Institute of Psychology (Szeged)

Institute of Psychology of the University of Szeged, Szeged, Hungary, is located at 2 Egyetem Street, at the Szeged University Campus of the Faculty of Arts. The Institute of Psychology in Szeged is the longest-standing psychology institute in Hungary (founded on 18 December 1929).

Today, the Institute provides a three-year Psychology Bachelor of Arts (BA) training, followed by a two-year Master of Arts (MA) course in two possible majors: Cognitive and Neuropsychology, or Counseling and Educational Psychology.

The legal predecessor of the University of Szeged was the University of Cluj-Napoca (Kolozsvár), which was founded in 1872 by Franz Joseph as the second university in Hungary of that time. Psychology-oriented studies existed from the earliest days, but were taught by professors of Philosophy and Pedagogy. Psychology was first recognized as a separate subject by Professor Imre Sándor at the University of Szeged.

By 1919, the turmoils of history forced the University of Cluj-Napoca to relocate, and in 1921, the Hungarian National Assembly (according to the terms of Act XXV of 1921) designated the town of Szeged as the temporary location of the university. The former campus site was the Neo-Renaissance building in Szeged's Dugonics Square, originally built as a secondary school for modern languages and sciences in 1873. From 1925, the Faculty of Arts and part of the Faculty of Sciences were moved to the Neo-Roman building at 2 Egyetem Street, formerly a railway discount broker's office. The three-story building was built in 1912, according to the plans of Ottoway István and Winkler Imre.

Psychology was first recognized as a major subject at the university by Professor Imre Sándor, who realized that the study of psychology is just as important as that of pedagogy. Accordingly, on 20 October 1926, he filed his petition to the directors of the university for the establishment of a fundamentally different, modern Department of Pedagogy and Psychology. György Málnási Bartók, the Professor of the Department of Philosophy, was an avid supporter of the petition, since the tuition of Psychology had been the responsibility of his department at that period. In his petition, Imre Sándor listed the following fields and branches as belonging to the new Department's sphere of competence: General Psychology, Developmental Psychology, Psychology of Differences, Education of Backward Children, Psychotechnics, and Pedagogical Somatology.

In 1929, the establishment of the Second Department of Pedagogy and Psychology was brought about by lucky circumstances, given that the petition of Imre Sándor and György Málnási Bartók would not have been sufficient by itself. At the University of Szeged, which had been relocated from Cluj-Napoca, the Faculty of Arts had a very low number of attending students, which threatened the very existence of the university. In the fall of 1928, to aid the foundering university, the Minister of Culture, Kuno Klebelsberg, ordered the relocation of the Paedagogum and the academic section of Erzsébet Girls’ School to Szeged. Thus, the Teacher Training College for secular elementary schools was founded. As part of their curriculum, students of the college had to complete a part of their training – essentially one of the two compulsory majors – at the university, hence boosting the number of students there. At the same time, the Minister abrogated secular teacher training at nun schools, which meant that nuns also had to attend the University of Szeged to receive such training.

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