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University of Liège (Belgium)

Flags of the University of Liège - Image by Ivan Sache, 18 November 2009

Presentation of the University of Liège
Flag of the University of Liège

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Presentation of the University of Liège

University of Liège (ULg) caters 18,000 students and 2,800 staff members, spread over eight faculties (Philosophy and Literature, Law and Political Sciences, Sciences, Medicine, Applied Sciences, Veterinary Medicine, Psychology and Education Sciences, Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech), one institute (Humanities and Social Sciences) and one school (HEC- Management School of the University of Liège).
ULg has grounds in Liège downtown (historical site, housing the Rectorate, Administration and Faculty of Philosophy and Literature; newly founded HEC), on the campus of Sart-Tilmant (built in the 1960s on a hill dominating the valleys of Ourthe and Meuse, 10 km south of the center of Liège, housing most faculties), in Gembloux (the former Faculty of Agronomic Sciences of Gembloux having been incorporated to ULg as Gembloux Agro-Bio Tech on 1 October 2009), in Arlon (the former Luxembourg University Foundation having been incorporated to ULg as the Department of Environment Sciences and Management in 2007), as well as the Marine and Oceanographic Research Station (STARESO) founded in the Bay of Calvi, Corsica in 1965, and the Hautes-Fagnes Scientific Station, founded in 1924.
Among the most famous professors of ULg are the geologist and mineralogist André Dumont (1809-1857), who spent 13 years of his life to sample the Belgian soil and eventually released the geologic map ofthe country; the German biologist Theodor Schwann (1810-1882), discoverer of pepsin, author of the cellular theory ("The cellular origin is common to all forms of life") and inventor of a respiratory device for coal miners; the embryologist Edouard Van Beneden (1846-1910), discoverer of the meiotic division in the roundworm; the astronom Polydore Swings (1906-1983), President of the International Astronomical Union (1964-1967); and the bacteriologist Jean-Marie Ghuysen (1925-2004).

The academic tradition in Liège dates back to the 11th century, favoured by enlightened Prince-Bishops; Liège was then known as the "North Athens". Travelling all over Europe in search of ancient manuscripts, the Italian humanist Petrarch stayed at Liège in 1333, where he bitterly complained about the "good barbarian town" where it was nearly impossible to find ink, but found out in a monastery a copy of Cicero's Pro Archia, a speech whose original had been lost.
In 1496, the Brothers of Common Life opened a college dedicated to humanities, subsequently ran by the Jesuits. Following the expelling of the Jesuits, Prince-Bishop François-Charles of Velbrück (1719-1784) reorganized their college as the Grand Collège en Île.
Th Imperial Decree signed by Napoléon I on 17 March 1808 reorganized the French university system. An Academy depending on the Imperial University was founded at Liège; the Faculty of Sciences was inaugurated on 25 September 1811.
After the fall of the French Empire, King of the Netherlands William I founded by Decree of 25 September 1816 the three universities of Ghent, Liège (Academia Leodensis) and Leuven. The Law of 25 September 1835 erected the universities of Ghent and Liège as State universities.
On 29 October-1 November 1865, the students of Ulg organized the first Students' Internationa Congress. Mostly positivists and radicals, the participants scared the rulers of Europe: the Catholic University of Leuven forbid its students to attend the congress, the Vatican nounce protested and the Belgian newspapers relating the debates were censored for one week in France.
In 1954, Rector Marcel Dubuisson proposed the transfer of most faculties to the campus of Sart Tilman, designed by the architect Claude Strebelle. Following the federalization of Belgium, the official name of the university was changed on 1 January 1989 from "State University at Liège" to "Liège University", the competency on ULg being transferred from the State to the French Community in Belgium.

Source: ULg website

Ivan Sache, 18 November 2009

Flag of the University of Liège

ULg uses (at least) two flags, charged with either the coat of arms or the logo of ULg, in the latter case with colour variations.

The cover of the ULg's Employment Guide (24th Edition, 2008-2009) shows a row of flags, in turn with the coat of arms or the logo, hoisted in front of a building of ULg. A similar flag row is shown on a photo taken by J.E. Poirrier on 31 March 2007.
The two flags were also used indoors, together with the flags of the French Community in Belgium and of the European Union, during the oath ceremony of the new associate professors, held in Castle Colonster (Sart Tilmant campus) on 23 October 2008.

ULg uses a white flag with, in the middle, the university's coat of arms as "Quarterly, 1. and 4. Liège, 2. and 3. Or a gril surrounded by four scallops, all gules."
Adopted in 1967, the arms shows the arms of the town of Liège (De gueules à une colonne posée sur trois degrés soutenus de trois lions couchés et sommée d'une pomme de pin soutenant une croix pattée; la dite colonne accostée à dextre de la lettre L et à senestre de la lettre G, le tout d'or) in the first and fourth quarters, while the second and third quarters recall the transfer of the university to the campus of Sart Tilmant.
The domain of Sart-Tilmant once belonged to the St. James and St. Lawrence abbeys. The scallops come from the arms of the St. James abbey, while the gril was encarved on the borderstones of the domaine of the St. Lawrence abbey.
The scroll bears the Latin name of Ulg, Universitas leodiensis, Leodium being the Latin name of Liège.

ULg uses a white flag with, in the middle, the logo of the university. Shown on the aforementioned photos, these flags must be obsolete since ULg has recently adopted a new logo.
The flag seems to exist with the logo in two colours, either gray or green.

Ivan Sache & Jan Mertens, 18 November 2009