Tore Austad is a Norwegian

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...

 politician for the Conservative Party

Conservative Party of Norway

The Conservative Party is a Norwegian political party. The current leader is Erna Solberg. The party was since the 1920s consistently the second largest party in Norway, but has been surpassed by the growth of the Progress Party in the late 1990s and 2000s...

. Born in Skedsmo

Skedsmo

Skedsmo is a municipality in Akershus county, Norway. It is part of the traditional region of Romerike. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Lillestrøm. About one third of the municipal population lives in Lillestrøm. Other important towns are Skedsmokorset, Skjetten and...

, Akershus

Akershus

- Geography :The county is conventionally divided into the traditional districts Follo and Romerike, which fill the vast part of the county, as well as the small exclave west of Oslo that consists of Asker and Bærum...

, he received a cand. philol.

Candidatus Philologiæ

Candidatus philologiae or Candidata philologiae , often abbreviated cand.philol. is an academic degree in Arts and Letters at Danish and Norwegian universities. A cand.philol. is generally considered equivalent to the British Master of Philosophy, the French diplôme d'études approfondies or the...

 degree in 1962, and worked as a professor of Norwegian

Norwegian language

Norwegian is a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Norway, where it is the official language. Together with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a continuum of more or less mutually intelligible local and regional variants .These Scandinavian languages together with the Faroese language...

 at the University of Chicago

University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...

 from 1964 to 1966. Returning to Norway he worked at various academic institutions, before being elected to the Storting from the county of Vest-Agder

Vest-Agder

In the 16th century, Dutch merchant vessels began to visit ports in southern Norway to purchase salmon and other goods. Soon thereafter the export of timber began, as oak from southern Norway was exceptionally well suited for shipbuilding...

 in 1977, where he sat for three periods, until 1989.

On 14 October 1981, he was appointed Minister of Education and Church Affairs in the new government

First cabinet Willoch

Willoch's First Cabinet was a minority, Conservative Government of Norway. It succeeded the Labour First cabinet Brundtland, after the Conservative victory in the 1981 Storting election and sat between October 14, 1981 - June 7, 1983. It was replaced by the Conservative/Centre/Christian Democrat...

 of Kåre Willoch. On 8 June 1983, the Conservative Party joined in a coalition with the Christian Democratic Party and the Centre Party

Centre Party (Norway)

The Centre Party is a centrist and agrarian political party in Norway, founded in 1920. The Centre Party's policy is not based on any of the major ideologies of the 19th and 20th century, but has a focus on maintaining decentralised economic development and political decision-making.From its...

, in order to form a majority government

Second cabinet Willoch

Willoch's Second Cabinet was a majority, Conservative/Centre/Christian Democrat Government of Norway. It succeeded the Conservative First cabinet Willoch in mid-term to secure a majority, right-winged government, and sat from 8 June 1983 to 8 May 1986...

. Austad had to resign, and his position was taken over by Kjell Magne Bondevik

Kjell Magne Bondevik

Kjell Magne Bondevik is a Norwegian Lutheran minister and politician . He served as Prime Minister of Norway from 1997 to 2000, and from 2001 to 2005, making him Norway's longest serving non-Labour Party Prime Minister since World War II...

.