{"id":221,"date":"2026-08-19T14:53:24","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T12:53:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogg.hivolda.no\/rektor\/?p=221"},"modified":"2026-08-19T14:53:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T12:53:24","slug":"rektors-opningstale-studiestart-august-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogg.hivolda.no\/rektor\/2026\/08\/19\/rektors-opningstale-studiestart-august-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Rektors opningstale studiestart august 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Dear students, new and returning. Dear colleagues and guests. Welcome to a new academic year at Volda University College. To those of you who have come here from abroad: you have travelled a long way, and from today this is your place too. The rest of my speech will be in Norwegian. You will find it in English on the screen beside me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lat meg byrje med ei lita tilst\u00e5ing: Eg har aldri vore s\u00e6rleg oppteken av fotball.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Men i sommar var eg og mannen min p\u00e5 ferie i Grimstad, og han tok meg med p\u00e5 fotballpub for \u00e5 sj\u00e5 Noreg mot Brasil. Eg gjekk mest for hans skuld. Puben var stappfull, kanskje hundre menneske, og dei fleste var framande for kvarandre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

S\u00e5 skjedde det noko eg ikkje var f\u00f8rebudd p\u00e5. D\u00e5 dommaren bl\u00e5ste av, og Brasil var sl\u00e5tt ut av VM, reiste heile lokalet seg. Vilt framande menneske kasta seg om halsen p\u00e5 kvarandre. For fyrste gong i historia var Noreg sitt herrelandslag i ein VM-kvartfinale \u2013 men det var ikkje det folk jubla for der inne. Midt i jubelen gjekk det opp for meg kva fotball handlar om. Det er ikkje ballen. Det er samhaldet, p\u00e5 tvers av om ein kjenner kvarandre eller ikkje.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kanskje kjende du p\u00e5 det same i sommar. Det er den kjensla eg \u00f8nskjer for deg her i Volda: \u00e5 h\u00f8yre til, \u00e5 dele noko med andre. Ikkje berre no i studiestarten, men gjennom heile studietida.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Men vi lever i ei uroleg tid. Dei fleste av oss fekk r\u00e5da fr\u00e5 styresmaktene i postkassa: vi b\u00f8r kunne klare oss sj\u00f8lve i ei veke. \u00abDu er ein del av Noregs beredskap\u00bb, heiter det.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Det kan kjennast tungt \u00e5 vere ung i ei slik tid. Kanskje har du tenkt: Kva kan vel eg gjere med alt dette? D\u00e5 vil eg fortelje deg om ein mann som levde her i Volda, og som i \u00e5r ville fylt 300 \u00e5r.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hans Str\u00f8m var prest i Volda p\u00e5 1700-talet, og ein av dei fyrste naturforskarane i landet. Mange av dykk skal ha undervisning i huset som ber namnet hans. Tida hans var minst like uroleg som v\u00e5r: u\u00e5r og svolt, stormar som tok fiskarar p\u00e5 havet, sjukdom utan legehjelp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kva gjorde han med uvissa? Han svara med kunnskap. Medan andre l\u00e6rde skreiv ned det dei fekk h\u00f8yre, gjekk han sj\u00f8lv ut og s\u00e5g etter, og skreiv ned korleis folk p\u00e5 Sunnm\u00f8re dreiv jordbruk og fiske. Kunnskapen delte han med folket her og med heile det l\u00e6rde Europa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kunnskap var beredskapen til Hans Str\u00f8m. Opplysning handla ikkje om luksus for han, det handla om \u00e5 overleve.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Og det, kj\u00e6re studentar, er grunnen til at de sit her i dag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For kva er beredskapen til eit samfunn, n\u00e5r det kjem til stykket? Det er ikkje berre hermetikk og batteri i eit kjellarskap. Den djupaste beredskapen er folk. Planleggjaren som veit kvar vatnet tek vegen lenge f\u00f8r elva stig. Kulturarbeidaren som gjev oss samhald, det som gjer at vi vil stille opp for kvarandre.L\u00e6raren som byggjer d\u00f8mmekraft hos ungane v\u00e5re. Journalisten som held informasjonsrommet reint n\u00e5r l\u00f8gna flaumar. Sosialarbeidaren som held lokalsamfunnet saman n\u00e5r krisa r\u00e5kar. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alt dette utdannar vi ved H\u00f8gskulen i Volda. Nokre av dykk som sit her i dag, skal st\u00e5 i desse rollene om f\u00e5 \u00e5r. S\u00e5 n\u00e5r styresmaktene seier at du er ein del av Noregs beredskap, vil eg seie det end\u00e5 sterkare: De er Noregs beredskap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Men ikkje i dag, og ikkje \u00e5leine. Det er nettopp difor de studerer her, med folk rundt dykk som har som jobb \u00e5 gjere dykk klare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Og s\u00e5 eit ord om det de kjem til \u00e5 bruke kvar einaste dag: kunstig intelligens. De kan meir om desse verkt\u00f8ya enn mange av oss som st\u00e5r her, s\u00e5 eg skal ikkje bruke tida p\u00e5 kva maskina ikkje kan. Eg skal seie kva vi ber dykk om: Gjer som Str\u00f8m. G\u00e5 ut og sj\u00e5 etter sj\u00f8lv. Sjekk kjelda. Og ver i stand til \u00e5 gjere greie for korleis de kom fram til det de leverer \u2013 for eit svar du ikkje kan forklare, er ikkje kunnskap. Danning kan ikkje lastast ned. Ho m\u00e5 \u00f8vast opp, saman med andre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Og s\u00e5 skal eg seie \u00e9in ting som ikkje st\u00e5r i studieplanen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eg er homofil, og eg har vore open om det i mange \u00e5r. Likevel m\u00e5 eg framleis tenkje gjennom det kvar gong eg m\u00f8ter nokon nye: skal eg seie det no, seinare, eller ikkje? Etter alle desse \u00e5ra \u2013 framleis det same sp\u00f8rsm\u00e5let. Og eg er rektor. Eg har ein tittel og eit heilt hus i ryggen n\u00e5r eg tenkjer p\u00e5 det.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nokre av dykk sit med det same sp\u00f8rsm\u00e5let i dag. Andre sit med noko anna: at du ikkje kjenner eit einaste menneske du skal studere saman med. At du er femten \u00e5r eldre enn resten av kullet. At ingen heime har studert f\u00f8r.