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On October 29, Jacobs University celebrated its first Founders Day. The campus community as well as Jacobs University’s Board of Governors participated in a presentation of the university’s scientific endeavors and reflected on its recently defined research foci concerning major global challenges. The program included an address from Bremen’s mayor Karoline Linnert, a key note from Yehuda Elkana, President of the Central European University in Budapest, a panel discussion on Jacobs University’s possible contributions to coping with global challenges, and the bestowal of university awards.
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“At least once per year, we will repeat the gathering of the university community to decide on our common goals, who we are, where we want to go,” said Joachim Treusch, President of Jacobs University, about the Founders Day, from now on a yearly event. „Moreover, the Founders Day will always be an important opportunity to pay tribute to the great number of dedicated persons around the world, who have helped the university into existence and to its present success, which is stunning, considering that only 10 years passed from the very first founding ideas until today.”
In her address, Bremen’s Mayor and Senator of Finance Karoline Linnert, praised the successful partnership between private Jacobs University and the City State of Bremen: According to the mayor, the university’s international profile and its “globalization in action” with more than 90 nations on-campus is strengthening Bremen’s cosmopolitan reputation and is a role model, which meets with nationwide attention and approval. The city's financial support for the university especially paid off for Bremen as a science location, Linnert said, as was just recently demonstrated again by the success of Jacobs University’s joint projects with the University of Bremen in the federal Excellence Initiative. „You are excellent!“, Linnert praised her host.
Jacobs University’s president Joachim Treusch made the audience realize the significance the Bremen constitution put on educating young people already 60 years ago: He cited Article 26 of the constitution, which was passed on October 21, 1947, and which contains the following maxims:
The education of young people serves the following purposes:
1. Teaching of a sense of community spirit
2. Teaching of a desire to work, embedded in the common good
3. Teaching of critical thought, respect for the truth, and of courage to state the truth and act accordingly
4. Teaching of participation in the cultural life of one’s own people and of foreign peoples
“These maxims, seemingly tailor-made for Jacobs University, amongst many other factors are historical and living proof, that Bremen is an ideal environment for our university,” Treusch said.
Yehuda Elkana, renowned science historian and philosopher as well as President of the Budapest Central European University, characterized the consequent adjustment to globalization in research as well as in teaching as the chief task of European universities in the 21st century and named Jacobs University as one of the few examples to have gone very far in doing so. As the only institutions to generate and teach new knowledge independently from corporate research activities, the universities especially need to develop curricula, which complement the expertise in one field with literacy in several others to prepare the students for successfully dealing with the complexity of global issues. In addition to the curricular dialogue of the disciplines Elkana also advocated a university model more open to concerned citizens, which then would call for private financing beyond the state support: “Europe needs to give up its stinginess regarding higher education and has to be prepared to invest into its elite of responsibility. It has to create an intellectual climate with all the necessary infrastructure to prevent the further exodus of the young scientific talents to Europe’s strongest competitor, the USA,” Elkana said.
The debaters of the panel discussion »Coping with Global Challenges: What Jacobs University Can Contribute« were the Jacobs scientists Marc Frey, Helmut Schmidt Professor of International History, Ursula Staudinger, Jacobs Vice President and Dean of the Jacobs Center on Lifelong Learning and Institutional Development, Chris Welzel, Professor of Political Science, as well as Heinz-Otto Peitgen, Director of the Center for Complex Systems and Visualization, University of Bremen, and member of Jacobs University’s founding circle, Shahrbanou Tadjbakhsh, Director of the CERI Program for Peace and Human Security, L’ Institut d’ Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po), Paris, and member of Jacobs University’s Board, and Willem Schoeber, CEO of Stadtwerke Bremen AG. Following the lead of Professor Elkana the panel, too, concurred in the opinion that, above all, research and teaching needs to progress further into a systematic transdisciplinary perspective for tackling central global challenges like climate change, energy supply, demographic change of western societies or complex armed conflicts. Moreover, the panel emphasized, that the university has to offer the students ample opportunity to hone their intercultural and ethical sensibility for an adequate evaluation of today’s and tomorrow’s global problems.
Another highlight of the Founders Day was the bestowal of university awards. The Gerhard Haerendel Fellowship and the Max Kaase Fellowship for outstanding bachelor students continuing their MA studies at Jacobs University were awarded for the first time. Donated by the Jacobs University Foundation of America the awards were given to Anca Farcas (Romania, BSc of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, for continuing her graduate studies in “Biological Recognition”) and Nikolay Kamenov (Bulgaria, BA of History, for continuing at Jacobs University in “Intercultural Humanities”). The Award of the DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst, German Academic Exchange Service) for outstanding academic and social achievement of foreign students at German universities, endowed with 1000 euros, was given to Konstantin Mihov, who received his BA in „Integrated Social and Cognitive Psychology“ this summer and will continue at Jacobs University in „Intercultural Humanities“. The President’s Award for Community Involvement was bestowed on Ulf Hansen, Director Resource Development, and Warren Laine, Webservices Manager. Representing about 100 fellow students with excellent grade averages of 1.5 and better, Irina Calciu (Romania, Computer Science), Alexey Dudnik (Kazakhstan, Biochemistry and Cell Biology), Friedrich Kauder (Germany, Integrated Social Sciences) und Madeleine Lee LaRue (USA, History and Theory of Art and Literature) received their certificates for their President’s List membership.
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Overview of the most important steps
of Jacobs University’s development
in the last 10 years: |
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1997 First exchange of ideas between representatives of Rice University, University of Bremen and Bremen State
1999 Founding as International University Bremen and state approval
2000 Start of the conversion of the 30-hectare premises of former Roland Barracks into a university campus
2001 Start of academic activity with about 130 freshmen in the School of Engineering and Science and the School of Humanities and Social Sciences
2003 Inauguration of the Jacobs Centers on Lifelong Learning and Institutional Development
2004 Bologna accreditation of all Bachelor programs; the first class successfully graduates
2005 Inauguration of the second laboratory complex fort the natural sciences and the loboratories for social and behavioural sciences
2006 The university receives the 200 Millionen-euro donation from the Swiss Jacobs Foundation
2007 International University Bremen changes its name into Jacobs University Bremen
Currently 1102 students study in Jacobs University’s undergraduate and graduate programs.
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Key Note Speaker Yehuda Elkana: |
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A renowned scientist in the fields of Philosophy of Science and History of Science, Prof. Elkana earned a first-rate reputation teaching at some of the world's best universities, including Harvard University, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and ETH Zurich. He became the rector and president of the Central European University of Budapest, Hungary, in 1999 and has been a member of various scientific advisory boards such as the the Collegium Helveticum. He has been a permanent fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin since 1978 an is a corresponding fellow of the International Academy for History of Science. He also is the Founder and editor of the journal Science in Context.
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