Aarhus University

Aarhus Universitet
Latin: Universitas Aarhusiensis
Motto:	Solidum petit in profundis (Latin)
Motto in English:	Seek a firm footing in the depths
Established:	1928
Type:	Public university
Rector:	Lauritz Broder Holm-Nielsen
Staff:	8,500 (2,800 teaching staff and researchers)
Students:	35,427
Doctoral students:	740
Location:	Århus, Denmark
Affiliations:	EUA
Website:	www.au.dk

Aarhus University (in Danish, Aarhus Universitet, located in the city of Århus, Denmark, is Denmark's second oldest and second largest university (after the University of Copenhagen).

The university was founded in 1928 and has an annual enrollment of more than 35,000 students.

Aarhus University housed Denmark's first professor of sociology (Theodor Geiger, from 1938–1952) and in 1997 professor Jens Christian Skou received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for his discovery of the sodium-potassium pump.

History

Aarhus University was founded on 11 September 1928 as Universitetsundervisningen i Jylland ("University Teaching in Jutland") with an enrollment of 64 students. 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. Until then the University of Copenhagen was the only university in Denmark.

The use of the name Aarhus Universitet began in 1933. Even though the name of the city, Århus, has been spelled with Å since the reform of Danish orthography in 1948, the name of the university insists on the old spelling with Aa. The official English translation of the name is Aarhus University (formerly, The University of Aarhus).

The entire campus was designed by the late C.F. Møller, whose firm, C.F. Møller Architects, has remained in charge of its further development, including its most recent additions: five new auditoria, completed in 2001.

Organization

The university is organised in eight faculties:

The library (Statsbiblioteket)

1. The Faculty of Humanities (Det Humanistiske Fakultet), which has offered courses since 1928.
2. The Faculty of Health Sciences, consisting of the former Faculty of Medicine (which began courses in basic medical subjects in 1933) and the former Dental School (added to the Faculty of Medicine in 1992, when the name was changed to the Faculty of Health Sciences).
3. The Faculty of Social Sciences, consisting of the former Faculty of Economics and Law (established in 1936) and of Political Science and Psychology.
4. The Faculty of Theology, established in 1942. Courses in theology had been offered from 1932, being previously taught at the Faculty of Arts.
5. The Faculty of Science, which was established in 1954 by moving Physics and Chemistry from the then Faculty of Medicine and Geography from the then Faculty of Arts. Mathematics was established as a new subject, followed by Biology and Geology.
6. The Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, formerly Danmarks JordbrugsForskning (DJF), which was amalgamated with the university in 2007.
7. Aarhus School of Business, which was founded in 1939 and amalgamated with the university in 2007.
8. The National Environmental Research Institute (NERI), which was amalgamated with the university in 2007.

Enrollment

Rear of the main building

As of 2007, the number of students is c. 35,000. Each year more than 900 international exchange students come to Aarhus University to study for one or two semesters.

Student organizations

The largest student organizations at Aarhus University are the Student Union (Studenterrådet) and Studenterlauget. The Student Union represents the main student body at Aarhus University while Studenterlauget represents the students at Aarhus School of Business. Both the Student Union and Studenterlauget are represented on The University Board. The Student Union also arranges annual concerts and seminars, and publishes the student magazine Delfinen (The Dolphin).

There are political students organizations at the university, the largest of which include the Social-Democratic Students (Frit Forum), Conservative Students (Konservative Studenter), and Liberal Students (Liberale Studerende). The Conservative Students union publishes the student magazine Critique. The Liberal Students union publishes the leaflet Minerva.

Campus

University Park

The campus master plan competition was won in 1931 by the collaborative scheme of Danish architects, Kay Fisker, C.F. Møller, and Poul Stegmann with landscape architect C. Th. Sørensen. The design hosts a wide variety of buildings over a large space, but each building is composed of the same yellow brick and roofing tile, giving the whole campus a unified look. Construction commenced in 1932 and has continued into the 21st century. It was one of the first Danish, functionalist, public buildings and has been included in the Ministry of Culture's canon of Danish architecture. C.F. Møller and his company continued alone on the campus after 1942.

Ranking

The university is ranked number 81 in the 2008 THE-QS World University Rankings and ranked number 3 of universities in nordic countries in the same list. The university is ranked 93 in the 2008 Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities among 17,000 universities in the world, and 126 in the world by THES- World University Ranking 2007.