The University of Jena, officially the Friedrich Schiller University Jena (German: Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena, abbreviated FSU, shortened form Uni Jena), is a public research university located in Jena, Thuringia, Germany.
The university was established in 1558 and is counted among the ten oldest universities in Germany. It is affiliated with six Nobel Prize winners, most recently in 2000 when Jena graduate Herbert Kroemer won the Nobel Prize for physics. It was renamed after the poet Friedrich Schiller who was teaching as professor of philosophy when Jena attracted some of the most influential minds at the turn of the 19th century. With Karl Leonhard Reinhold, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, G. W. F. Hegel, F. W. J. Schelling and Friedrich Schlegel on its teaching staff, the university was at the centre of the emergence of German idealism and early Romanticism.
As of 2014, the university has around 19,000 students enrolled and 375 professors. Its current president, Walter Rosenthal, was elected in 2014 for a six-year term.
Contents
- History
- Early history
- Nazi period
- Present
- Organization
- Research
- Notable faculty and alumni
- Museums and collections at the University
- See also
- Notes
- References
- Literature
- External links
- History
- University of Jena around 1600. Jena was the center of Gnesio-Lutheran activity during the controversies leading up to the Formula of Concord.
- Early history
Elector John Frederick of Saxony first thought of a plan to establish a university at Jena upon Saale in 1547 while he was being held captive by emperor Charles V. The plan was put into motion by his three sons and, after having obtained a charter from the Emperor Ferdinand I, the university was established on 2 February 1558. The university, jointly maintained by the Saxon Duchies who derived from partitioning of John Frederick's duchy, was thus named Ducal Pan-Saxon University (German: Herzoglich Sächsische Gesamtuniversität) or Salana (after the river Saale).
Prior to the 20th century, University enrollment peaked in the 18th century. The university's reputation peaked under the auspices of Duke Charles Augustus, Goethe's patron (1787–1806), when Gottlieb Fichte, G. W. F. Hegel, Friedrich Schelling, Friedrich von Schlegel and Friedrich Schiller were on its teaching staff.
Friedrich Schiller.
Founded as a home for the new religious opinions of the sixteenth century, it has since been one of the most politically radical universities in Germany. Jena was noted among other German universities at the time for allowing students to duel and to have a passion for Freiheit, which were popularly regarded as the necessary characteristics of German student life. The University of Jena has preserved a historical detention room or Karzer with famous caricatures by Swiss painter Martin Disteli.
In the latter 19th century, the department of zoology taught evolutionary theory, with Carl Gegenbaur, Ernst Haeckel and others publishing detailed theories at the time of Darwin's "Origin of Species" (1858). The later fame of Ernst Haeckel eclipsed Darwin in some European countries, as the term "Haeckelism" was more common than Darwinism.
Ernst Haeckel.
In 1905, Jena had 1,100 students enrolled and its teaching staff (including Privatdozenten) numbered 112. Amongst its numerous auxiliaries then were the library, with 200,000 volumes; the observatory; the meteorological institute; the botanical garden; the seminaries of theology, philology, and education; and the well-equipped clinical, anatomical, and physical institutes.
After the end of the Saxon duchies in 1918, and their merger with further principalities into the Free State of Thuringia in 1920, the university was renamed as the Thuringian State University (Thüringische Landesuniversität) in 1921. In 1934 the university was renamed again, receiving its present name of Friedrich Schiller University. During the 20th century, the cooperation between Zeiss corporation and the university brought new prosperity and attention to Jena, resulting in a dramatic increase in funding and enrollment.