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Uppsala Learning Lab -- A new centre in the transatlantic US-Sweden cooperation

Thursday May 25th a new centre for learning will be inaugurated at Uppsala University, Sweden. The new Uppsala Learning Lab reflects the growing collaboration between Sweden and Stanford University in developing new methods for learning and promoting the use of new technology.

Gerhard Casper, President of Stanford University, USA, will perform the inauguration together with his host, Professor Bo Sundqvist, Rector of Uppsala University.

Also present at the ceremony in Uppsala will be Stig Hagstrom, former University Chancellor in Sweden, and now back at Stanford University. Gerhard Casper will the following day be presented with an Honorary Doctorate at Uppsala University, a further confirmation of the bonds between the universities.

The centre in Uppsala is one of three nodes in SweLL, the Swedish Learning Lab, a collaborative network for future learning that consists of Stanford and Uppsala University, Karolinska Institutet and KTH; The Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden. The collaboration is founded and supported by the Wallenberg foundation, in the Wallenberg Global Learning Network. The emphasis within the network is on the development of new methods of learning in a global environment. Some of the projects will be demonstrated at the inauguration in Uppsala, such as interactive programs for medical training, the "virtual patient," courses in Bioinformatics and Global Classrooms. Gerhard Casper will also lecture on University development. Other participants from US are Shirley Malcom, AAAS, speaking about Creating New Tools for Educational Reform and Larry Leifer, representing the Stanford Learning Lab. Uppsala University, Sweden's oldest University (founded 1477) and by far the most prestigious, plays a leading role in the collaboration and hosts the chairmanship in SweLL.

Representatives from the media are especially welcome to the event!

Short bios:
Stig Hagstrom (Hagström) has been a professor at Stanford University in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering since 1987. In the period from 1992-98 he was the University Chancellor of the Swedish system of higher education. Trained as a physicist at Uppsala University with Nobel Laureate Professor Kai Siegbahn as his thesis advisor, he has held positions at Uppsala University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Chalmers University of Technology and University of Gothenburg, Linköping University, and Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory at University of California, Berkeley. He is Chairman of the Steering Committee for the Wallenberg Global Learning Network at Stanford University.

Born in 1937, Gerhard Casper grew up in Hamburg, Germany. He studied law at the Universities of Freiburg and Hamburg, obtained his Master of Laws at Yale Law School in 1962, and received his Doctorate at Freiburg in 1964. In the fall of 1964 Professor Casper emigrated to the United States, where he has held positions at the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Chicago Law School. In 1989, Casper became Provost of the University of Chicago, a post he held until he accepted the presidency of Stanford University in 1992.

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