KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN

The 'Katholieke Universiteit Leuven' (''Catholic University of Leuven'' in English) or simply 'K.U.Leuven' is the largest and most prominent university in Belgium. As a Flemish university, it is located in the town of Leuven in Flanders, the Dutch-speaking (northern) region of Belgium. The Katholieke Universiteit Leuven also has a campus at Kortrijk, formerly known as ''Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Afdeling Kortrijk'' (KULAK). Worldwide however, especially in the English speaking world, the university is more commonly known by its anglicized French name 'Louvain'. And throughout its illustrious history, the university has contributed greatly to the development of Catholic theology, with Louvain theologians having made significant contributions in key Church Councils such as Trent as well as the First and Second Vatican Councils. It also played a major role in the so-called Counter-Reformation. Today, in the world of Catholic theology at least, 'Louvain' holds a prominent place.
In 2006, more than 30,000 students were attending classes at the 14 faculties of the University of Leuven. The K.U.Leuven is a member of the Coimbra Group (a network of leading European universities) as well as of the LERU Group (League of European Research Universities). Since August 2005, the university has been led by Marc Vervenne who replaced former rector André Oosterlinck. The Belgian archbishop, Cardinal Godfried Danneels is the current ''Grand Chancellor'' and a member of the university board.
The K.U.Leuven is dedicated to Mary, the mother of Jesus, under her traditional attribute as 'Seat of Wisdom', and organises an annual celebration on 2 February in her honour. On that day, the university also awards its honorary doctorates.
In polarized Flanders, the K.U.Leuven is nominally Catholic, whereas the University of Ghent and the University of Antwerp like to consider themselves pluralist, and the Free University of Brussels, founded by freemasons, is secularist. However, nowadays these polarized classifications are less relevant than they once were: the K.U.Leuven is not Catholic in any meaningful sense, and students and staff tend to choose a university rather for pragmatic reasons - such as the quality of education, the distance to the campus or even the offered opportunities - than purely for religious or philosophical reasons.
K.U.Leuven is a strongly research oriented university, and among its many achievements is to have featured among the top European universities in terms of scientific output. For instance, Rijndael, the cipher chosen as the Advanced Encryption Standard, was developed at K.U.Leuven.

Contents

History

Library

Faculties

Notable alumni

Honorary doctorates

Organisations

Electronic learning environment: TOLEDO

See also

Footnotes

External links

History

In the 15^th century the city of Leuven requested a university and John IV, Duke of Brabant gave his support to the request. With a papal bull issued by Pope Martin V on 9 December 1425 the Louvain University was founded as a ''Studium Generale''. As such it can claim to be the oldest Catholic university in the world still in existence today (a claim that remains valid even counting from its refoundation in 1834, although not from the foundation of a specifically Flemish university in 1970). In its early days this university was modeled upon the universities of Paris, Cologne and Vienna. The university flourished in the 16^th century due to the presence of famous scientists and professors, such as Adriaan Florenszoon Boeyens (Pope Adrian VI), Desiderius Erasmus, Joan Lluís Vives, Andreas Vesalius and Gerardus Mercator.
In 1797, however, the old university, a bastion of reactionaries, was closed down by the French Republic, as the region was annexed to France during the French Revolutionary Wars. When the region was part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands (1815-1830), William I of the Netherlands founded a new university in 1816 in Leuven as a ''Rijksuniversiteit'' (E: State university). Belgium became independent in 1830, and the Belgian bishops founded a new Roman catholic university in 1834, at Mechelen, but already in 1835, the catholic university returned to Leuven, where the ''Rijksuniversiteit'' had been closed.
The next milestone came in 1968 when the bilingual ''Catholic University of Leuven'' was split into two universities, which became independent institutions in 1970, being the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and the Université Catholique de Louvain. The split was caused by repeated protests from Flemish nationalist organisations and student population (''Leuven Vlaams'' action, E: Leuven Flemish). The Dutch-speaking ''Katholieke Universiteit Leuven'' (K.U.Leuven), remained in Leuven (Flanders, north part of Belgium), and Pieter De Somer became the first rector of the new university. The French-speaking Université Catholique de Louvain (UCL) was forced to move out of the city and founded a greenfield campus at Louvain-la-Neuve near Ottignies (Wallonia, south part of Belgium). Now there is about a thirty minute drive between the two universities.

Library

The first library was located inside the university halls, and was enlarged in 1725 in a baroque style. In 1914, during World War I, Leuven was plundered by German troops, and a large part of the city was put fire to, effectively destroying about half of the city. The library was lost, as well as about 300,000 books, and a huge collection of manuscripts.
The new main library was built between 1921 and 1928 and designed by the American architect Whitney Warren in low countries neorenaissance style. Its monumentality is a reflection of the victory against Germany. It is one of the largest university buildings in the city. However, in 1940, ironically, during the German invasion of Leuven, the building largely burnt down, including its (at that time) 900,000 manuscripts and books.
After the reconstruction and the separation of the university in 1968, the library now owns about one million works. At the time of the separation, those books that could not be divided otherwise (e.g. according to the wishes of the benefactors who donated them) were divided as follows: those with an odd-numbered shelfmark stayed in Leuven, while the even-numbered ones moved to Louvain-la-Neuve. This gave rise to the widespread myth that every other volume was separated - splitting up runs of journals and volumes of encyclopedias - but since such series each had a single shelfmark this was never in fact the case. The K.U. Leuven's Faculty of Theology library is among the most comprehensive in the world.

