In the summer of 1961 I suddenly and unexpectedly became the beneficiary of funding which would allow me to study for two semesters at a European university of my choice. Since time was short, I immediately sent off letters of application to several German-language universities. The first one to reply Read More …
The university in Gießen was founded in 1607 as the Ludoviciana, after the then-ruling Landgrave of Hessen-Darmstadt, Ludwig V. His reason for founding a new university was that the nearby University of Marburg, in the neighboring landgraviate of Hessen-Marburg, had converted to Calvinism, so Ludwig as a fervent Lutheran was Read More …
For over forty years, the 116-meter AfE-Tower stood on the Bockenheim Campus of the Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe-University in Frankfurt. For the first three years of its existence, from 1972-1975, it was the tallest building in Frankfurt. For its last few years it was the 21st tallest, before it was finally demolished through Read More …
The Johann Wolfgang Goethe University was founded in 1914 and has traditionally been located in the Frankfurt district of Bockenheim, which is just west of the Westend and north of the fairgrounds. They call it a campus, but it is more like just a part of the city that has Read More …
The I. G. Farben building — seen here from the top of the Main Tower in 2004 — is one of the few large buildings in Frankfurt that was not bombed during the Second World War. Legend has it that General Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered the building spared so he Read More …
Recently I took a different route than usual on my daily social-distancing bicycle ride and ended up at the new Westend Campus of the Goethe University, where I hadn’t been for several years. (I studied at the old campus of the same university here in Frankfurt nearly half a century Read More …
“Many of our graduates will be happy to learn that the construction of this magnificent hall was financed entirely by profits made from the sale of beer.” So said one of the speakers at the graduation ceremony. The hall, which was opened in 1897, was in fact paid for by Read More …
The name “Sorbonne” originally referred to a college created in 1253 by Robert de Sorbon, the chaplain and confessor of King Louis IX of France — the king who is now better known as Saint Louis because he killed so many infidels in the Crusades. Later the word “Sorbonne” came Read More …
Universities in France are often known by their initials. A student who was enrolled at the UPMC between 1974 and 2017 would have called it exactly that, “UPMC”, and would have assumed that you knew what the initials meant. Such a student would also have expected you to be duly Read More …
The Humboldt University in Berlin was founded in 1810 by the scholar, linguist and diplomat Wilhelm von Humboldt, 1767-1835, who for a short time — less than a year, actually — was in charge of education in the government of Prussia. During that time he and his staff not only Read More …