Rector to new students: Your worldview is about to be challenged

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Dear new students

As Rector number 260, I’m honoured to welcome you to this university, founded in 1479.

What a joy it is today to feel the weight and energy of the University’s long history.

Silk gowns. Golden chain. Trumpet fanfare.

Even our own university anthem, “Holy Flame”.

And a semi-old Rector flashing very old dates.

No, it’s not self-indulgence or UCPH blowing its own trumpet – well, maybe just a little. Most of all, it’s pride in our wonderful university.

Welcome to all of you who are new to the university.

Welcome to those of you who have come from other Danish universities to do your Master’s programme here.

Here comes a prediction: It’s going to be tough!

And a special welcome to all our international students.

I hope you will enjoy your stay in Denmark and at our university.

Standing before you is the university leadership.

In a moment, I will introduce them one by one.

Please remember that when you’re many, it’s good manners to cheer for those who are not so many.

From your left:

Dean of the Faculty of Theology, Carsten Selch Jensen.
Dean of the Faculty of Law, Jacob Graff Nielsen.
Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences, Vibeke Koushede.
Dean of the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, Bente Stallknecht.
Dean of the Faculty of Humanities, Kirsten Busch Nielsen.
Dean of the Faculty of Science, Bo Jellesmark Thorsen.
Prorector for Education, Kristian Cedervall Lauta.
Prorector for Research and Innovation, Eva Hoffmann
and University Director Søren Munk Skydsgaard.

***

This year, we’re marking 150 years since women were – finally – allowed to study at the university.

It didn’t happen without a fight.

In the 1870s, Nielsine Nielsen spent a year and a half pushing through legal obstacles and headstrong professors with bizarre arguments against women before she and Marie Gleerup were admitted to medical school.

One professor even said that while prostitution was a necessary evil, female doctors would be an unnecessary evil.

READ ALSO: They let in the women — and nothing was ever the same

Tough words on this joyful day. Why do I talk about Nielsine Nielsen?

Not just because generations of students owe so much to one individual’s courage to insist on living her life as she desired.

Not just because she paved the way for all those who came after her:

The first female professor.

The first supreme court judge.

The first minister.

The first prime minister.

And consider this: Out of the 6,822 students we admit this year, 4,263 are women.

I also talk about Nielsine Nielsen because her spirit lives on at our university and in our students.

Community is the best fuel for your sustainable mental engine

The ability and courage to think and act independently.

And because innovation is more than inventions, patents and startups.

It’s also writing an application to the University when no one has done it before. Now that’s impact.

Nielsine Nielsen’s spirit is also present in another way.

Many of you can maybe imagine what it was like for her to walk into a lecture hall filled with 200 men.

Often, it doesn’t take much to stand out.

I did that when I started my economics degree at this university 33 years ago, arriving on the S-train from the western suburbs.

For the insiders: No, not wearing a blue and yellow football jersey, though I have one.

But in a worn-out Guns N’ Roses T-shirt.

[Let me explain: They were an American hardrock band with men in black leather, blow-dried hair and a bit of eyeliner]

In the first semester, the lecturer – wearing a neat little scarf – called me up to the board.

But he couldn’t quite figure out the social equation: Here is a student wearing a Guns N’ Roses T-shirt who could actually solve the mathematical equation.

Feeling different is perfectly normal when starting university.

Those fellow students who pose as super-beings on social media, they feel it too.

So: Put down your phone – and look up.

Keep an eye out for those standing on the edge of the Friday bar.

Maybe wearing a loud rock band T-shirt – or a nice business outfit (which can also be loud in some places).

See each other.

Listen to each other.

Reach out. Invite in.

Even a smile is an invitation.

Do something together.

A film club, a food club; a death metal club, a Taylor Swift club; A running group. A chess club. Or maybe just a study group?

The activity itself sometimes doesn’t matter all that much – being together as a community does.

Community is the best fuel for your sustainable mental engine.

And please also remember:

Not everyone comes from a home with books, museum memberships and political discussions at the dinner table – with mum and dad playing Socrates.

Not everyone has all their high school friends just around the corner.

Or their parents’ fridge and Sunday dinner within biking distance.

Here comes a prediction:

It’s going to be tough!

I would even say: It should be tough.

I hope it will be tough.

Texts written in incomprehensible academic language.

Lecturers speaking in scientific lingo.

And perhaps the worst: Fellow students pretending to understand everything.

Hold on. Hold out. Hang in.

At some point, you will crack the code and feel the rush of deep understanding.

Mastering your course content is a powerful motivator.

Of course, there are other rewards  to look forward to on the other side of your degree:

Jobs, money, prestige – indeed.

But also the chance to make a difference in a world where making a difference is so needed.

A lot has happened in the world since I started university.

Let’s just say that there are more guns and fewer roses.

In times of war and crises, it becomes even more important – and even harder – to live up to the ideals of the university and “unite around what divides us”, as one of our former students, Clement Kjersgaard, has put it.

The magic of the university does not happen when you’re navigating the straight line between curricula and exams in a self-sufficient echo chamber of students who share your postal code, political views and playlist.

No, the magic of the university happens when you meet resistance, friction, difficulty.

When you can discuss anything – even uncomfortable topics.

When you discuss to learn – not to agree.

When you let your worldview be challenged by other people’s views.

When education is not just about comfort and consensus but also about criticism, self-reflection and mental bruises.

Even a peace dove can learn from a war hawk.

Even a biodynamic vegan can learn from a conventional farmer.

“Open-mindedness is more than agreement among like-minded people”, as Danish media personality Jørgen Schleimann once said.

Or in Danish: “Frisind er andet og mere end frisind blandt ligesindede.”

Next time your worldview is challenged, check your open-mindedness.

The real magic of university happens when you do what Nielsine Nielsen did.

Using curiosity as your Google Map.

Knocking at closed doors.

And doing something no one has done before.

You can also use her method – questioning the status quo – to combine old disciplines in new ways.

Imagine if algorithms were not just used to doom-scroll cat videos, amplify FOMO and polarise politics

– but to create peace of mind and peace on earth.

Imagine if the first quantum computer was not just used in a new arms race – but to strengthen friendly-minded technologies for freedom, democracy, climate and health.

Imagine if artificial intelligence did not just take over our jobs and write our papers – but was informed by human intelligence of philosophy, ethics and justice.

Imagine if machine hardware were balanced by the software of the humanities.

Give me a break, Rector, you might be thinking.

Please, let me just get started with my studies before launching a climate-friendly, humanist, global tech company.

And you’re right. Your time isn’t going – your time is coming.

***

Now, it’s time for an old ritual:

The symbolic handshake.

Prorector for Education, Kristian Lauta, will give me a hand.

With the handshake, you enter your new world of the university, and you promise us – and yourselves – that you will follow the university’s rules, in many ways largely unchanged from the Middle Ages.

Essentially, the rules mean: “Behave yourselves and take care of each other”.

But I would also like us – and you – to shake hands on something more.

That it’s okay when things are difficult.

That we are here to learn – not to agree.

And that you – like Nielsine Nielsen – will steer the world in a better direction for the next 150 years.

Welcome to the University of Copenhagen.