Around 60 young people sit on polished, upholstered wooden chairs in the small hall of the Bremen Glocke. The walls are paneled in dark wood. Artfully crafted lamps illuminate mirrors. At the front of the room, under a mural, is a stage. Where musicians play in the evenings, Professor Sebastian Kolbe stands at a lectern on this Thursday morning and talks about “necessary and useful expenses.” His lecture on the property law, i.e. the trade in goods, has been a mandatory course in the third semester of law school for decades. This fall, however, everything is different: art deco instead of lecture hall chairs.

More Glamorous than GW1 Building

“It is a beautiful room with a special atmosphere. There is definitely more glamor here than in GW1 building, where our lectures use to take place,” Kolbe states with a grin. Still, he had to get used to the Glocke. “The teaching situation here is the opposite of what you would find in a classic lecture hall. As a lecturer in GW1 building, I stood at the bottom looking up at the rising chairs.” Here in the Glocke, he is higher up and looks down on the students.

The fact that he is quite far away from the auditorium feels different to him. Sometimes he can barely understand questions from the back row. Still, the room works well for teaching. “The technology is well maintained. We can project our presentations on the wall and we are equipped with a headset, which means we can be heard throughout the room. And if they encounter a problem, the Glocke staff are competent and friendly.

Employees Hold Doors Open for Students

Julius Munzel was also impressed by the Glocke employees’ courteous behavior. “I’ve never had someone hold a door open for me when I visited a lecture. This is completely out of the ordinary,” says the student.

There is even a coat rack in front of the small hall, and staff are on hand to distribute padded lap desks to students. The lap desks are tablets with padding on the bottom that students can place on their laps to make up for the lack of folding tables of a traditional lecture hall.

In Munzel’s experience, this only works to a limited extent. “To be honest, I’m always worried about my laptop sliding off and being damaged. It’s a balancing act. I sit in a very awkward position,” the aspiring lawyer states. His fellow student Cedric Kujawa feels similarly. “I don’t use the lap desks at all. It feels far too unsafe for me.” Their professor, Sebastian Kolbe, has also noticed that the students can hardly take notes without a desk. So he provides notes for his lectures. “That is very helpful, but not all professors do that,” says student Kujawa.

Despite this criticism, the student cannot deny the special atmosphere of the Glocke. “The building is an attraction. Last night I went to a concert with my family in the same hall where I learn today. That is special,” he says.

Next week, Cedric Kujawa and his fellow students will have a chance to visit their former lecture hall again. The small hall of the Glocke will be occupied. As an exception, Professor Kolbe will lecture in the GW1 lecture hall again. In the future, students and professors will continue to visit the campus from time to time when the Glocke is not available. It can be nice to visit your “old home base” from time to time.

Further Information:

Forum at Domshof website (with many photos)

Faculty of Law (faculty 6) website