Bergen
University - 50 years in 1996
Bergen
University - 50 years in 1996
Bergen University started up as a modest educational institution for physicians and highschool teachers. Today, 50 years later, it has virtually realised the visions of its predecessor, Bergen Museum, as an active force in the development of science, culture, trade and industry, particularly within its own region. It has become one of the most central institutions in a knowledge-based society where science plays an ever-increasing role. In return society puts increasing demands on the university, in the form of public disclosure and results.
There is a main thread running through all the 50 years of university history in Bergen: the gradual realisation of the original vision of an institution of higher education, research and communication in active interaction with the natural and cultural surrounds - characterised by the idea of a multi-disciplinary community where theoretical, practical and technological interests would be playing in the same team. The thread does not only run like a warp through the story of the university as an institution, but winds its way like a weft in and out of the many academic and research historical contributions that constitute the story about Bergen University. Central to this vision is the belief in research as a "building block for the nation" which actively contributes to the development of society.
Astrid Forland is editor of the History of Bergen University. She calls the university's story a "biography", a tale of how it went through several development stages, always interacting with economic, social and ideological factors. This interaction is also emphasised in the history of the various disciplines and faculties. The articles carefully point out how the university has developed within a greater context, and how this context has influenced decisions at all times.
Photo:
King Haakon VII laying the foundation stone for the Geophysical Institute
on 25 October 1946. This was the first new building erected by the University
of Bergen. From left to rigth: Kaare Fostervoll, Minister of State; Wilhelm
Mohr, landowner; King Haakon; Professor Bjørn Trumphy and Nils Handal,
Mayor of Bergen.
The university's biography is the story of a pregnancy, i.e. the work to transform Bergen Museum into a university, and of how the university at birth was organised partly on the basis of European university traditions, partly on the basis of local traditions and innovations. Finally it is the story of how the university went through three stages and two "explosions" during the period between 1946 and 1990.
In the 1950s, Bergen University with its three faculties, was primarily an educational institution for physicians and teachers. In spite of Bergen Museum's vision of the new university it lived its life fairly isolated from the surrounding society - and nationally it was also held to be peripheral.
Over the following decades, i.e. the 60s and 70s, Bergen University went through major transformations which changed it radically. We can, if we want to use banner headlines, first speak about an "educational explosion", a transformation from a selective institution of higher education for the few to an educational institution for the masses. Bergen University doesn't only educate physicians any more, but lawyers, dentists, psychologists and sociologists - as well as bachelors and masters of science and arts who no longer become teachers. According to Forland this transformation reflects a development in society at large, which to an increasing degree is based on specialised knowledge. Socio-economic changes lead to a dramatic growth in the student roll.
The other transformation can be called the "research explosion", which has meant that the university qua research institution represents a fundamentally new resource of value to society. These days the university is being used, not only by students, but also by trade, industry and administration, and the oil, computer and fish farming industries in particular. In addition come ecological problems and control and power issues: a demand for instrumental social research is followed by a need for interpretative reflections on the development within the framework of the humanities. This is when the visions dating back to the days of Bergen Museum, of a research institution helping society to develop, are really fulfilled.
Round the turn of the century Bergen Museum was characterised by resilient research combined with general education. One of the most ardent campaigners for a university in Bergen was geologist W.C. Brøgger, Professor of Geology and Mineralogy at the university in Copenhagen. In connection with a professional visit to the museum in Bergen on 9 April 1895, he held his lecture About the establishment of a university in Bergen. Brøgger, who was to be called "the Bismarck of Science", was unconvinced by the stagnating Kristiania University which in his opinion did nothing but educate civil servants, who he termed "mandarins". Brøgger had fresh impulses from an institution which clearly gravitated towards science, namely Stockholm College, where he himself had built up the disciplines of geology and mineralogy. Stockholm College had high ambitions with regard to science, and quality was all-important. Brøgger himself was a typical scientist of the times with a great sense of optimism about the future, and a passionate belief in the educational and society-building powers of science. The practical implications of Brøgger's lecture, which gained widespread support in Bergen if not in Norway - the idea was ridiculed in the Morgenbladet newspaper in the capital - was a continued increase in the number of scientific positions at Bergen Museum, primarily within the natural sciences. The visions of a Faculty of Natural Sciences and a Faculty of Arts gradually arose, as a continuation of the exiting activities at Bergen Museum. In 1902 Armeuer Hansen, who discovered the leprosy bacillus, campaigned for establishing a faculty of clinical medicine in Bergen. He met with opposition from the physicians, as they feared for their trade and were worried about a "doctors' proletariat". But the professor title was introduced at Bergen Museum in 1913, as was the right to award university degrees.
Brøgger continued his campaigning in a number of articles in the Aftenposten newspaper over the next 20 years, and in 1915 Brøggers initiative, which at first was regarded as treason against Kristiania University, gained support from the Senate of the same university. However, Fridtjof Nansen, who used to be zoology conservation officer at Bergen Museum, felt that resources ought to be concentrated in the capital.
