The Student Society in Trondheim is Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

's largest student society.

Besides housing two cafés and frequently hosting concerts and other activities (among them Norway's biggest culture festival, UKA

UKA

UKA is the largest cultural festival in Norway and is arrangedevery other year entirely by volunteer students from Trondheim. In 2007, 1394 students did volunteer work, while 78,000 event tickets were sold....

), it is an independent organization for all students and teachers in Trondheim, owned fully by its members. (At the end of 2006, there are about 8000 members.)

Many famous artists have held concerts here. Among others, Sex Pistols

Sex Pistols

The Sex Pistols were an English punk rock band that formed in London in 1975. They were responsible for initiating the punk movement in the United Kingdom and inspiring many later punk and alternative rock musicians...

, Turbonegro

Turbonegro

Turbonegro is a Norwegian punk rock band that was initially active from 1989 to 1998, and later reformed in 2002. Their style combines glam rock, punk rock and hard rock into a style the band describes as "deathpunk"....

, Phoenix

Phoenix (band)

Phoenix is a Grammy Award winning French indie rock band from Versailles, founded by Thomas Mars, Deck d'Arcy, Christian Mazzalai and Laurent Brancowitz.-Formation and early years:...

, Tom McRae

Tom McRae

Tom McRae is an English singer-songwriter.-Career:The son of two Church of England vicars, McRae sang in the church choir and as a teen experimented with his mother's guitar...

, Motörhead, Iggy Pop

Iggy Pop

Iggy Pop is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Though considered an innovator of punk rock, Pop's music has encompassed a number of styles over the years, including pop, metal, jazz and blues...

, Suede

Suede (band)

Suede are an English alternative rock band from London, formed in 1989. The group's most prominent early line-up featured singer Brett Anderson, guitarist Bernard Butler, bass player Mat Osman and drummer Simon Gilbert. By 1992, Suede were hailed as "The Best New Band in Britain", and attracted...

, Motorpsycho

Motorpsycho

Motorpsycho is a band from Trondheim, Norway. Their music can generally be defined as psychedelic rock, but they also mix in elements from metal, jazz, rock, pop and many other musical styles. The members of the band are Bent Sæther , Hans Magnus "Snah" Ryan and Kenneth Kapstad...

, Dum Dum Boys, Public Enemy, In Flames

In Flames

In Flames is a Swedish heavy metal band from Gothenburg, formed in 1990. Since the band's inception in 1993, they have released ten studio albums and one live DVD...

 and many, many more. Quite a few famous Norwegian bands have started their careers on one of Samfundet's many stages. Some examples are Knutsen & Ludvigsen

Knutsen & Ludvigsen

Knutsen & Ludvigsen was a Norwegian singing duo consisting of Øystein Dolmen and Gustav Lorentzen .Writing and performing various songs mostly aimed at children, they released seven albums, two of which received Spellemannprisen - the Norwegian Grammy. They had several #1 hits, including "Grevling...

, deLillos

DeLillos

deLillos is a Norwegian rock band formed in Oslo in 1984. They are regarded as one the "Four Greats" in modern Norwegian pop music, i.e. one of the four 1980s groups that founded a new tradition for rock music with lyrics in Norwegian...

 and Postgirobygget

Postgirobygget (band)

Postgirobygget is a Norwegian rock band from Trondheim. Singer and songwriter Arne Hurlén, bass player and backing vocals Nicolai Hauan , guitarist and backing vocals Nils Petter Time, keyboardist and harmonica player Øyvind Kolset, and drums, percussion and backing vocals Per Sarin Madsen...

.

Every other year world figures attend The Student Society through its festival ISFiT and past speakers include His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama is a high lama in the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" branch of Tibetan Buddhism. The name is a combination of the Mongolian word далай meaning "Ocean" and the Tibetan word bla-ma meaning "teacher"...

, former Director-General of WHO Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland

Gro Harlem Brundtland

Gro Harlem Brundtland is a Norwegian Social democratic politician, diplomat, and physician, and an international leader in sustainable development and public health. She served three terms as Prime Minister of Norway , and has served as the Director General of the World Health Organization...

 and Nobel Peace Prize Laureates Dr José Ramos-Horta and Professor Wangari Maathai

Wangari Maathai

Wangari Muta Mary Jo Maathai was a Kenyan environmental and political activist. She was educated in the United States at Mount St. Scholastica and the University of Pittsburgh, as well as the University of Nairobi in Kenya...

.

During the summer (late June to mid August) Samfundet transforms into Trondheim InterRail Centre (TIRC). TIRC was started in 1992 by members of the Student Society, and has been run by society volunteers every summer since then.

History

As the Norwegian Institute of Technology

Norwegian Institute of Technology

The Norwegian Institute of Technology, known by its Norwegian abbrevation NTH was a science institute in Trondheim, Norway. It was established in 1910, and existed as an independent technical university for 85 years, after which it was merged into the University of Trondheim as an independent...

 (NTH) (later the Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Norwegian University of Science and Technology

The Norwegian University of Science and Technology , commonly known as NTNU, is located in Trondheim. NTNU is the second largest of the eight universities in Norway, and, as its name suggests, has the main national responsibility for higher education in engineering and technology...

, NTNU) opened, September 15, 1910, Trondheim got its first real group of students, and the need for an organized student society soon became apparent. Only one week later, a group of students met and decided to create a student society, and yet one week later, on October 1, Norges Tekniske Høgskolens Studentersamfund ("The student society of NTH")first came into existence.

