University of Erfurt

The University of Erfurt (German: Universität Erfurt) is a public university located in Erfurt, Germany. Originally founded in 1379, the university was closed in 1816 for the next 177 years. In 1994, three years after the reunification of Germany, the university was re-established.

History

1379-1816

The University of Erfurt was founded in 1379 in the Holy Roman Empire, in terrority which is now modern day Germany. When the town of Erfurt became part of Prussia in 1816, the government closed the university after more than 400 years of operation.

1994-today

Erfurt, in the state of Thuringia, was part of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) from 1949 to 1990. In December 1993, the State Government of Thuringia, Landtag of Thuringia, voted to re-establish the university. The university was officially re-founded on January 1, 1994. Lectures began in the winter term of 1999/2000. Shortly afterwards, the rector who had overseen the founding, Peter Glotz, a politician in the SPD party, left the university. The position was taken over by Wolfgang Bergsdorf, a friend of Thuringia's Minister-president Bernhard Vogel. In 2001, the Erfurt Teachers' Training College (Pädagogische Hochschule Erfurt), founded in 1953, became part of the university. On January 1, 2003, a fourth faculty was added to the university in the form of the Roman Catholic Theological Faculty, previously the Erfurt Philosophical and Theological Centre, Philosophisch-Theologisches Studium Erfurt. In the same year, a chronic lack of financing meant that there were many redundancies and that vacancies were left unfilled: this led to student protests all over Thuringia. The university administration and committees were reformed and the situation was stabilized.

Erfurt

Erfurt (German pronunciation: [ˈɛʁfʊʁt]) is the capital city of Thuringia and the main city nearest to the geographical centre of modern Germany.

It lies in the southern part of the Thuringian Basin, within the wide valley of the Gera river. It is located 100 km (62 mi) south-west of Leipzig, 300 km (186 mi) south-west of Berlin, 400 km (249 mi) north of Munich and 250 km (155 mi) north-west of Frankfurt. Together with neighbouring cities Weimar and Jena it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 400,000 inhabitants.

Erfurt's old town is one of the most intact medieval cities in Germany, having survived World War II with very little damage. Tourist attractions include the Krämerbrücke (Merchants' bridge), the ensemble of Erfurt Cathedral and Severikirche (St Severus's Church) and Petersburg Citadel, the only extensively preserved baroque town fortress in central Europe.

The city's economy is based on agriculture, horticulture and microelectronics. Its central location has led to it becoming a logistics hub for Germany and central Europe. Erfurt hosts the second-largest trade fair in eastern Germany (after Leipzig) as well as the public television children’s channel KiKa.

University

A university (Latin: universitas, "a whole") is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which grants academic degrees in various subjects and typically provides undergraduate education and postgraduate education. The word "university" is derived from the Latin universitas magistrorum et scholarium, which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars."

History

Definition

The original Latin word "universitas" refers in general to "a number of persons associated into one body, a society, company, community, guild, corporation, etc." At the time of the emergence of urban town life and medieval guilds, specialised "associations of students and teachers with collective legal rights usually guaranteed by charters issued by princes, prelates, or the towns in which they were located" came to be denominated by this general term. Like other guilds, they were self-regulating and determined the qualifications of their members.

In modern usage the word has come to mean "An institution of higher education offering tuition in mainly non-vocational subjects and typically having the power to confer degrees," with the earlier emphasis on its corporate organization considered as applying historically to Medieval universities.

Creative Commons

Creative Commons (CC) is a non-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has released several copyright-licenses known as Creative Commons licenses free of charge to the public. These licenses allow creators to communicate which rights they reserve, and which rights they waive for the benefit of recipients or other creators. An easy-to-understand one-page explanation of rights, with associated visual symbols, explains the specifics of each Creative Commons license. Creative Commons licenses do not replace copyright, but are based upon it. They replace individual negotiations for specific rights between copyright owner (licensor) and licensee, which are necessary under an "all rights reserved" copyright management, with a "some rights reserved" management employing standardized licenses for re-use cases where no commercial compensation is sought by the copyright owner. The result is an agile, low-overhead and low-cost copyright-management regime, profiting both copyright owners and licensees. Wikipedia uses one of these licenses.