The establishment of Bergen University was primarily a result of long-term efforts within the town to transform Bergen Museum into a university. The museum traditions were to have significant implications for the organisation of the new university. Both administratively and academically there is clear continuity, not least within the natural sciences.
In 1938 - 39 a committee set up by the Norwegian Parliament issued a report about the establishment of a university in Bergen. According to the report the university would have to "balance the opportunities for education and the opportunities for research". Although the report based its conclusions on the difficult educational situation at the only Norwegian university, in Oslo, the vision of a research-based university was still valid. Gustav Indrebø, researcher on place names and dialects, put it this way : ". . . the committee is of the opinion that it would be a mistake for the new university to be made a purely educational institution and a school for civil servants. From the very start, plans ought to be made to ensure that research receives priority". Astrid Forland puts it like this: "Bergen University was not to become a wholesale educational institution, but a cultural establishment."
On 9 April 1946 the Norwegian parliament decided to establish Bergen University. King Haakon laid down the foundation stone on 25th October the same year. However, the "Bergen University Act" wasn't passed till 1948. The act was based on two traditions: the Dano-Norwegian university tradition and Bergen Museum's own tradition and university programme, which in part was a reaction against the traditions in Kristiania. The wish to promote science and interpretative publishing was established in the object clause of the Bergen University Act. Research and education were to be equally important, but interpretative publishing was also mentioned specifically as a task for a university. The clause also specified that the traditions of Bergen Museum were to be perpetuated.
A new feature introduced at Bergen University was a relatively powerful university directorship which entailed wide authorities. The preparatory documents make it clear that while the rector is "king", the director is "president". Later, in the 1960s, there was some conflict between the two functions.
Bergen University was established with three faculties: medicine, the arts and the natural sciences. Originally there were plans for faculties of theology and law as well, but these were not in included in the committee's report in 1939. At Bergen Museum, where scientism and rationalist ideologies reigned, there was opposition against a faculty of theology.
Particularly among the students there were people who campaigned for the introduction of social sciences, and they put forward concrete plans for a faculty of social sciences. They found support in the Norwegian parliament as well, particularly in connection with understanding the war experiences, but it was research in the natural sciences, and particularly the applied aspects of it, which had priority in the political circles of the post-war period.
It wasn't until round 1970 that the faculties of social sciences, law and psychology were introduced in Bergen. The faculty of odontology wasn't established till 1971, though the training of dentists dates back to 1962.
Ordinary teaching started in the autumn term of 1948, apart from clinical medicine courses, which started as early as in the autumn of 1946, administered by Olso University. The single most important factor for the establishment of Bergen University, was in fact the state of the Faculty of Medicine at Oslo University. Towards the end of the 1930s students had to suffer long waiting lists for admission to the courses there, and the situation worsened during the war. These circumstances gave a decisive thrust to the discussion about a university in Bergen.
At the time when Bergen University was established, Bergen Museum was a comprehensive institution of research and education which comprised ten departments, each of them headed by a professor, and with a staff of approx. 25 conservation officers, lecturers and research assistants. Approx. 400 students were enrolled, 100 of them in science. Bergen benefited from the Danes' experience of establishing a second Danish university in Århus, as experts from Århus were invited to Bergen in order to campaign for a Faculty of Medicine.
In spite of all the patriotism and regionalism it was the national demand which eventually won the battle.
A university history book in two massive volumes, fresh from the hands of the writers, is being launched in connection with the Bergen University's 50th anniversary. The committee of editors was headed by Jostein Goksøyr, emeritus professor, who himself has written the section on mathematics and non-biological sciences. Goksøyr personifies many of the features which are typical of the Bergen University tradition. Since coming to Bergen University in 1955 he has represented something within the research and academic development of his own discipline, micro biology, which science historian Nils Roll-Hansen has pointed out as being typical for Bergen: the combination of advanced analytic and experimental ideas with local, practical concerns and an interest in natural history.
The other contributors come from both within and without the university's own ranks. The part about the institutional history, which includes both Bergen Museum (1825-1946) and the university proper (1946-1990), has been written by historians Anders Haaland and Astrid Forland respectively, both of Bergen University. The history of the individual disciplines is also included, emphasising internal organisation, teaching and research.
Some of the authors of the sections on individual disciplines and research history are from the university's own ranks, others are not. They range from historians (professor Sverre Bagge of Bergen University has written about the social sciences, including law and history) via academics who write about their own disciplines (psychology professor Karl Halvor Teigen, currently of Tromsø University, formerly of Bergen University, has written about psychology) to science philosophers (professor Nils Roll-Hansen of Oslo University and the Institute for Studies in Research and Higher Education has written about biological disciplines, professor Reidar K. Lie of Bergen University, formerly Centre for ethics in medicine at Oslo University, has written about medical research). Other contributors are M.A. Fredrik Thue (the humanities), professor Karen B. Helle, Lorentz M. Irgens and Reidar Bertelsen (medical disciplines), and professors Alv Nernæs and Knut A. Selvig (odontological disciplines).
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