Swedish, The Royal Academy of Turku, and Finnish Cuisine

Today was another day full of information and adventure.  It began with being picked up in Timo's van which originally belonged to University of Tampere.  All 8 of us fit nicely in it.  We met with members of HEINE (see info in the previous) and discussed the history of the study of higher education in Finland, which includes a joint program between University of Tampere and University of Helsinki.  There are 4 doctoral students from University of Helsinki and 8 from University of Tampere.  This is the only cohort and the funding runs until the end of 2015.  The students in University of Helsinki must be accepted by the Department of Political Science and Economics Studies before being accepted in the Higher Education studies program.  This is similar to what the United States had before the study of Higher Education became prevalent.  All very interesting.  I'm sure I cannot do the information justice in the realm of the blog, but at least you get a sense.

After lunch we met with the Swedish School of Social Sciences which is an autonomous unit in the University of Helsinki.  Swedish is considered one of Finland's national languages and there are 2 universities, 2 polytechnics, and 1 unit in Finland that are strictly Swedish, while 6 universities and 2 polytechnics are bilingual universities.  This means that the course instruction is done in one language (usually Finnish) but the students have the right to take exams/do presentations in their choice of language.  The Swedish School of Social Sciences is the unit that is strictly Swedish.  They receive funding from the Ministry of Education, separate from the other faculties (or colleges) in University of Helsinki.  We learned about the history of the University of Helsinki which was founded in 1640 . . . only four years later than Harvard!  It was founded as The Royal Academy of Turku (which is the first capital of Finland).  Then, in 1828, Alexander 1 (Russia) moved the capital and the university to Helsinki, mainly because it was further away from Sweden and closer to Russia.  In 1917, the name officially changed to the University of Helsinki.

The day ended with a wonderful tour of the City Centre campus of The University of Helsinki.  The tour included the room where the university meetings with professor and administrators were held (consortium).  Since 2010 when the universities became autonomous and essentially created their own boards, the room is only used for special occasions.  We also saw the large room where commencements are held every 3-5 years, as well as the university welcome.  The other two places we spent time at was the University Museum and the National Library.  Both were simply beautiful.  Once I'm abe to upload pictures, you'll see what I mean.

Our tour guide, Arto Aniluoto, is a current doctoral student at University of Helsinki and his hobby is university history.  He joined us for dinner and recommended an excellent place to experience Finnish cuisine.  Two of my classmates had stew that included rabbit, lamb, and elk (or moose).  Asparagus is currently in season, so I had that along with salmon and new potatoes.  Simply amazing.

Oh--I did some quick research.  The sun sets around 10pm and rises around 4:30am.  So, we actually have about 6 hours of darkness . . . not the 2 hours I originally said.  Either way, I keep waking up at 4:30am, thinking it is time to get up.  Ugh!