Rector Bård Mæland

Bård Mæland (b. 1968) has been appointed rector of VID Specialized University for the period 2020-2023. Rector is the top manager at the university college and reports to the board.

Smiling man with glasses and blazer leaning over a table

Bård Mæland is educated in theology from MF University College. He defended his PhD thesis in 2001 on the topic Christian theologians' understanding of Islam. Mæland is an ordained priest in the Church of Norway. He worked as a field priest and ethics teacher in the Armed Forces between 1995 and 2006, including at the Army War School and Feltprosten and the UNIFIL forces in southern Lebanon. He has had extended research stays at the University of Oxford and Luther Seminary, St. Paul.

In 2005, he was appointed professor of systematic theology at The School of Mission and Theology (MHS), Stavanger. Mæland was rector of the same place from 2010 and, together with Ingunn Moser, who at the time was rector of Diakonhjemmet University College, they took the initiative for a merger process which in 2016 resulted in VID Specialized University. He was then vice-rector for research at VID until the summer of 2019, when he was appointed rector.

Mæland has been chairman of the board of the national research school Religion, Values and Society and the regional research school Western Norway Graduate School of Educational Research II. He is also deputy chairman of the board of the Church Family Protection Foundation (Stiftelsen Kirkens Familievern).

Mæland has attended the Synod in the Church of Norway on behalf of The School of Mission and Theology and VID since 2010.

Ready about the University Board here.