The History of the Student Union

The Student Union of ÅAU is almost as old as Åbo Akademi University itself – it has connected students since 1919. The initiative to establish a student association was taken by the academy’s first rector, Edvard Westermarck, who on February 6, 1919, gathered the already 40 students. The academy offered the student association premises and covered the furnishing costs. During the first few years, students used various spaces within the academic quarters.

The new student association’s mission was to strengthen and cultivate camaraderie among students and represent them both internally and externally. From the beginning, it was decided to introduce compulsory membership. The association aimed to build a student life in a city that had lacked it for nearly a hundred years. There were no real traditions to inherit, but students tried to create a link to the past through various symbols. Much inspiration for student life also came from Sweden.

Regarding the student cap, Åbo students switched to the larger, more elaborate type used by most universities in Sweden in the autumn of 1919. When Swedish students at the University of Helsinki also made the same change, the cap became a symbol of Swedish nationality. The lyre chosen by Åbo students was designed by architect Alexander Nyström. It was intended to be a copy of the old academy’s lyre, with a fragile branch interwoven – the new shoot on a severed trunk. Deciding the appearance of the student union ribbon proved more challenging. However, after a few years of discussion, it was determined that the ribbon should be in the Brahe colors of black and yellow. Students clearly identified themselves strongly as part of a revived Åbo Akademi.

On May 10, 1919, it was decided to appoint Regent Carl Gustaf Mannerheim as the Student Union’s first honorary member. During his visit to Åbo, Mannerheim explicitly requested to visit the Akademi and its students. In his thank-you speech, he said, “It is especially dear to me to visit this Akademi, which, after nearly a century of being deprived of its university, has now grown on this historical foundation, which has always been Finland’s centre of culture.”

Soon after the Akademi was founded, students made their mark on the city of Åbo. One early morning, students’ singing echoed loudly (despite the prohibition) from three different hills in Åbo before the police found the responsible members of the Student Union. The only consequence of their visit to the police station was that the police chief advised the singers to sing with less volume on their way back. The next day, when students reported the incident to the rector, he was pleased to note that “Åbo has shown itself to be not only a university city but also a true student city.” He also asked the students to inform him next time they planned to sing on Observatorieberget, saying: “Because I would so terribly like to join.”

The student association became the Student Union in 1920. That same year, the Chair of the Student Union Rolf Pipping already claimed that a new type of student had emerged – one who only studied for their degree, not to learn. “His primary concern is the opportunity to make a living, but that’s why his sense of camaraderie also cools, and the ideals fade.” Nonetheless, there was still activity, and the number of students in the Student Union’s premises increased from 1921 when a group of brave women entered the student union buildning, which had previously been intended only for male students (except during parties when female students had access as guests). The oldest associations began to appear within the Student Union.

In the autumn of 1920, it was decided to establish a student housing fund because it was evident that the Akademi would grow and need the premises that the Student Union now occupied. On September 22, 1925, the Student Union signed the purchase agreement for the so-called Andréska gården at Stora Tavastgatan 22. The house was a light brown wooden building with a potato field, garden, and chicken coop in the yard. Among raspberry bushes and lilacs was a small yellow gazebo known as the toddy pavilion.

The Åbo Akademi University grew steadily, and soon the Student Union building became too small. It was renovated in the summer of 1931, and by December 1934, the question of an extension had arisen. On March 15, 1936, the Student Union’s banquet hall was inaugurated. Erik Bryggman, who designed the new building, believed that the toddy pavilion did not fit the environment with the new house, and since the wood was also rotting, the pavilion was demolished. The increasingly tight housing market led to plans for housing construction, and the land issue was surprisingly resolved on the night of May Day Eve in 1939 when the old Student Union building was destroyed in a fire. After the end of the war, construction began, and Tavasthem Student Home was completed in January 1950. Initially, there were some order problems at Tavasthem, and the Student Home Council noted that “It seems as if alcohol is a powerful factor in the general order at the Student Home.”

Of course, there are always some humorous antics in a student union. For example, students declared a shaving strike when water availability was rationed in Åbo in 1951, and in November 1958, there was an attempt to set a world record for pushing baby carriages. There was great consternation in the newspaper press when, after a raid on the Student Union’s attic, the police presented a catch of over thirty different signs and other stolen goods…