50 years – A look back with a view
The mayor of Bremen, who acknowledges "his" university in his laudation. The vice president of the Bremen Parliament, whose life journey is inextricably linked to the university. The speeches at the ceremony in the Upper Town Hall on the occasion of the University of Bremen’s 50th anniversary made one thing very clear: the University of Bremen, which was much maligned in the beginning, has become an integral part of society. What's more, many of those who now guide and lead the state of Bremen have found their academic home here and taken with them not only a good education, but also values like cosmopolitanism and social responsibility. Here, a look back at our anniversary year.
Out of the pandemic, into the pandemic! The annoying unpredictability of our anniversary year – nothing could be planned with certainty and much that was planned turned out quite differently at short notice. At the ceremony on 14 October, 200 guests sat in the town hall, mask-free and evidently also infection-free, thanks to that day's new Corona ordinance.
In spring it was the other way around. When the whole country was hoping for the pandemic to finally subside and tens of thousands were expected to flock to concerts and Open Campus events in June, suddenly everything came to a halt. An Open Campus on the internet, organised on the fly, could not create the same tingling sensation as the originally planned strolls, information sessions and discussions in Campus Park. Nevertheless, there was still discussion. At countless (online) events on the history of the university and its main players. In seminars, where current students conducted interviews with students from years past, eager to learn and often with a bit of longing for the wild times. The resulting assortment of articles, podcasts, blog posts and video productions are reverberations for the future, made possible by the university anniversary fund from which several projects were financed.
Autumn brought the university into the city, with a deafening bang. In Sparkasse Bremen’s old banking hall at Am Brill, the Uni Bremen physics-chemistry show "Wumms" opened the CAMPUS CITY programme and kindled glimmerings of what a campus there might one day look like. Also making a statement that was hard to miss: 50 posters in 50 places proclaiming “Why? That’s why.”, 50 instances illustrating where in the city and state our university is to be found – and how it has been changing Bremen since 1971.
Our foundational ethos is alive and well, a mentality that persists to this day: "Just change the world.”This is also the motto of the online talk series organised by the university and the alumni association, which reveals how great the marks are that the university, its former students and its academics have already left in the world. It wouldn’t all fit into the anniversary year – of all things, the talk with the founding generation on "How it all began”, which will take place in January of the 51st year. Perhaps that’s just the nature of change. Or as a Hessian football philosopher once put it: “That’s life.”(“Lebbe gehd weider”)