Intense Debate as Mid Sweden University Grows | 1997 |

Up until 1997, Mid Sweden University was located on Rådhusgatan, with complementing premises at Frösö Strand. When the activities outgrew the premises, it opened discussions about where to relocate to. There were several alternatives. One of them was to move all courses and programmes to Frösö Strand. Another one was to keep the premises on Rådhusgatan and to move some of the activities to the premises of the artillery regiment at A4. There were also discussions about the area Storsjö Strand, but they never led to any tangible proposal.

The debate between the advocates of the first two alternatives was intense. According to Alf Gunnmo’s anniversary publication “Sveriges nästa universitet – Mitthögskolans första 10 år” (”Sweden’s Next University – Mid Sweden University’s First 10 Years”), “There were many people, both within and outside the university college, such as the County council politicians, who worked hard to have the university college relocated to the hospital buildings . . . Others, both within and outside the university college, such as the local politicians, worked just as hard in favour of taking advantage of the unique opportunity that had presented itself of having a university college in the town centre. It was a tough battle and the outcome remained uncertain until June 1997, when the University college board decided that Campus Östersund would be built in the A4 area.”

– There were leading advocates for both localizations, but the determining factor was the decision that A4 would be shut down. That brought about a completely different set of opportunities for creating a centralized localization, says Göte Högbom, who was the Property manager at Mid Sweden University for many years.

Göte believes that the university college would have ended up on Frösön, if A4 had not been shut down, since it was the only alternative for gathering all the activities under one roof.