Ceremony to begin the Academic Year
By chance when I was out at lunch I ran into the Vice-President for Budget, Personnel, and Physical Plant, who reminded me about the ceremony for the beginning of the Academic Year, so I decided to go.
The ceremony took place in the Audi Max (the Auditorium Maxmium), the largest lecture hall in the old main building of the univesity. There was standing room only, both in the balony and on the main floor, and since I was a late-comer; I stood for almost two hours.
The event began with a chamber music concert, all strings with a harp accompaniment. Then the president gave a speech about the DFG (German Research Society, which is roughly equal to NSF and NEH together) Excellence Initiative, where Humboldt won a minor prize and Munich's two universities carried away the top honors. The president is a comparatively young man, whose own specialty is ancient history from around the time of Ambrose. He is also an excellent speaker. The audience listened intently as he exhorted both faculty and students to strive for excellence in the coming year. He also reminded listeners that top reseearch institutions like Harvard and Stanford (and how could he forget Chicago?) built their research programs on the Humboldt model. No one whispered to a neighbor. No one stirred. He set a tone for the coming year.
The next speaker was the federal Minister for Education and offered a more convential speech, that was good in its way, but not quite gripping enough to keep my young neighbors from whispering actively to each other.
Various ceremonies followed, including the presentation of awards to students. It was typically German that all of them (men and women) received a bouquet as their prize. Two students were also symbolically "matriculated" into the university, one was a woman from one of the more distance former Soviet Republics, the other was a man from Berlin. Then representatives of the student goverment spoke, followed by another concert, after which the president gave more flowers to the conductor and the solo harpist.
It all ended in a reception that was so crowded that I didn't attend. I did talk with one of the prize winners on the way out the door, though (a very long slow line). He is a young men just starting his chemistry studies. I think he was somewhat shocked to have a professor address him, but he handled himself with far more poise than one expects in a 20 year old male.
The ceremony took place in the Audi Max (the Auditorium Maxmium), the largest lecture hall in the old main building of the univesity. There was standing room only, both in the balony and on the main floor, and since I was a late-comer; I stood for almost two hours.
The event began with a chamber music concert, all strings with a harp accompaniment. Then the president gave a speech about the DFG (German Research Society, which is roughly equal to NSF and NEH together) Excellence Initiative, where Humboldt won a minor prize and Munich's two universities carried away the top honors. The president is a comparatively young man, whose own specialty is ancient history from around the time of Ambrose. He is also an excellent speaker. The audience listened intently as he exhorted both faculty and students to strive for excellence in the coming year. He also reminded listeners that top reseearch institutions like Harvard and Stanford (and how could he forget Chicago?) built their research programs on the Humboldt model. No one whispered to a neighbor. No one stirred. He set a tone for the coming year.
The next speaker was the federal Minister for Education and offered a more convential speech, that was good in its way, but not quite gripping enough to keep my young neighbors from whispering actively to each other.
Various ceremonies followed, including the presentation of awards to students. It was typically German that all of them (men and women) received a bouquet as their prize. Two students were also symbolically "matriculated" into the university, one was a woman from one of the more distance former Soviet Republics, the other was a man from Berlin. Then representatives of the student goverment spoke, followed by another concert, after which the president gave more flowers to the conductor and the solo harpist.
It all ended in a reception that was so crowded that I didn't attend. I did talk with one of the prize winners on the way out the door, though (a very long slow line). He is a young men just starting his chemistry studies. I think he was somewhat shocked to have a professor address him, but he handled himself with far more poise than one expects in a 20 year old male.
posted by Michael Seadle at 8:27 PM
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