West Saxon University of Applied Sciences of Zwickau
| WHZ | |
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| Motto | Technology, Economics and Quality of Life |
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| Type | Public |
| Established | 1897 |
| Rector | Karl Schwister |
| Students | 4.700 |
| Location | Zwickau, Saxony, Germany |
| Language | German |
| Website | www |
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The Westsächsische Hochschule Zwickau - University of Applied Sciences Zwickau is a vocational university of about 4700 students located in Zwickau. Saxony, Germany. It offers Bachelor’s, Master’s and traditional German Diplom degrees in three core areas: Technology, Economics, Arts, and Life Sciences. The university also has further campuses in Markneukirchen, Reichenbach im Vogtland and Schneeberg.
Zwickau’s tradition of higher education reaches back to the founding of a Latin school in the late thirteenth century. The origins of the vocational university, however, are more connected to the boom of mining and industrial production in Saxony in the early 1800s. The rise of coal production and processing in the region created a demand for workers with a high level of technical training and industry pushed for the development of educational training institutions. A Sunday training school for workers was opened in 1828, followed by the “Bergschule Zwickau,” a school to teach technical skills related to mining, in 1862. By 1949, the Bergschule Zwickau had developed into a full-fledged mining engineering school. Parallel to the development of the mining school, in 1897 the engineers Paul Kirchhoff and Leander Hummel founded an engineering school in cooperation with the local municipal government. In 1965, the mining engineering school and the general engineering school merged, eventually gaining the right to grant doctorates under the name “Ingenieur-Hochschule Zwickau.” In 1989, the institution assimilated a school for economics in Plauen and a plant-engineering and construction school in Glauchau, becoming a full technical university. After the reunification of Germany, there was an attempt to merge this engineering-focused technical university with Zwickau’s teacher training college into one small university. This idea, however, lacked political support in the Saxon government and did not succeed. The teacher training college was assimilated into the Technical University of Chemnitz and the engineering school was changed to a “Fachhochschule” or vocational university, with the right to grant Bachelor’s and master's degrees, but not doctorates. The name of the engineering school was then changed to the current “Westsächsische Hochschule Zwickau” or Westsächsische Hochschule Zwickau - University of Applied Sciences.
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