New Bremen University Founded

New Bremen University Founded

RICE NEWS STAFF
Feb. 11, 1999

Bremen, Germany, birthplace 20 years ago of the Euro, the new European currency, is about to give birth again&emdash;this time to a private international research university that will attract faculty and students from around the world.

International University Bremen (IUB) moved today, Feb. 11, from a successful planning stage to formal existence with the first meeting in Bremen of its board of governors and the board’s appointment of a new president.

Rice University, working with the city of Bremen and the state-run University of Bremen, has been instrumental in the organizing and planning of IUB, supplying advice, counsel and professional expertise in its initial phases. Bremen officials first approached Rice in October 1997 about collaboration on an effort to create a new international university on an existing campus there. Following an affirmative response from Rice President Malcolm Gillis, a Rice delegation led by Provost David Auston visited Bremen to lay the groundwork.

Gillis, a charter member of the Board of Governors, traveled to Bremen this week for the IUB board’s first meeting. In remarks prepared for a Friday morning press conference, he noted that the model for “excellence in higher education in the 21st century should be the blending of the best from the German and American traditions. … Bremen has what it takes to make this venture successful in the long term … political and business support, a public university that understands the attractions of a mixed system of public and private education, and an enviable campus setting. …”

In a nation dominated by public universities, International University Bremen will be a private, independent research university, the largest and most ambitious in Continental Europe to date. It plans to open its doors to the first students in fall 2000, with an eventual student body size of 1,200 planned by 2005. Initial funding of $137 million from the Free Hanseatic City-State of Bremen assures a promising start.

Among its distinctions will be a highly selective student body, small student-faculty ratio and a residential college system. English will be its primary language of communication, and its course credits, degrees and academic programs will be compatible with American, British and emerging European university standards.

The governors are slated to appoint as the university’s founding president Fritz Schaumann, who from 1988-1998 served as deputy minister in the German Federal Ministry for Education, Science, Research and Technology. Chairing the board of governors is Professor Reimar L