HUMBOLDT-UNIVERSITÄT ZU BERLIN (Humboldt University of Berlin)

The Humboldt University of Berlin (German Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) is Berlin's oldest university, founded in 1810 as the University of Berlin (Universität zu Berlin) by the liberal Prussian educational reformer and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt, whose university model has strongly influenced other European and Western universities. From 1828 it was known as the Frederick William University (Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität), later also as the Universität unter den Linden. In 1949, it changed its name to Humboldt-Universität in honour of both, its founder Wilhelm and his brother, naturalist Alexander von Humboldt.

History

The university has been home to many of Germany's greatest thinkers of the past two centuries, among them the subjective idealist philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte, the theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher, the absolute idealist philosopher G.W.F. Hegel, the Romantic legal theorist Savigny, the pessimist philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer, the objective idealist philosopher Friedrich Schelling, cultural critic Walter Benjamin, and famous physicists Albert Einstein and Max Planck. Founders of Marxist theory Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels attended the university, as did poet Heinrich Heine, German unifier Otto von Bismarck, Communist Party of Germany founder Karl Liebknecht, African American Pan Africanist W. E. B. Du Bois and European unifier Robert Schuman, as well as the influential surgeon Johann Friedrich Dieffenbach in the early half of the 1800s. The university is home to 29 Nobel Prize winners.

Taking advantage of its location at the center of the new Europe, Humboldt University has developed an active international program and a strong interest in university reform. The University’s 36,000 students include more than 4,000 foreign students, many from Eastern Europe.

Faculties

These are the 11 faculties into which the university is divided:

• Faculty of Law
  
• Faculty of Agriculture and Horticulture
  
• Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences I (Biology, Chemistry, Physics)
  
• Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences II (Geography, Computer Science, Mathematics, Psychology)
  
• Charité - Berlin University Medicine
  
• Faculty of Philosophy I (Philosophy, History, European Ethnology, Department of Library and Information Science)
  
• Faculty of Philosophy II (Literature, Linguistics, Scandinavian Studies, Romance literatures, English and American Studies, Slavic Studies, Classical Philology)
  
• Faculty of Philosophy III (Social Sciences, Cultural Studies/Arts, Asian/African Studies (includes Archeology), Gender Studies)
  
• Faculty of Philosophy IV (Sport science, Rehabilitation Studies, Education, Quality Management in Education)
  
• Faculty of Theology
  
• Faculty of Economics and Business Administration
  

Furthermore there are two independent institutes (Zentralinstitute) that are part of the university:

• Centre for British Studies (in German: Großbritannienzentrum)
  
• Museum für Naturkunde (Museum of Natural History)
  

Humboldt-Universitat Zu Berlin ranked 126th in the 2007 THES-QS World University Ranking

Humboldt-Universitat Zu Berlin ranked 139th in the 2008 THES-QS World University Ranking

Humboldt-Universitat Zu Berlin ranked 146th in the 2009 THES-QS World University Ranking

Humboldt-Universitat Zu Berlin ranked 123rd in the 2010 QS World University Ranking

Humboldt-Universitat Zu Berlin ranked 132th in the 2011 QS World University Ranking