should "also be a close-knit world of its own, where the professors and the students both live alongside each other and carry on their daily activities together", but other factors would later come into consideration when a house became available for a new tenant, such as the particular professor's need to be constantly on hand to supervise experiments in the laboratories of departments within the University Park.
All five of the student halls of residence that existed at that time were commandeered by the Germans in the autumn of 1943 and established as the Gestapo Headquarters for Jutland. Around 250 students who had been living there went into private lodgings around the city. On the 31st October 1944, at the request of the Danish Resistance Movement in Jutland, the Royal Air Force carried out precision bombing of the headquartes, during which two of the halls of residence were reduced to rubble. These halls were rebuilt after the war.
 In the summer of 1943, the newspaper Demokraten published a series of profile interviews with female students at Marselisborg Studentergaard. On the 10th June it was the turn of law student, Karen Margrethe Brorson Fich. (University History Committee). |
 On the balcony of Hall of Residence 5, ca. 1948, are medical student Knud-Aage Bennike (left) and theology student Jens V. Gottlieb. (University History Committee). |
 The halls of residence after the RAF's bombing of Gestapo Headquarters on the 31st October 1944. (University History Committee). |
For three decades now, Prehistoric Archaeology, Medieval Archaeology and Ethnography have had premises in the former manor house of Moesgaard to the south of Aarhus, and since the middle of the 1970's a number of Arts subjects have been housed in the Trøjborg Complex.
The former military barracks on Langelandsgade has been home to the Aesthetic Subjects since 1998, and Modern Languages moved into newly constructed buildings in the Nobel Park on the corner of Randersvej and Nordre Ringgade in 1999. Here too can be found The Centre for European Cultural Studies with Department of Gender Research. The Centre for Cultural Research is based in the former Katrinebjerg Business Centre, together with the Centre for Semiotic Research. This is also where the Sports Science course, which was introduced in 1997, has now been given teaching accommodation, having originally been based at the Aarhus School of Engineering.
As mentioned earlier, in 2000 the Faculty of Theology moved out of the main building into the former Orthopaedic Hospital, while the former Maternity Home was reborn as a Health Sciences Library and Education Centre, under the name of the Victor Albeck Building. In the same year, the university inaugurated its new buildings in Åbogade as the IT Park. The IT Park has an area of 4,000 square metres, housing staff and students from the Department of Computer Science, the Department of Information and Media Science, together with representatives of the Aesthetic subjects. The Centre for IT Research, The Alexandra Institute Ltd., together with part of IT-Vest are also located in this complex. A total of 100 staff and 250 students work in the IT Park, and the plan is for it to eventually expand to be able to accommodate all of the university's IT and Media activities, and, furthermore, there are plans for a new IT Research Park where private companies will be able to establish themselves with direct access to the university's active and dynamic research and teaching environment within the field of IT.
The Department of Psychology is located in the Aarhus suburb of Risskov, as is the Department of Biological Sciences' Section of Botany. This same departments Section of Marine Ecology is situated on Finlandsgade, while the Department of Molecular and Structural Biology has laboratory units in Aarhus Science Park on Gustav Wieds Vej.
 To the south of the blocks of flats on the Ringgade, at the top left, are the Science Park and the former Langelandsgade Barracks, which have accommodated the Faculty of Arts' Aesthetic Subjects since 1998. In the top right corner, a section of the Nobel Park's impressive new buildings can be seen, and just to the left of these is the former Orthopaedic Hospital, which became home to The Faculty of Theology in 2000. South of the lake in the University Park a building to contain five lecture theatres is under construction. To the right of that is the former maternity home, which, after renovation, re-opened in 2000 as a Health Studies Library and Education Centre under the name of the Victor Albeck Building. The picture was taken on the 9th June 2000. (Photo: Erik W. Olsson. External Relations Office). |
 The Jutland State Maternity Home was inaugurated in 1910 on a site just south of what would later be the university area. In the 1990's, the institution's medical activities were transferred to Skejby Hospital, and the building was renovated and equipped as a Health Studies Library and Education Centre. The building was re-inaugurated on the 20th January 2000 as the Victor Albeck Building, in memory of the first medical director, Victor Albeck (1869-1933), who had spearheaded the campaign for a university in Aarhus. In this picture, which was most likely taken in the late 1920's, Albeck is seen in front of the Maternity Home's main entrance. (University History Committee). |
Since the 1940's, The University of Aarhus has had a number of experimental stations located around Jutland, such as the Geophysics-Geological Field Station at the limestone beds at Mønsted, the Geology Field Station at Klim, the Marine Biology Field Station at Rønbjerg and the Påskehøjgaard Botanical Experimental Fields at Ølsted. Also worth mentioning is the Faculty of Science's cutter Genetica II, a 20 ton research vessel attached to the Institute of Biological Sciences' Department of Marine Ecology.