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Difor skal eg vere tydeleg p\u00e5 kva som gjeld her: Du er no student i Volda. Du skal ikkje m\u00e5tte gjere deg mindre for \u00e5 vere det. Dette er ikkje h\u00f8flegheit, det er eit fagleg krav. Eit akademisk fellesskap lever av at folk seier det dei faktisk meiner. Og det gjer ingen som samstundes m\u00e5 halde att p\u00e5 kven dei er.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Volda er ein liten stad. Det gjer det tettare enn der mange av dykk kjem fr\u00e5, og det kan bli to ting: godt, eller trongt. Kva av dei to det blir, avgjer vi i lag \u2013 fr\u00e5 i dag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Og hugs laget fr\u00e5 i sommar. Sigeren mot Brasil vart til i alle \u00e5ra med arbeid f\u00f8r den kvelden vi jubla. Og bak dei elleve p\u00e5 bana st\u00e5r eit heilt st\u00f8tteapparat: trenarar, fysioterapeutar, analytikarar, kokkar. Ingen kjem dit \u00e5leine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Du har eit apparat \u00f2g: fadrane dei fyrste vekene, medstudentane dine, fagl\u00e6rarane og samtaletenestene v\u00e5re. Bruk dei. \u00c5 be om hjelp er ikkje eit nederlag, det er ein studieteknikk. For studietida vert ikkje avgjord i eksamensveke, men i alle dei vanlege dagane de m\u00f8ter opp, studerer og hjelper kvarandre vidare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Det de sit igjen med til slutt, er meir enn eit vitnem\u00e5l. Det er danning: evna til \u00e5 tenkje sj\u00f8lv, og til \u00e5 bere eit demokrati vidare. Danning og demokrati \u2013 det er visjonen til H\u00f8gskulen i Volda. I dag er det eit l\u00f8fte til dykk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

S\u00e5 la oss byrja der. P\u00e5 puben i Grimstad kjende eg ingen utanom mannen min. Likevel jubla hundre framande som om vi hadde kjent kvarandre heile livet. Ingen hadde planlagt det. Det berre skjedde.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her skjer det ikkje av seg sj\u00f8lv. Eit studiemilj\u00f8 blir til av folk som gjer det fyrste trekket, gong p\u00e5 gong, gjennom heile studietida.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ein eller annan gong desse \u00e5ra kjem du til \u00e5 trenge nokon. Ein annan gong er det du som er den nokon treng. Du veit ikkje p\u00e5 f\u00f8rehand kva som blir din tur, og difor gjeld dette alle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sj\u00e5 deg rundt. Kven kan du seie hei til i dag?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Godt studie\u00e5r!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

English version:
Dear students, new and returning. Dear colleagues and guests. Welcome to a new academic year at Volda University College. To those of you who have come here from abroad: you have travelled a long way, and from today this is your place too. The rest of my speech will be in Norwegian. You will find it in English on the screen beside me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let me begin with a small confession: I have never been particularly interested in football.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this summer my husband and I were on holiday in Grimstad, and he took me to a football pub to watch Norway play Brazil. I mostly went for his sake. The pub was packed, perhaps a hundred people, and most of them were strangers to one another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then something happened that I was not prepared for. When the referee blew the final whistle and Brazil were out of the World Cup, the whole room rose to its feet. Complete strangers threw their arms around each other. For the first time in history the Norwegian men’s team were in a World Cup quarter-final \u2013 but that was not what people were cheering for in there. In the middle of it all, I understood what football is really about. It is not the ball. It is the sense of belonging together, whether or not you know the person beside you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perhaps you felt the same thing this summer. That is the feeling I want for you here in Volda: to belong, to share something with others. Not only now, during these first days, but throughout your studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But we live in an unsettled time. Most of us received the government’s advice through our letterboxes: we should be able to manage on our own for a week. \u201cYou are part of Norway’s preparedness,\u201d it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It can weigh on you to be young in a time like this. Perhaps you have thought: what can I possibly do about any of it? Then let me tell you about a man who lived here in Volda, and who would have turned 300 this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hans Str\u00f8m was a priest in Volda in the eighteenth century, and one of the first natural scientists in Norway. Many of you will have classes in the building that carries his name. His time was at least as unsettled as ours: failed harvests and hunger, storms that took fishermen at sea, illness with no doctor to call on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What did he do with that uncertainty? He answered it with knowledge. While other scholars wrote down what they were told, he went out and looked for himself, recording how people in Sunnm\u00f8re farmed and fished. That knowledge he shared with the people here, and with learned Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Knowledge was Hans Str\u00f8m’s preparedness. For him, enlightenment was not a luxury. It was a way to survive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that, dear students, is why you are sitting here today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because what is a society’s preparedness, when it comes down to it? It is not only tinned food and batteries in a cupboard. The deepest preparedness is people. The planner who knows where the water will go long before the river rises. The cultural worker who gives us the sense of belonging that makes us willing to show up for one another. The teacher who builds judgement in our children. The journalist who keeps the information space clean when lies are flooding in. The social worker who holds a community together when crisis strikes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of this we educate for at Volda University College. Some of you sitting here today will hold those very roles within a few years. So when the authorities say that you are part of Norway’s preparedness, I will put it more strongly: you are Norway’s preparedness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But not today, and not on your own. That is precisely why you are studying here, surrounded by people whose job it is to get you ready.