The Battle for a University in Aalborg

Lecture with Peter Plenge, who served as administrative director of AUC/AAU from 1978 to 1998 and later as university director until 2015.

Aalborg University Center was founded under intense pressure on existing universities and amid deep disagreement over how to distribute capacity geographically and ideologically. Plenge was there from the beginning and has compiled his knowledge in the book "Et universitet i støbeskeen" (2026) - what he himself calls a university archaeological excavation that uncovers traces from the first university planners in North Jutland.

The lecture draws on the voluntary groundwork that academic and political forces in the North Jutland Committee and later the Planning Committee undertook to be heard in Copenhagen: the "battle" against Haderslev, "evil Helge", and why Aalborg Stiftstidende distributed nightcaps. Plenge also discusses disagreements in the project groups, why teacher training did not end up under AAU, what happened to the medical programme, and how the time pressure on staff in the Interim Board was so great that they had to bring sleeping bags to the office.

In connection with AUC/AAU's 50th anniversary in 2024, "At bygge et universitet" and "Gåsen og guldægget" were published, describing the university's history from start to present. Plenge's book covers the period before these two anniversary books and focuses on the local and collective forces behind the effort to establish a university in North Jutland.