Faculties

★ Faculty of Theology

★ Institute of Philosophy

★ (Extraordinary) Faculty of Canon Law

★ Faculty of Law

★ Faculty of Economics and Applied Economics

★ Faculty of Social Sciences

★ Faculty of Arts

★ Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences

★ Faculty of Science

★ Faculty of Engineering

★ Faculty of Applied Bioscience and Engineering

★ Faculty of Medicine

★ Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences

★ Faculty of Kinesiology and Rehabilitation Sciences

Notable alumni

★ Herman Van Den Berghe, founder of the ''Centrum voor Menselijke Erfelijkheid''.

★ Dr. A. Q. Khan, Founder of Pakistan's Nuclear Program. (b. 1935)

★ Adriaan Florisz. Boeyens (1459 - 1523), later Pope Adrian VI.

★ Emile Boulpaep MD, President of the Belgian American Educational Foundation.

★ Joan Daemen (1965 - ), cryptographer, one of the designers of Advanced Encryption Standard (AES).

★ Rembert Dodoens (1517 - 1585), botanist.

★ Desiderius Erasmus (1466 - 1536), humanist.

★ Otto von Habsburg (1912 - ), the current head of the Habsburg family.

★ Cornelius Otto Jansen (1585 - 1638), father of Jansenism.

★ Jacques Lacan (1901 - 1981), psychoanalyst

★ Georges Lemaître (1894 - 1966), astronomer and proposer of the Big Bang theory.

★ Justus Lipsius (1547 - 1606), humanist.

★ Malachi Martin (1921 - 1999), Irish priest and writer.

★ Gerard Mercator (1512 - 1594), cartographer.

★ Paul Ricoeur 1913 - 2005, philosopher

★ Vincent Rijmen (1970 - ), cryptographer, one of the designers of Advanced Encryption Standard (AES).

★ Pieter De Somer (1917 - 1985), physician and former rector of the university

★ Jan Standonck (1454 - 1504) - priest and reformer, Master of the Collège de Montaigu in Paris.

★ Frans Van Cauwelaert (1880-1961), politician

★ Anton van Wilderode, Flemish activist and writer

★ Catherine Verfaillie, physician, stem cell scientist

★ Antoon Vergote (°1921), catholic priest, theologist, philosopher, psychologist and psychoanalyst (also known as Antoine Vergote)

★ Andreas Vesalius (1514 - 1564), father of modern anatomy.

★ Arthur Vierendeel (1852 – 1940) civil engineer.

★ Weng Wenhao (1889~1971), geologist

★ Jan Zaprudnik (1924 - ), Belarusian American historian and poet.

Honorary doctorates

Famous recipients of honorary doctorates at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven include:

★ Roger Penrose, professor in Mathematical Physics, University of Oxford

★ Mario Vargas Llosa, Peruvian writer

★ Carla Del Ponte, former Chief UN War Crimes Prosecutor

★ Alan Greenspan, economist, former chairman of the Board of Governors of the US Federal Reserve

★ Helmut Kohl, former Chancellor of Germany

★ Jacques Derrida, French philosopher

★ Nadine Gordimer, South African author, Booker Prize 1974, Nobel Prize in Literature 1991

★ Oscar Arnulfo Romero, former cardinal of San Salvador (El Salvador), human rights activist

★ Jeanne Devos, founder of the National Domestic Workers Movement in India

Organisations

Notable divisions of the university include the Higher Institute of Philosophy and the Rega Institute for Medical Research.
The university is a member of the Flanders Interuniversity Institute of Biotechnology (VIB). The Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (IMEC) is a spin-off company of the university.
Since July 2002, thirteen higher education institutes have formed the K.U.Leuven Associations. The members areAssociations Members. Retrieved March 4, 2007.:

★ Europese Hogeschool Brussel

★ Groep T

★ Hogeschool Sint-Lukas Brussel

★ Hogeschool voor Wetenschap en Kunst

★ Katholieke Hogeschool Brugge-Oostende

★ Katholieke Hogeschool Kempen

★ Katholieke Hogeschool Leuven

★ Katholieke Hogeschool Limburg

★ Katholieke Hogeschool Mechelen

★ Katholieke Hogeschool Sint-Lieven

★ Katholieke Hogeschool Zuid-West-Vlaanderen

★ Lessius Hogeschool

★ Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
The Association also collaborates closely with the soon to be defunct Katholieke Universiteit Brussel.

Electronic learning environment: TOLEDO

'Toledo', which started in September 2001, was gradually developed into the central electronic learning environment at the Association K.U.Leuven.
The word is an acronym for "'TO'etsen en 'LE'ren 'D'oeltreffend 'O'ndersteunen" (English: ''effectively supporting testing and learning''). It is the collective name for a number of commercial software programs and tools, such as Blackboard. The project offers the Question Mark Perception assignment software to all institution members and has implemented the Ariadne KPS to reuse digital learning objects inside the Blackboard environment.

See also

★ List of universities in Belgium

★ University Foundation

Footnotes

External links

★ Official website of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

★ Katholieke Universiteit Leuven for foreign students on iAgora - Reviews by former Erasmus and other international students in Leuven on iAgora.