Krupp College at International University Bremen
Posted by R. J. O’Hara for the Collegiate Way
8 October 2001 (collegiateway.org) — I’m delighted to report the opening of Alfried Krupp College at the new International University Bremen. IUB is a private university that is being organized from the beginning into three residential colleges, with Krupp as the first; IUB is the first university in Germany to adopt the residential college model. The masters of Krupp College are Isabel Wünsche and Kevin Pfeiffer, and Kevin gave me permission to share some news of their opening that he sent to me:
We are alive and well at Alfried Krupp College (IUB, Bremen).… My wife, Prof. Isabel Wünsche, and I are the first college masters. It’s a job I’m not sure we’ll survive, but we’re trying.… It’s particularly difficult here because everything is new, including the university. There are also the many problems that go with starting up a university (no washing machines, yet, no tables, etc., etc.) and this means that establishing the college itself as an entity that is part of but not the same as the university has not been easy. We are also just one college here and our commons area (and masters’ house) are not yet ready. This means the masters are living close-by but not in the college. We hope, soon, to have a masters’ office in the college available.
Right now, the students come up to my office in the admin building to help do our picture book, etc. I just wrote our first newsletter today while they were working on the picture book. I’ve enclosed a Word copy for you; please excuse any similarities to your Strong College newsletter—when one has no time and is suffering from a cold, one has to take certain shortcuts. Not to mention, why change something that works. [As I told Kevin, I was delighted that he copied my newsletter format; it made me feel like Krupp College’s grandfather. Anyone else is welcome to do the same. —RJO]
We also managed to get a part-time administrator and have been approved for a monthly master’s budget of 3,000 EUR. This may sound like a lot, but we will likely have to also use some of this as seed money for some student clubs. There is no student activities fee here, so except for their own fund-raising activities, there are no funds for such things as theatre scripts, music parts, magazine subscriptions, etc.
Please feel free to report as much or as little as this to others as you wish; the support is appreciated.
Your sometimes discouraged yet enthusiastic fans,
Kevin Pfeiffer
Professor Isabel Wünsche
College Masters of Alfried Krupp College
International University Bremen
Congratulations to Isabel and Kevin, and we wish them good luck (and much stamina) as they make it through their first exhausting but also very exciting term. (Reading their description gives me flashbacks to the opening term of Strong College, which was in a very similar physical state.) You can read more about IUB’s new residential college system by following the IUB link in the Collegiate Way’s listing of Residential Colleges Worldwide.
