Am 28. Januar 2025 möchten wir die Eröffnung der Arbeitsstelle Universitätsgeschichte feierlich begehen. Dazu laden wir um 18 Uhr c. t. in den Hörsaal A des Henry-Ford-Baus (Garystr. 35) ein. Um Anmeldung wird gebeten. Bei Fragen melden Sie sich bitte unter: universitaetsgeschichte@fu-berlin.de.

Programm:

+ Willkommen aus der Arbeitsstelle Universitätsgeschichte
+ Grußwort Prof. Dr. Günter M. Ziegler (Präsident der Freien Universität Berlin)
+ Grußwort Prof. Dr. Jan Lazardzig (Vorsitzender des Lenkungskreises der Arbeitsstelle Universitätsgeschichte)
+ Festvortrag Prof. Dr. Miles Taylor (Humboldt Universität zu Berlin) zu: The Rise and Fall of the ‘Free’ University: Higher Education around the World since 1948
+ Empfang

Ankündigung des Festvortrags von Miles Taylor:

The decades which followed the establishment of the Freie Universität Berlin in 1948 might be considered the golden age of public universities across the globe. They were ‘free’ in the sense that they were low-fee (either subsidised by the state or supported by endowed scholarships); they reasserted the kind of scholarly freedom of enquiry and debate that had been suppressed during the inter-war years of authoritarianism; and they promised freedom of access to tertiary education for those whose social backgrounds had previously prevented them from studying beyond school. How well do these claims about public higher education stand up some 75 years later? What has happened to the idealism of the founders of the Freie Universität Berlin, the so-called ‘reform’ universities of West Germany in the 1960s (Bielefeld, Bochum and Konstanz) and other ‘utopian’ universities of the era? Were they as free as they claimed, or was their ‘freedom’ part of the linguistic baggage of the Cold War and decolonisation? This lecture explores this particular moment in the history of universities, examining current trends and future possibilities.