"A challenging year"

2020 – A stormy year as University President?

Well, we have already experienced a lot at the University of Bayreuth, I too as President, but 2020 was certainly one of the more challenging years. The challenge was to steer the impressive ongoing development of the university, which could be described as kind of stormy dynamic, while at the same time we had to handle coronavirus management. After all, other issues were still being dealt with and had to be addressed as thoroughly as if there were no pandemic.

What are the things you have been missing in 2020?

I’ve missed having the students on campus the most. We are simply not the same university if we can hold barely any in-person courses and if our young people and their events such as UNIKAT, Summer Feeling, and Uni Open Air are missing. Or when the Bayreuth Dialogues take place online only. I've also missed the direct, personal exchange with colleagues.

What were some of the nice moments?

Clearly the realization of how well, how professionally and reliably we - and by that I mean lecturers, researchers, and administrative staff - have implemented the coronavirus measures: How we switched to online teaching pretty smoothly and how we were also perceived positively in the public eye for doing so. That was really great teamwork and a great pleasure. It was also important for me to see that our "Safe and Secure University" strategy worked.

What made that a success?

We had a testing station on campus, we had a sophisticated room strategy, detailed hygiene regulations, we gave certain groups priority for classroom teaching - and everyone pulled together. The campus was far from becoming a hotspot; on the contrary, the infection figures were very low. I find it all the more regrettable that we were only allowed to implement our "priority for presence" for one month and then had to switch completely to online teaching after all. But let's look on the bright side: we will certainly benefit from our experiences in the coming Summer Semester when planning the Winter Semester.

Were there any important steps, events, or decisions for the university and its development?

Oh yes, quite a few: We established the Institute for Entrepreneurship & Innovation - the tandem partner for the city's RIZ is thus already operational and the associated building on campus will be completed by the end of 2024. The funds for the Africa Research Building were approved. The High-Tech Agenda Bavaria is enabling us to fill AI and other forward-looking professorships in a timely manner, and to rapidly build and expand BayBatt and Faculty VII in Kulmbach. I think that is an impressive record.

How will university life be different in the long term?

Our university was more or less digitized by force as a result of the coronavirus pandemic and the related widespread abandonment of in-person teaching. We will now have to discuss what a sustainable mix of face-to-face and online teaching can and should look like following the pandemic. In my opinion, a university as a place of exchanging ideas and discussion relies on being physically present. Otherwise, we could have become a distance learning university. But we have learned a lot about the advantages and disadvantages of digital teaching during the coronavirus period. So it is important to realize the opportunities of digital teaching even after coronavirus and thereby make university teaching even better overall. If we manage to do that, this stormy year will certainly have positive effects as well.