Interview with Tuntréets first female editor:
Mette Eggen

Tuntréet started as a newspaper in 1946, but for a long time it was only male students that held the position of editor. The 1960s saw a growing amount of female students in Ås, and then in 1968 we had our first female editor, Mette Eggen. For posterity, she stands out as one of the greater editors we’ve had, as someone who brought new perspectives and a different voice, appearing as a breath of fresh air to this paper. Tuntréet was lucky getting to meet her. We sat down to find out what it was like to be an editor in the upheaval, and not least revolutionary, 1960s.

Journalists: Hanna Lindeman and Henrik Bakken
Translator: Henrikke Ellewsen
Photographer: Jørgen Berg Yndestad

Tuntréet’s correspondents meet the former editor at the newspaper’s own cradle; Universitetstunet, where the parklinden whose name is openly stands. Long before Tuntréet found its home in the office wing at Samfunnet, they were based in the attic at Tivoli. It was a significantly smaller place, but the editorial team was also considerably smaller, only about ten people. Mette says that they were seen as “a bit strange” up in the attic, but that they had fun, her and the guys.

A new path for Tuntréet

Mette studied landscape architecture, or horticulture line B as it was called at the time. She has spent her entire working life in this field, and has been active in the preservation of historic gardens. When reading her first editorial, it is clear that it was written by a horticulture student with a creative outlet. It was called: “NEW HEADING?” and metaphorically described the reason why she, as editor, chose to change Tuntréets logo for the first time since the newspaper was founded in 1946. She argued, among other things, that: “It seems as if ‘Tuntréet’ is in danger of becoming as narrow-angled as the old linden tree.” Mette’s new heading therefore not only represented a visual style that would change the newspaper, it also marked out a new path for its content. She drew the heading herself, with a long branch that has grown a new branch at the end, a clear ‘statement’ for the way forward. From Mette’s perspective, the drawing was only intended as a temporary heading, but it was so powerful that it was used for the next 18 years.

The observant reader will also notice that the venerable student cap is gone – which was also a trend everywhere else in the world in 1968. Students around the world wanted to be taken more seriously and be treated as equal citizens. Among other things, the Student Cap, which had roots back to the 19th century and one of the clearest signs that someone was a student, had to go.

High activities on Campus

Mette started at NMBU, or as it was then called, the Norwegian University of Agriculture, in 1966. She threw herself into the Ås-life right away, first as a revue actress under UKA. “There weren’t that many girls at the time, so everyone who signed up joined!” she says with a smile on her face. She also joined the Hunkatt association and reminisces about good memories from when she participated in, among other things, Hup-Cup. Nevertheless, the association life and an intensive study routine made her unsure whether she really had the capacity to be an editor. She therefore applied to Samfunnet for an exemption from the editorship, but was rejected by the Society’s director:

Mette became the new impending editor in 1967 and the full editor in 1968. When asked what the guys in Ås thought about a woman now having the front seat where previously only men had sat, Mette replied that the guys thought it was a quite cool, and that there was an interest, but also expectation there – not a battle of the sexes. That she became editor was not a revolutionary or rebellious act – Mette was nominated by her friends to run. Her being a woman was just a coincidence.

Becoming an editor was not something scary or foreign to Mette either – she was no stranger to writing. She came from a literary home – her father was the author Agnar Mykle, who in the 50s became known for the infamous novels “Lasso rundt fru Luna” and “Sangen om den røde rubin”. She had also written many texts at school, and enjoyed it, so it was not an abrupt transition to start writing for Tuntréet.

Nineteen Sixty-Eight

Mette became editor in a world that was in the midst of a great period of upheaval. Not only were major changes taking place in Norway – we were well underway in building a welfare society and had begun oil exploration – but there were also major changes happening worldwide. The student uprising in Paris broke out in May, marking the arrival of a new generation of young people who no longer accepted the then-existing world order. At the same time, the Vietnam War was raging, becoming more and more unpopular with each passing day. This was a wake-up call for many young people in the West, and in Norway it was particularly at the University of Oslo that many allowed themselves to be radicalized. In the Agrarmetropol, there weren’t as many revolutionary conditions, which Mette believes is due to the large proportion of students who either had a bachelor’s degree or were taking a professional education. People knew what they were going to be, and the security this gave meant that they did not have to take as much of a position on what was happening abroad.

Despite this, Mette’s issues had an even greater focus outside the country’s borders than the newspaper has today. The biggest topic that was written about at the time was naturally the Vietnam War. Before the interview, Mette had gone back and skimmed through old issues, and says that nowadays it is very strange to read some of what was written. For example, Johan C. Løken’s take defending the Americans’ fight against communism in Vietnam. She says that Tuntréet represented a more socialist and left-wing radical part of Ås in her time, in stark contrast to the rest of the university, where Senterpartiet naturally had a strong role. Mette highlights cartoonist and classmate Vidar Asheim as one of the strong voices in Tuntréet at that time – both as a skilled illustrator, but also as a voice of opinion.

Debate and companionship

To a much greater extent than today, heated debates took place both at Samfunnet and in Tuntréet. Samfunnet functioned as a meeting place where both students and lecturers could meet, whether it was to debate politics, discuss subjects or just have a beer in the bodega. Mette says that it was quite natural to find your lecturer there in the 60s, something we are told would have been completely unthinkable today. It is easier to imagine lecturers disappearing into thin air after the school day, only to reappear the next day in the same way. The fact that a lecturer appearing in bodega instead can be imagined to have put a damper on the mood: the fear of saying something stupid while drunk to the man who will be giving you a grade on your physics test next week. Mette emphasizes that this was not the case, and describes a relationship between student and professor that was often friendly and pleasant. It was also not uncommon for lecturers to contribute content to the newspaper at the time. Several of the professors wrote in Tuntréet, such as when Mette put together a “planning special” for her fourth issue as editor.

From Universitetstunet we wander up to Samfunnet to show Mette what Tuntréet’s offices look like today. We enter the office wing and proudly show off our little base, covered from floor to ceiling with old front and center fold photos. “This was exactly how I had hoped it would look,” Mette exclaims. We show her the latest issue of the newspaper, which focused mainly on the demolition of Vollskogen. It is a topic that interests her, after all, she is a landscape architect with a clear social and political interest. There is no doubt that the changes Mette made still affect how Tuntréet covers issues today, even if they may not always have the same international focus. Mette gave the newspaper the confidence to dare try its hand at big issues and cover difficult topics. She ensured, as she wrote in her first editorial, that Tuntréet did not become a narrow-minded, internal and overgrown student newspaper, but rather developed into a creature as vibrant and strong-willed as its namesake at Universitetstunet.