In the beginning, membership was limited to NTH students; this was later expanded to all students (over 18) in the Trondheim area, and thus, in 1912, the name changed into Studentersamfundet i Trondhjem ("The student society of Trondheim

Trondheim

Trondheim , historically, Nidaros and Trondhjem, is a city and municipality in Sør-Trøndelag county, Norway. With a population of 173,486, it is the third most populous municipality and city in the country, although the fourth largest metropolitan area. It is the administrative centre of...

"), which still is its current name, although the city has switched names twice since.

In the first two years, Samfundet did not have its own building, but in 1912, they bought an old abandoned circus building (only called "Circus"), and 15 years later, in 1927, one began the building of the characteristic red round house which is today known as Samfundet. In 1929, the building was finished and the activities were moved. Although Circus was abandoned, the old traditions were carried through by architect Eystein Michaelsen; Storsalen (the main concert hall) still looks very much like a circus.

The building still stands, with active maintenance on a day-to-day basis and bigger projects taking place every two years (related to UKA

UKA

UKA is the largest cultural festival in Norway and is arrangedevery other year entirely by volunteer students from Trondheim. In 2007, 1394 students did volunteer work, while 78,000 event tickets were sold....

).

Architecture

It has been said that there were two demands for the original drawings of Samfundet: First of all, it was to have some element of circus

Circus

A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...

 (in remembrance of Cirkus, the old building), which has been taken care of in Storsalen.

Second, it was to be have elements from maze

Maze

A maze is a tour puzzle in the form of a complex branching passage through which the solver must find a route. In everyday speech, both maze and labyrinth denote a complex and confusing series of pathways, but technically the maze is distinguished from the labyrinth, as the labyrinth has a single...

s. Samfundet is split into two parts, the public and private areas. The public areas can be complicated enough, even though they are mainly dominated by a few larger rooms (most being used as stages of various kind in the weekends) and hallways in-between. However, the private areas, which are normally only open to the staff, is a true maze. There are over 200 rooms, 40 different levels and a true chaos of hallways, doors and even ladders. Nobody has ever managed to get an exact count of how many rooms or doors; attempts to make CAD models of the building have failed (except for a very coarse model used during modelling of the fire extinguisher system), simply because the pieces do not seem to fit together. Most people get lost at least a few times, and the shortest path between two given places can easily involve fifteen or twenty turns and rooms.

Committees

Samfundet is mostly run by its members, more precisely people volunteering for jobs in one of its twenty or so committees (so-called gangs). About a thousand students thus do their share in helping the house (which is known as "the red round house" among its members) keep going, by doing work such as concert booking, doing PA

Public address

A public address system is an electronic amplification system with a mixer, amplifier and loudspeakers, used to reinforce a sound source, e.g., a person giving a speech, a DJ playing prerecorded music, and distributing the sound throughout a venue or building.Simple PA systems are often used in...

 work during concerts or managing the internal IT systems. In addition, Samfundet hosts several choirs and other non-technical activities.

List of committees

As of February 2006, these are the current operating committees ("gangs") of Studentersamfundet, sorted by type of work:

• Administrative sub-committees of Finansstyret
  • Gjengsekretariatet (GS)
  • Nybygg
  • Strategisk utvalg

• Arranging committees
  • Klubbstyret (KLST)
  • Kulturutvalget (KU)
  • Lørdagskomiteen (LØK)

• Operational committees
  • Diversegjengen (D-gjengen, DG)
  • Forsterkerkomiteen (FK)
  • Fotogjengen (FG)
  • IT-komiteen (ITK)
  • Kafé- og Serveringsgjengen (KSG)
  • Layout Info Marked (LIM)
  • Videokomiteen (VK)

• Artistic committees
  • Studentersamfundets interne teater (SIT)
  • Studentersamfundets Orkester
    • Studentersamfundets symfoniorkester
    • Bodegaband (i dvale)
    • Snaustrinda Spellemanslag
    • Kjellerbandet
    • S. Møller storband
    • Salongorkesteret
    • Leisure Suit Lovers
    • Loose Booty
  • Strindens Promenade Orchester
    Strindens Promenade Orchester
    Strindens Promenade Orchester is a student wind band in Trondheim, Norway. It holds the world record in "speed playing" of John Philip Sousa's famous marching song Stars and Stripes Forever. The band calls their speedy rendering of the march Stars and Stribes, and performs the march at meetings at...
    
    

• Artistic related associations
  • Trondheim studentersangforening / Trondheim kvinnelige studentersangforening
    • Knauskoret
    • Candiss
    • Pirum

• Student media
  • Student-TV (STV, TV)
  • Radio revolt
    Radio Revolt
    Radio Revolt , is the student radio in Trondheim, Norway. It airs 55 hours a week on 100 and 106,2 FM, and 24 hours a day on the internet...
    
     (Radion, radio)
  • Under dusken
    Under dusken
    Under Dusken is the official student newspaper in Trondheim, Norway, with a circulation of 10,000 copies.Founded in 1914, it is Scandinavia's oldest student newspaper, and the second largest student newspaper in Norway after Oslo's Universitas....
    
     (UD, newspaper)

• Administrative/ruling institutions
  • Finansstyret
  • Rådet (the Council)
  • Styret (the Board)

• Affiliates
  • ISFiT
  • Trondheim Interrail Center (TIRC)
  • UKA
    UKA
    UKA is the largest cultural festival in Norway and is arrangedevery other year entirely by volunteer students from Trondheim. In 2007, 1394 students did volunteer work, while 78,000 event tickets were sold....
    
    

• Academic Radio Clubs
  • Akademisk Radioklubb, LA1K (ARK)

External links

• Official site (in Norwegian)
• Student-TV (in Norwegian)