Erfurt University

University of Erfurt

Universität Erfurt
Type	Public
Established	1379/1994 (closed 1815—1993)
President	Walter Bauer-Wabnegg
Administrative staff	538
Students	5,596
Location	Erfurt, Germany
Campus	Urban
Website	www.uni-erfurt.de
Data as of June 2016[update]

The University of Erfurt (German: Universität Erfurt) is a public university located in Erfurt, Germany, the capital city of the state of Thuringia. Founded in 1379, the university was closed in 1816 for the next 177 years, until its re-establishment in 1994, three years after the reunification of Germany. It therefore constitutes both the oldest and youngest universities in Germany. The institution identifies itself as a reform university, occasioned by the attendance of Lutheran theologian Martin Luther's from 1501 to 1505. Today, the main foci center on multidisciplinarity, internationality, and mentoring. In contrast to the research profile, most of the students come from the region itself.

The University of Erfurt is home to such institutes as the Max Weber Center for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies, the Gotha Research Center for Cultural and Social Scientific Studies, and the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy.

Holding one of Germany's largest collections of early modern documents, the Gotha Research Library belongs to the University of Erfurt. The Erfurt–Gotha library system also houses the famous Bibliotheca Amploniana—a collection of nearly 1000 medieval manuscripts collected by the scholar Amplonius Rating de Berka—and encompasses the Perthes Collection, preserved in the Perthes Forum.

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.

Lying in the state of Thuringia, Erfurt 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 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 Social Democratic 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: the Roman Catholic Theological Faculty, which had belonged to Erfurt's 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. Once this situation led to student protests all over Thuringia, the university administration and committees were reformed to stabilise it.