From a royal inauguration to a shared celebration over 60 years
The University of Southern Denmark is celebrating its 60th anniversary. To mark the occasion, we are highlighting some of the traditions and characteristics that have their roots in the university’s early days and which still characterise SDU today. This time, the focus is on the Annual University Celebration. On Friday, around 4,000 students and staff will gather for the university’s biggest celebration.
When the University of Odense was officially inaugurated on 15 September 1966, great care was taken to make the day a special occasion.
In the morning, King Frederik IX arrived at Odense Harbour aboard the royal yacht Dannebrog, where the university’s first Rector, Mogens Brøndsted, welcomed him.
In the afternoon, the celebrations continued in the ceremonial hall of Odense Technical College. The Odense City Orchestra performed Carl Nielsen’s ‘Helios Overture’, and representatives from the country’s other universities welcomed Denmark’s new university.
King Frederik IX also took the floor with a short, impromptu speech. The day concluded at Odense Theatre with a gala performance of Henrik Ibsen’s *Hedda Gabler*.
This marked the beginning of a festive tradition that has since accompanied the university through six decades.
A celebration for the few
However, the early Annual University Celebration looked quite different from the festivities that today fill the corridors on Campusvej in Odense. For the first many years, the Annual University Celebration was primarily an official and solemn event for specially invited guests. Students were, as a rule, not admitted to the celebration.
The Students’ Council was permitted to appoint a single representative to deliver the students’ speech during the official part of the proceedings. Afterwards, the representative had to leave the gathering, whilst the festivities continued.
However, over the years, the students’ few minutes at the lectern were also used for more than just polite celebratory remarks.
In 1982, the speech was delivered by Roald Andersen from the Students’ Council. Among other things, he sought to highlight the students’ financial situation and housing conditions – and the paradox that students still did not have access to the university’s official Annual University Celebration. The message was emphasised by his choice of attire: on a hot summer’s day, he delivered the speech in front of Queen Ingrid, amongst others, wearing a sleeveless JBS vest, Hummels shorts and Kalsø shoes. This subsequently attracted considerable media attention.
In its own way, the episode reflects a time when the Annual University Celebration also became a forum for a more informal – and at times provocative – dialogue between students and the university’s management.
Read more about Roald Andersen’s 15 minutes of fame (in Danish)
The students organised their own party
In the 1970s, student politics had become a prominent part of university life. And when the students were unable to attend the official Annual University Celebration, they organised their own.
In 1977, the People’s Annual University Celebration – the People’s Festival of the Year – saw the light of day. The initiative came from students associated with the Students’ Council and was intended as an open and popular alternative to the university’s official party.
The first edition began, amongst other things, with a procession through Odense, whilst later there was music and political speeches in Munke Mose. On Vestergade, ordinary residents of Odense could, for just two kroner, even be awarded – albeit unofficial – honorary doctorates from the University of Odense.
The Students’ Council had even had its own Annual University Celebration beer brewed.
The People’s Annual University Celebration was held for several years and was both a product of its time and an expression of a desire to open the university up more to students and the wider community.
Two celebrations become one
During the 1980s, both the official celebration and the students’ alternative event gradually lost some of their former character.
The solution was to merge them.
The traditional Annual University Celebration and the People’s Annual Celebration merged into a new format, in which the university’s formal ceremony was combined with a large communal celebration for staff and students. It was here that the Annual University Celebration we know today really began to take shape.
The official part did not disappear. On the contrary, speeches, academic traditions, appointments and awards remain a central part of the day. But afterwards, the celebrations continue across the university with dinner, music and thousands of participants.
In this way, the Annual University Celebration today embodies both sides of its own history: the solemnity of the university’s early years and the strong tradition of student engagement that helped to transform the event.
The university’s biggest celebration
When the Annual University Celebration gets underway on Friday 30 October, the scale of the event is quite different from that at the university’s inception.
Around 4,000 people take part over the course of the evening, and the celebrations spread across large parts of Campus Odense.
The day begins with the traditional opening ceremony. Here, the university’s research, education and staff are honoured through speeches, honorary doctorates and a range of awards, amongst other things. The official part is followed by a gala dinner, before the campus is transformed into a party venue in the evening with live music and DJs.
Whereas students were left standing outside the doors in the university’s early years, they are now an integral part of the day’s events. The student speech remains part of the opening ceremony, and students and staff subsequently celebrate the university side by side.
The Annual University Celebration thus reflects, in its own way, the development the university has undergone since 1966.
From a small and formal university to a large university community.
A royal visit 60 years later
And in this anniversary year, the connection between the university’s beginnings and the present day becomes particularly clear.
For when the opening ceremony begins on Friday afternoon, His Majesty King Frederik X will be among the attendees.
Sixty years earlier, his maternal grandfather, King Frederik IX, took part in the inauguration of the new university in Odense.
Back then, the university was so new that it did not yet have its own permanent campus. Today, the next generation is returning to a university with five faculties, several campus cities and tens of thousands of students and staff.
Much has changed.
But throughout all six decades, the Annual University Celebration has been an occasion to pause and honour the university – its research and degree programmes, but also the people who, together, make it what it is.
And when the university celebrates its 60th anniversary on Friday, yet another chapter will be added to a tradition that has been part of SDU for almost as long as the university itself has existed.
The University of Southern Denmark’s 60th anniversary
To mark this anniversary year, a series of articles with a historical focus will be published, highlighting the defining characteristics of the university that has been built up over the course of 60 years – from its first premises in Odense to a multi-campus university with regional and international influence.
