Director of IT Services Retires

The University of Freiburg’s IT Services Department took leave of its long-time director on 31 March 2022. A provisional director will be selected from among the division heads. Prof. Dr. Gerhard Schneider served as director of IT Services for 20 years.

After holding positions in Essen, Karlsruhe, and Göttingen, Schneider accepted an offer from the University of Freiburg in 2001 and was appointed as Chair of Communication Systems at the Faculty of Engineering. From 2002 on, he also assumed responsibility for IT Services. The E-Learning and eScience areas were newly established under his directorship. Today the IT Services Department includes seven divisions and around 120 employees.

In addition to his work as director of the IT Services Department, Schneider served from 2003 to 2008 as vice president for knowledge transfer and communication technology and initiated many measures for the use of what were then known as “new media” in this function. In 2008 he was appointed as the University of Freiburg’s chief information officer (CIO). In the same year, he received the University Medal in acknowledgement of his many years of outstanding work as vice president for knowledge transfer and communication technology. In 2018 he was elected vice president for the second time and was responsible until 2021 for the digital transformation of the university.

The pandemic situation and the resulting increased push toward digitalization for teaching and administration was a challenge that marked the last years of his tenure as director of the IT Services Department. “Before the pandemic, the digitalization of teaching developed slowly but steadily: In 20 years, digital course offerings increased to a share of about 10 percent. With the pandemic, digital courses went from 10 to 100 percent in four weeks,” says Schneider. “This required enormous effort on the part of everyone involved, and it’s something we can all be proud of.”