ÎNFIINŢAREA SECŢIEI DE GEOGRAFIE ŞI A INSTITUTULUI SĂU DIN CADRUL FACULTĂŢII DE ŞTIINŢE DE LA UNIVERSITATEA DACIEI SUPERIOARE DIN CLUJ
ALEXANDRU PĂCURAR (1)
(1) ”Babeș-Bolyai” University of Cluj-Napoca, Faculty of Geography, Department of Human Geography and Tourism, 5-7 Clinicilor Street, Cluj-Napoca, e-mail: alexandru.pacurar@ubbcluj.ro
ABSTRACT. The setting up of the Geography Department and its Institute
within the Faculty of Sciences at the Upper Dacia University of Cluj. On 16
August 1919, the University Board, the organ created for the organization and employment of teaching staff for the Upper Dacia University of Cluj after its transition to Romanian administration (12 May 1919), presented and proposed the organisational chart by departments, seminars, laboratories and institutes of the future Faculty of Sciences, by means of the Board rapporteurs, scientists Gheorghe Țițeica, Ludovic Mrazec and Alexandru Borza. At the express request of professor George Vâlsan, the tertiary geographical education was also included in this Faculty, as an independent department, the Department of Geography, consisting of two sections and an Institute of Geography. This was a new situation, different from the study of Geography at the universities in Iași and Bucharest. The
organisational chart of Cluj University, made according to the ”German model”, was kept until the Stalinist reform of the Romanian education on 3 August 1948. By means of suggestive examples, the main Romanian university institutions newlycreated at Cluj University are illustrated and described, some of them under the auspices of the Royal Foundations, such as the Astronomic Observatory and the Institute of Chemistry and Physics, as well as others, like the Sports Park, the new Botanical Garden with the Botanic Museum, the Palace of University Clinics, the Academic College and the Ethnographic Park and Museum. The materialization of George Vâlsan’s concept regarding the study of Geography and its relations to the other departments of Cluj University, as well as the their scientific and logical foundation within the double specialization, are extensively presented, as a proof of the scientist’s determination to lay solid grounds to the Romanian tertiary geographical education at Cluj University.
Keywords: Upper Dacia University of Cluj, Geography Department, Faculty of Sciences.