Memorial ceremony for Klaus J. Jacobs

On Wednesday, September 17, 2008, the campus community honored Klaus J. Jacobs, who passed away on September 11 at the age of 71, with a university memorial ceremony. In the early afternoon, students, faculty, and staff members assembled in the Conference Hall to pay their respect to the patron and entrepreneur, whose commitment to the university dates back to its very early beginnings and who essentially supported its further development with the immensely generous investment of the Jacobs Foundation, its amount until then unprecedented in Europe.

[ Sep 17, 2008]  During the ceremony, Jacobs University President Joachim Treusch cited from the numerous letters of condolence, which had arrived from all over the world, amongst them a letter from Prof. Uriel Reichman, President of the Israeli Herzliya University, which Klaus J. Jacobs had visited together with Joachim Treusch as recently as this year’s spring: “I can tell you that though we were in [Klaus J. Jacobs’] presence but for a few short hours, it is we who were inspired by his personal warmth and humility, by his caring, deep intellect and keen insights; we were all touched by his humanity. His enormous philanthropy in higher education, underpinning teaching as a key instrument in creating a better tomorrow for all peoples, serves as a model the world over; a great testament to a great visionary man,” writes Reichman. In a condolence letter from Harvard University, Howard L. Resnikoff on behalf of the Jacobs Foundation of America describes Klaus J. Jacobs as “an inspiring an visionary leader who helped to blaze a new path in international higher education.”

Further representatives of the campus community to give condolence addresses were Jan Eichhorn, President of the Undergraduate Student Parliament, and Adalbert Wilhelm, Professor of Statistics, Commerzbank Chair of Information Management, and speaker of Jacobs University’s Faculty Council.

In the foyer of the Conference Hall a book of condolence in memory of Klaus J. Jacobs, which will be passed on to the Jacobs family, is now open for one week for the campus community to sign. Tomorrow, President Treusch, together with Ursula M. Staudinger, Vice President an Dean of the Jacobs Center on Lifelong Learning and Institutional Development, Bremen Mayor Jens Böhrnsen, and Christian Weber, President of the Bremen Parliament, will attend the public memorial service in the Fraumünster Church in Zurich.