Many happy faces when Kalmar Maritime Academy celebrated its 175th anniversary
It all began in 1842, with six officer students. Kalmar Maritime Academy has now celebrated its 175th anniversary with cake, lectures and accompanying dinner.
Kalmar Maritime Academy was launched on October 1, 1842 with six officer students. Today, 175 years later, the tradition goes on.
Last Friday, the 175th anniversary was celebrated with an open lecture providing glimpses from the academy's history, followed by a dinner for invited guests. The afternoon programme started with a welcome by the head of department Ted Bågfeldt who presented some milestones from Kalmar Maritime Academy's history. This was followed by a speech by Linnaeus University's recently appointed vice-chancellor Peter Aronsson, his first official commission as vice-chancellor.
Hans Rosengren, former senior lecturer at the academy, has put a lot of work into finding old pictures, texts and other items from old times and drew a lot of laughter during his presentation. His presentation was complemented by Jan Snöberg who gave an account of the development in recent years.
During the afternoon, the winner of a photo competition with pictures from Kalmar Maritime Academy or shipping in Kalmar was presented – Jennifer Ferccaine, student at Kalmar Maritime Academy in the 90s. The listeners also got to meet Kalmar's oldest graduate from the nautical science programme, Nils Gustafsson, who closed the lecture by ringing the ship's bell eight times, and Rune Bennarsten, who was the first student to graduate from the marine engineering programme in 1966.