Gerda and Fritz Ruf become Honorary Senators

At the 2018 Dies Universitatis Rector Professor Dr. Hans-Jochen Schiewer appointed two remarkable people honorary senators for their special efforts on behalf of the University of Freiburg: Mrs. Gerda and Dr. Fritz Ruf receive the distinction for their contribution to the positive development of the Faculty of Engineering, particularly for the promotion of research fields in the name of the Fritz Hüttinger Foundation. The Foundation made possible the first endowed professorial chair at the Institute of Microsystems Engineering, the Fritz Hüttinger professorship for Microelectronics, and opened up a new core research area at the Faculty of Engineering at the same time.

For their special services to the University of Freiburg, three outstanding personalities receive the University Medal.

• Professor Dr. Rudolf Korinthenberg, the Faculty of Medicine’s Dean of Studies from 2006 to 2017, receives the award for his services to the professional development of teaching and the needs of the students at the Faculty of Medicine – including setting up the training center “SkillsLab” for practical skills. The award also pays tribute to his pioneering work in the academicisation of the health care professions at the University of Freiburg, for example the introduction of the Nursing Science program.
  
  

• Marianne Haardt, Director of the Freiburg Stiftungsverwaltung Freiburg, receives the medal for her dedication as director of the body which administers foundations - which she has turned into one of the university’s most important partners in supporting gifted and needy students. The Stiftungsverwaltung has administered scholarships including the Deutschlandstipendium since 2012; 90 to 95 percent of Stiftungsverwaltung scholarships go to the University of Freiburg. The award is also in recognition of Haardt’s work with the Family Service.
  
  

• Dr. Bernd Dallmann, President of the Regio-Gesellschaft, takes home the University Medal for his involvement as the long-term managing director of the Freiburg Wirtschaft Touristik und Messe (FWTM) for the University of Freiburg. Dallmann, an alumnus, has for decades shaped the company which promotes Freiburg: from key projects such as the collaboration on the State Garden Show in 1986 to the two-day Freiburg Science Market, which has become a major drawcard since it was started in 1995, now attracting some 10,000 visitors annually. On top of that, the university and FWTM in 2005 collaborated with further partners to established the China-Forum Freiburg e.V. to promote German-Chinese relations in the region. Dallmann says he plans to work for the trinational alliance Eucor – The European Campus as part of his function as President of the Regio-Gesellschaft.

Two representatives of the committee disbursing the “student suggestion budget” (SVB) paid symbolic tribute to four of the overall 19 projects in the “innovative studies” competition. The competition is meant to create university-wide incentives for innovation and improvement in studies and teaching. For 2018 a total of 400,000 euros is being made available via the SVB. Project funding is given at the suggestion of University of Freiburg students. The recipients are:

• A team of teachers, students, and the faculty student council of the Faculty of Biology for the “Human biology” class, which is organized for those training to become Biology teachers at the university and the University of Education.
  
  

• The Institute of  Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology for the project “Blog the Job!” - in which students work together on a blog for professional orientation in the subject of Cultural Anthropology and European Ethnology and closely related cultural and social sciences disciplines.
  
  

• The cooperation between the Historisches Seminars, the Institut of Social and Cultural Anthropology , the Uniseum and the University College Freiburg, in which students developed an audioguide for the “Cabinet of Amazement” at the Uniseum.
  
  

• The Professorship for Comparative Government for the holding of workshops in summer semester 2018 and in winter semester 2018/19, which taught students the technical basics for analyzing large data sets and how to work with online data gathering and analysis techniques.

Bertha Ottenstein Prizes of 2,500 euros each for outstanding achievements in the field of women’s studies and gender research go to:

• Dr. Evghenia Goltsev for her linguistic thesis on German as a Second Language, with the title: Native Perception and Evaluation of Different Error Types and Frequencies. A study of German as a second language acquisition.  Goltsev investigated the perception, evaluation and understandability of the accented German spoken by Russian native speakers. Her thesis was written as part of the German Research Foundation-backed research training group Frequency Effects in Language.
  
  

• Professor Dr. Tim Krieger and Laura Renner, of the Wilfried Guth Endowed Chair for Constitutional Political Economy and Competition Policy, for their economic research project on Polygyny and Conflict. It focused on the economic effects of polygyny - the practise of a man having more than one wife at a time - and the conflicts and inequalities which arise from it.

The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) Prize goes to non-German students who complete their studies at a German university, for outstanding academic performance and remarkable social or other intercultural involvement. The award, which comes with 1,000 euros in prize money, goes to Osama Makansi from Syria, who not only completed an outstanding Master’s degree, but also worked as a volunteer to help other refugees. One of the things he did was to help develop a fire safety plan for mass accommodation, a plan which was well received across Germany. He is a doctoral candidate with Professor Dr. Thomas Brox in the Computer Vision Group.

In addition the University of Freiburg had awards for three outstanding concepts for creative higher education teaching in the form of the Instructional Development Award (IDA). The awards of 70,000 euros each go to:

• Dr. July Asbrand and Professor Dr. Brunna Tuschen-Caffier (Institute of Psychology, Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy): Online learning – Practical application: Teaching clinical-psychological interventions interactively
  
  

• Professor Dr. Klaus Baumann, (Faculty of Theology, Caritas and Christian Social Work) and Professor Dr. Jörg Lindenmeier (Professor of Public and Non-Profit Management): Transformative Leadership as a sustainable management concept: An interdisciplinary, trinational, blended learning seminar
  
  

• Professor Dr. Dieter Ebert, Dr. Swantje Matthies and Dr. Peter Goll (Faculty of Medicine, Psychiatry and Psychotherapy): Podcasts for the start of studies – Psychiatric health education

Further information on IDA 2017/18