The Estonia oak tree, UW campus, 26 Sep 09 (detail)
I joined several hundred people today on the University of Washington campus in Seattle at a celebration commemorating both the 15th anniversary of the university’s Baltic Studies Program and the 100th anniversary of its Scandinavian Studies Department.
To mark the occasion, eight oak trees, one for each country in the department’s curricula (Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, and Sweden), were planted along the oldest pathway on the UW campus.
As it happens, trees representing 30 countries, including all of the Baltic and Scandinavian countries, were planted on the campus back in 1932. But alas, none of the Baltic or Scandinavian trees is still standing, each of them a victim of either disease or campus construction. Hence the idea to replace the eight Baltic/Scandinavian trees today.
Dr. Guntis Šmidchens, head of the Baltic Studies program, proposed to the assembled crowd that if we were to cheer loud enough to shake the leaves of the young oak trees, the echoes of our voices would still be heard in the mature oak grove 100 years from now. He then proceeded to lead a rousing chorus of “hip, hip, hooray!,” which we zestfully repeated three times.
And I can report that we were definitely loud enough to shake the leaves, so I’m quite certain that the distant echo of our enthusiastic cheers will be heard by the thoughtful pedestrians who pause among the leaves of this lovely oak grove a century from today.
Read more about the event, and the history of Scandinavian and Baltic studies at the University of Washington, here.
