The University     of Szeged   HUNGARY     Szeged, the Host City   Szeged is situated near the southern border of Hungary, just to the south of the mouth of the river Maros, on both banks of the river Tisza. A large part of the town lies on the right bank, while Újszeged (New Szeged), a suburban district of residential housing and parks, is on the left bank of the river. Szeged is the cultural and economic center of South-Eeastern Hungary, and a thriving university town famous for its open-air theater. The city center is marked by the medieval Tower of St. Demetrius and the stately twin spires of the Votive Church. This cathedral was built in the first decades of our century to commemorate the revival of the city after the devastating flood of the river Tisza in 1879. By Hungarian standards, Szeged is a large city, with a population of 170,000. The climate is very favourable. The mean temperature is somewhat higher than in the rest of the country, and Szeged is also called the City of Sunshine since the number of sunny hours is highest here in Hungary. The area of Szeged has been inhabited since Roman times. During the period of the Great Migration, the fifth through the ninth centuries, it was a meeting place for various tribes. Because of this, the region is abundant in valuable archeological sites. The settlement was given the rank of free royal town in 1241; it was an important monastic center in the late Middle Ages; during the 16th and 17th centuries it suffered Turkish occupation and served as an administrative center for the Ottomans. The huge flood of 1879, mentioned above, turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The reconstruction that followed – with the help of Vienna, Paris, London, and other European cities – created a modern city with an exemplary layout of avenues and boulevards with a strikingly homogenous architecture that preserves the Eclecticism and Art Nouveau of the turn of the century. Szeged is the economic center of the region and has a reputation for food production, especially salami and paprika (the Pride of Szeged paprika is a common brand in American supermarkets). Textiles, oil and natural gas processing, and clothing production are also significant, but the city is most famous for its cultural life, including its large university which consists of ten faculties, or schools, including art/humanities, economics, law, medicine, music, sciences, teacher training and agricultural colleges, etc. and has over twenty thousands students. The city has also a number of reputed secondary schools, among them the Deák Bilingual Highschool which is a popular place among international students, too. In spite of the fact that Szeged has the atmosphere of a quiet college town, the city is surprisingly cosmopolitan. The UNESCO-sponsored international Center for Biological Research of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, as well as the other institutions of higher education, host a great number of foreign scholars and students. The local opera is second in reputation only to the one in Budapest. Theaters, cinemas, clubs, riversides, parks, swimming pools, and sports grounds provide plenty of possibilities for recreation. The University   The University of Szeged was created in 2000 after a merger of several universities and colleges existing in Szeged. The largest member of the merger was József Attila University, itself a successor of a university founded in Kolozsvár, Transylvania, in 1872. At the end of World War I, in accordance with the Paris peace-treaties, Hungary ceded Transylvania to Rumania and the university at Kolozsvár moved to Szeged in 1921. From the beginning, the city of Szeged made great efforts to turn the town into a comfortable home for higher education. Many outstanding professors worked at the university in the inter-war period, including Nobel Prize winner Albert Szent-Györgyi, who was first to isolate vitamin C, extracting it from the Szeged paprika. After world war II the University of Szeged was the first in Hungary to start functioning anew. In 1951, the Medical School was separated from the university and was established as an independent institution. In 1962 the University of Szeged took the name of the great Hungarian poet, Attila József, who was a student here in the 1920s. In 1991 the leaders of the institutions of higher education in Szeged signed an agreement to merge these institutions into a unified, sizable university which indeed happened by 2000.     Student Life At present the University has ten schools, or faculties. The head of the university is the Rector, and each faculty is directed by a dean. The full period of training for most students stretches over a minimum of five years. This is due to the fact that in Hungarian universities, as elsewhere in most of Europe, undergraduate and graduate studies are not separated formally but form integral parts of a unified curriculum leading directly to a diploma comparable to the Master's degree. Currently the number of full-time students is approximately 22,000; this makes the university the third largest such institution in Hungary. The total number of staff is over 1600. Many of the students are accommodated in the five dormitories, with the rest preferring various types of private lodging. Cultural and recreational opportunities abound at the University. Some of these are provided by the university club (in the central building) and the extra curricular programs of the dormitories, others by the sports facilities, and the town's off-campus recreational facilities. There are also frequent folk-dance events, discos, film showings, and guest appearances. A number of independent cultural groups, such as the university choir, several amateur theater groups, the ensemble of folk dance, and various student circles help to produce a lively atmosphere in and around the university.     Research Facilities in Szeged The university provides a wide range of possibilities for research and independent study. The University Library in the central building has a collection of over a million books and periodicals, and the various facultires and departments also have their own resources and collections. The Hungary & East-Central European International Studies Centre has over a thousand books specially selected for international students (art books, Hungarian literature in English translation, books on history and current affairs, etc.) while the library of the Institute of English & American Studies has about 35,000 books, many of them being general reference books in English, that are also useful for international students. The Computer Center maintains one of the fastest networks among Hungarian universities. The complete stock of holdings of the University Library can be accessed via electronic catalogues. International students are granted computing facilities, email and internet use gratis. Outside the university, there are other institutions supporting research and scholarly activities. Especially remarkable among them is the Somogyi County Library (perhaps Hungary’s most attractive modern library building, across from the Votive Church) with its collection of 500,000 volumes, including a special collection of valuable rare books. English encyclopedias and handbooks, a huge collection of classical music recordings, as well as a fine cafeteria make the library a popular place among visiting students.