The Aarhus University Research Foundation was set up in 1944 when the owner of the chemical company Cheminova donated share capital of 300,000 kroner to the university. Cheminova, which was originally based in Zealand, has been based at Harboøre Tange on the west coast of Jutland since the 1950's. In 2000, the Research Foundation supported the university's research programme to the tune of 43 million kroner.
In 1954 Sandbjerg Manor was handed over to the university, which has since used the manor in Southern Jutland as a centre for academic meetings, conferences and courses. In 2001, a total of 9,406 people took part in residential activities at Sandbjerg, while 2,243 participated in one-day meetings.
 Sandbjerg Estate - photographed most likely between 1900 and 1920. (Photographer unknown. Sandbjerg Estate Office). |
In 1893 - 35 years before Aarhus became a university town - a report which laid the foundations for the establishment of The State Library in Aarhus maintained that the new institution should contribute towards "breaking down the centralisation that is prevalent in our country" by making it also possible to nurture academic studies in "the provinces".
The State Library building was constructed to the design of architect Hack Kampmann on Bispetoften, and was officially opened in 1902. The institution played a significant role in the decision-making over the question where a university in Jutland should be located. The State Library functioned as the university library in Aarhus right from the time when university teaching began in 1928, though not officially until 1934.
The Danish National Business Archives, which had been established during the 1940's, took over the building in 1963, when the State Library was given new buildings beside the university. Space had been a problem for many years in the State Library's original building, so when plans were being drawn up for the university's new main building in 1942, a site was earmarked for the library. In 1963, when the State Library's new building with its distinctive "book tower" was inaugurated, the library lent out 109,483 items; 38 years later, in 2001, annual loans had risen to 1,025,455.
The State and University Library has played a very significant role in the life of the university throughout the years, not just as a university library, but also on other fronts, and often stemming from the personal initiatives of academic librarians.
For example, in 1906 a couple of librarians found that Bishop Fredrik Nielsen, who at that time was in charge of the city's campaign for a university, did not view the cause with quite the burning enthusiasm that they would have wished. So they took matters into their own hands in order to breathe new life into the campaign. They invited all those in Aarhus who may have been interested in the university idea to a meeting, which a year later led to the so-called "Wivel Meeting"in Copenhagen. Here, for the first time, the people of Aarhus had the opportunity to present their demands for the setting up of commission of inquiry into the question of Denmark's need for a second university to representatives of the Danish Parliament and Copenhagen University.
 A postcard from the period just after the 1902 inauguration of the State Library in Aarhus. The building on Bispetoften was designed by the architect Hack Kampmann. Since 1963, when the State Library moved up to the university, the Business Archives have been housed in the building. |
Employees of the State Library were also co-initiators when the Society of the Arts was founded at a meeting actually held in the Reading Room of the library in the spring of 1933. The reason behind this initiative was partly a desire for co-operation, not simply between the various subjects of the university, but also to attract those in the city doing research in the field of the arts, such as those who were academically active within the city's secondary schools, museums and private companies. Also professors of jurisprudence and economists could be accepted as members, for research in the arts was defined as "that research whose object is the person as an individual and the inherent society-related problems".
If the technical, scientific and medical researchers were thus excluded from the Society of the Arts, then, provided that they were judged worthy of admission by the sitting members, they could join Aarhus Society of Science and Letters, which was founded in 1945 to embrace all areas of academic work. Thus, for example, the Society of Science and Letters could accommodate an engineer from Aarhus Oil Mill who was involved in academic work. Initially the society had high ambitions, taking The Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters as a role model, but it soon found its own realistic bearings, and the Society of Science and Letters carved its niche as an exclusive lecture society, with each of its members representing, in principle, the highest wisdom within their relevant academic fields. In contrast to the Society of the Arts, which began to stagnate in the 1970's and finally departed from this life with the death of its last chairman in the 1990's, the Society of Science and Letters is in robust health and holds six lecture and discussion meetings each year.
