Problem Solving is Her Passion

The phone rings, new emails flood into the inbox, legal questions need reviewing, staff need support, and the university's leadership members need advising. Administration, strategy, HR policy – with over 2,000 employees, there’s always something happening at the University of Bayreuth. Dr. Ulrike Dinglreiter has been in charge of these HR aspects since 1 November. A qualified lawyer and mother of two, she ran her own law firm before joining the University of Bayreuth in July 2013.

"It was a great experience to establish something of my own with the law firm. However, I wanted to be part of a team. Through my doctorate, I had already established a connection to academia, so the position at the University of Bayreuth was a logical choice for me," she says in an interview with UBTaktuell.

Dr. Dinglreiter’s career at the University of Bayreuth has taken her through various units, such as the former Legal and Cooperation department and Corruption Prevention. However, one constant has always remained: the HR department and her work with Roland Jakisch. "When I first joined the University of Bayreuth, I didn’t expect so much change; I thought the work would be more procedural. But we constantly have to consider changes in laws and jurisprudence, and new topics emerge all the time, so we work closely with societal developments. I really enjoy that," Dinglreiter explains.

Most recently, she worked as Legal Staff and Deputy Head of the HR Department before assuming full leadership at the beginning of the month. She has known many of her colleagues at the university since the first day, however, new responsibilities include leadership and structural tasks: How will the university approach HR in the future? Dr. Dinglreiter has to cover a wide range of topics and consider many different aspects to find suitable solutions, and teamwork is especially close to her heart. "It’s important to me that we see ourselves as a united team working towards the same goals here at the university. The administration and academia are two different worlds, but we can bring them closer together through mutual cooperation, collaboration, and empathy, so we can face challenges together," she says.

Dinglreiter’s solution-oriented mindset isn’t limited to her professional life. Inspired by her doctoral thesis on “Disaster Management and Climate Change,” she spends her free time not only working on a master’s degree in environmental science but also exploring how disaster management operates in other countries, with a particular focus on Somalia. “Through my interest in climate change, I’ve been able to build personal connections in Somalia,” Dinglreiter explains. This has been quite successful, as she regularly participates in projects and academic discussions on climate change and disaster management in Somalia. Additionally, Dinglreiter is chairwoman of a fire department association and serves as a city councillor in her hometown – positions that she integrates into her problem-solving ideas: “It’s exciting to approach challenges like disaster management in the context of climate change from various perspectives, and in doing so, find new solutions.”