Historical university In 1455
Pope Nicholas V granted the
Archbishop of Trier, , the right to establish a university. The University of Trier was founded 16 March 1473. Battling financial problems for decades, the university was acquired by the
Jesuits in 1560. They emphasized the philosophical and
theological faculties at the expense of medicine and law. In the 1580s
Peter Binsfeld was president of the university. In the 1730s
Johann Nikolaus von Hontheim was also a faculty member. After the
French occupation of the Rhineland, the French administration ordered the universities of
Cologne,
Mainz,
Bonn and Trier closed, the last closing on 6 April 1798.
Modern university After a hiatus of some 172 years the University of Trier was re-established in 1970 by the
state of
Rhineland-Palatinate as a constituent member of the twin University of Trier-
Kaiserslautern, with 360 students matriculating in Trier on 15 October 1970. In 1975 the twin university was split into two independent universities. In 1977, the current university campus in
Tarforst was opened and during the 1990s a nearby former French military hospital complex (dating from the French military presence in Germany following the
Second World War) was acquired by the university and now forms a second campus, dubbed
Campus II. The
General Students Committee (German:
Allgemeiner Studierendenausschuss, or
AStA for short) put forward a proposal to change the university's official name to the
Karl Marx University of Trier (German:
Karl-Marx-Universität Trier), in honour of perhaps the city's
most famous son. Although the proposal was rejected by university authorities, the General Students Committee still referred to the university as "
Karl-Marx-Universität Trier", until a new coalition was formed in the students parliament in 2015.
University seal The modern university still uses the seal of the historical university in its corporate design. It contains the Latin motto "" (God completes the favors of wisdom from the city of Trier). In 2000 an alternative logo incorporating that seal was introduced, but this met with resistance. == Faculties ==