 A meeting of The Society of the Arts on the 8th February 1939, held in the Mill Hall of The Old Town. Librarian E. Haugsted gave a lecture on "The Bishopric in Aarhus". Seated at the far end of the table is the chairman, Ad. Stender-Petersen. On his right are, respectively: Chr. Brodersen, G. Albeck, F. Blatt, J. Clausen, E. Frandsen, P. Holm, I. Henningsen, V. Grundtvig and S. Gundel. On his left are: Chr. Stub-Jørgensen, P. Skautrup, E. Sejr, J. Pedersen, O. Olesen and P. Krarup. (University History Committee). |
 The Society of Science and Letters on an excursion to Løvenholm on the 1st May 1960. (Photo Kirsten Albeck. University History Committee). |
Aarhus Students' Association (Studenterforeningen i Aarhus) was founded in 1928 as a meeting place for academic life connected to the University of Aarhus and became renowned for its many cultural and debating arrangements over the years. Artists were nominated for honours, modern art was discussed and so were themes such as 'The Intellectual Woman' or 'Young Marriage', and not least were the memorable literary evenings, at which a host of the best-known Danish authors took the stage. Right from 1930, the Students' Association was desperate for a student building, but by the time this came to fruition the association was on its last legs, eventually passing quietly away in the 1970's.
Aarhus Students' Association was not, as might be assumed, founded by students, but rather by 'older' academics who were already in Aarhus at the time of the university's inauguration. The association was already prepared to launch itself when the very first students registered for the start of university education in September 1928. It wasn't exactly cheap to be a member, but the events it arranged had a certain style. A sub-section of Aarhus Students' Association was Musiske Studenter, a student drama and poetry society, which was founded in 1941, and really made its mark with productions of classical and modern drama. Tage Skou-Hansen's first novel De nøgne Træer (The Naked Trees, 1957) gives a vivid portrayal of a Christmas event organised by Musiske Studenter during the German Occupation.
 The entry procession to the Aarhus Students Association's Spring Festival in The Great Hall, 1950. (Photo Johannes Fossgreen. University History Committee). |
Since the foundation of the Student Council in Aarhus, countless students have been able to make a contribution within this forum towards achieving improvements in student conditions, whether in respect of their courses, housing, health or finances. The Student Council was established in 1932 and the Ministry of Education gave its approval to the council as the representative body for students. When the Higher Education Act of 1970 came into force in 1971, the Student Council was dropped from the university's statutes. There was great dissatisfaction with this, and the council boycotted the elections to the various governing bodies, although a minority of conservative students did in fact take part and were elected. To draw attention to its superior claim to representation, and also to the unrepresentative nature of the elected group, the Student Council organised a number of occupation demonstrations in the spring of 1971. The Moderate Students organisation was set up in response to this turbulent period, but after 25 years of representing moderate (that is, those not of the left) points of view amongst students of the university, in 1995 they merged with the Student Council, which bears that name still today.
 Since 1934 the Student Council has issued a Student Handbook to freshmen each year. |
 For many years, sales of Christmas trees in December and paper collections at other times of the year were organised through the Student Council. Paper collecting in 1953 features (left) masters student Aksel Bek and Theology student Henning Lehmann. The latter held office as rector of the University of Aarhus 1983-2002. (University History Committee). |
The anchor on the university's seal highlights the university's close connection to the city of Aarhus, in that it is the symbol of St. Clement, the patron saint of the town. The dolphins symbolise swiftness and proficiency. The seal is ringed by the university's motto: Solidum petit in profundis ("Seek a firm footing in the depths"). The seal, which may very well have been inspired by the bookmark used by Italian printer Aldus Manutius from 1502, where a single dolphin is entwined with an anchor, was designed by Gudmund Holme in 1934 and has since been updated on a number of occasions, although there have been no alterations to the fundamental features and composition.
 The seal of the University of Aarhus - the original together with the modified versions from 1950, 1988 and 1996, respectively. The 1950 modification of Gudmund Holme's original 1934 seal is presumed to be the work of Professor Franz Blatt while Thora Fisker was responsible for the 1988 version and Teit Weylandt for the most recent in 1996. |
In October 2002 the total of ordinary undergraduates was 21,888, while there were 709 PhD students. In this same year, 1,568 Masters Degrees were awarded, and the total of PhD's awarded was 183. Rounded out as full time posts, there were 3,360 employees of the university. The total running costs amounted to 2,106 billion kroner.
 When a street photographer captured these three medical students, Robert Østergaard Jensen, Thomas Otto Iversen and Poul Schlütter (not to be confused with the later prime minister) in 1946, there was a total of 1064 students at the university; 856 men and 208 women. The distribution of these amongst the subjects available at that time was as follows: Arts 146, Medical Science 402, Economics 140, Law 210 and Theology 104, with a further 62 who had yet to choose a subject. On the teaching side in the same year there were 39 professors, 1 senior associate professor, 17 associate professors and teaching medical consultants, together with 51 from other categories, giving a total of 108 teachers. (University History Committee). |
