University of Lucerne

With 2790 students and 69 professors, the University of Lucerne is one of the smallest in Switzerland. However, in some areas, such as its Institute for Jewish-Christian Research, it enjoys an international reputation. Since about 1600 there have been courses in philosophy and theology in Lucerne. In addition to the Theological Faculty and the Faculty of Cultural and Social Sciences (formerly Faculty of Humanities), since 2001 there is also a faculty of law science. A fourth, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration took up the study program at the autumn semester 2016. After the Catholic elite and the Reformation lost the University of Basel as an educational institution, the Jesuit Kollegium Lucerne was founded in 1574 at the suggestion of Karl Borromäus. With the founding of the University of Freiburg in 1889, Lucerne's chances fell to a university of its own. Around 1920 the project of a Swiss Catholic university with faculties in Freiburg and Lucerne was followed, but without success. The project of a confessional-neutral university failed in a popular vote in 1978. From 1973, the Federal Council recognized the theological faculty as a university. The Philosophical Institute, which was founded in 1985, was founded by the Department of History of the Faculty of Humanities, created in 1989. In the year 2000 the new university law was approved by the Luzerner Voting Office. With the entry into force of the Act on October 1, 2000, the former university became a university. In 2001, the Faculty of Law was founded. In 2005, the Federal Council recognized Switzerland as a whole.