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And a word about something you will use every single day: artificial intelligence. You know more about these tools than many of us standing here, so I will not spend my time on what the machine cannot do. I will tell you what we ask of you: do as Str\u00f8m did. Go out and look for yourself. Check the source. And be able to account for how you arrived at what you hand in \u2013 because an answer you cannot explain is not knowledge. Formation of character and judgement cannot be downloaded. It has to be practised, together with others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And now I want to say one thing that is not in any course description.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am gay, and I have been open about it for many years. Even so, I still have to think it through every time I meet new people: do I say it now, later, or not at all? After all these years, still the same question. And I am the rector. I have a title and an entire institution behind me when I think about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of you are sitting with that same question today. Others are sitting with something else: that you do not know a single person you are about to study alongside. That you are fifteen years older than the rest of your year group. That no one in your family has studied before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So let me be clear about what applies here: you are now a student in Volda. You should not have to make yourself smaller in order to be one. This is not politeness, it is an academic requirement. A scholarly community lives on people saying what they actually think. And no one does that while holding back who they are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Volda is a small place. That makes it closer-knit than where many of you come from, and it can turn into two things: warm, or narrow. Which of the two it becomes, we decide together \u2013 starting today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And remember the team from this summer. The victory over Brazil was built in all the years of work before the evening we cheered. And behind the eleven on the pitch stands an entire support team: coaches, physiotherapists, analysts, cooks. No one gets there alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You have a support team too: your mentors in these first weeks, your fellow students, your lecturers, and our student support services. Use them. Asking for help is not a defeat, it is a study technique. Because your years here are not decided in the exam week, but in all the ordinary days when you turn up, study, and help each other along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What you are left with in the end is more than a diploma. It is formation: the ability to think for yourself, and to carry a democracy forward. Formation and democracy \u2013 that is the vision of Volda University College. Today it is a promise to you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So let us begin there. In that pub in Grimstad I knew no one except my husband. Even so, a hundred strangers cheered as though we had known each other all our lives. No one had planned it. It simply happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here it does not happen by itself. A student community is made by people who take the first step, again and again, throughout their years of study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At some point during these years you will need someone. At another point you will be the one someone needs. You cannot know in advance which turn is yours, and that is why this applies to everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Look around you. Who can you say hello to today?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Have a good academic year!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear students, new and returning. Dear colleagues and guests. Welcome to a new academic year at Volda University College. To those of you who have come here from abroad: you have travelled a long way, and from today this is your place too. The rest of my speech will be in Norwegian. You will find … Fortsett \u00e5 lese Rektors opningstale studiestart august 2026<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":224,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"aside","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogg.hivolda.no\/rektor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogg.hivolda.no\/rektor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogg.hivolda.no\/rektor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogg.hivolda.no\/rektor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/224"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogg.hivolda.no\/rektor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogg.hivolda.no\/rektor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":224,"href":"https:\/\/blogg.hivolda.no\/rektor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221\/revisions\/224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogg.hivolda.no\/rektor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogg.hivolda.no\/rektor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogg.hivolda.no\/rektor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}