80th Anniversary

The International Summer School was established by a collection of Norwegian academics in the aftermath of the Second World War. During the war, the United States had opened its doors to nearly 500 displaced Norwegian students seeking refuge from the Nazi occupation of their homeland. After Norway's liberation, a group of scholars on both sides of the Atlantic wished to express their gratitude for America's hospitality by devising an academic program, based at the University of Oslo, that would bring American students in the opposite direction. The result would become the Summer School, which held its first session in 1947.

The Summer School's first cohort was comprised of 221 Americans who set sail from New York in late June and arrived in Oslo on July 7. The program of that first summer already bore many of the hallmarks of the Summer School identity. Courses covered a range of subjects across the sciences, humanities, and Norwegian language and culture; students were housed at Blindern Studenterhjem; and lasting bonds were cultivated among students amid social and cultural activities, organized by both the staff and the students themselves.

Over the following decade, many more of the Summer School's most beloved traditions were established. In 1948, the second cohort of students was first welcomed to the Munch-adorned University Aula for their Opening Ceremony, followed within a few years by the first reception held at Oslo City Hall. Frequently, these events were attended by members of the Norwegian royal family, who have maintained a longstanding relationship with the student body across five generations. The students too developed a variety of experiences, such as the Norwegian choir and The Ambassador, the first iteration of the student yearbook.

In 1948, the North American Branch Office was established at St. Olaf College in Minnesota to help administer student applications on location. Yet already in that same year, the program welcomed its first non-American student to Oslo. The success of the program led to a steady increase of interest from students beyond the United States, and by 1958, this contingent had reached 32 students hailing from every inhabited continent. Reflecting the program's developing role as a forum of international collaboration, the administration determined to reidentify itself as the International Summer School.

The maturing reputation of the ISS as a singular institution within the field of international education led to further opportunities of expansion. Both public and private organizations began implementing scholarship initiatives to broaden the reach of ISS programming, particularly to students from the global south. With this steady increase in diversity came new courses to reflect the interests of a cosmopolitan student body. Peace Research, the program's longest running non-language course, began in 1969 in collaboration with the Peace Research Institute Oslo. International Development Studies followed in 1983. While Norwegian-centered activities continued and flourished, new extracurricular activities such as International Cultural Evening arose to provide the students the chance to share their own cultures with their peers.

In 1986, the student population topped 450 for the first time. Ever since, the ISS has roughly maintained this yearly population, averaging 75-90 nations represented each year. Barring a brief digital hiatus during the COVID-19 pandemic, Oslo and the Blindern campus have played host to the ISS program across 80 sessions, totaling now over 33,000 students from over 150 countries.