Dear WiSo professors, WiSo staff and student representatives,

Today we look back at a period in the recent history of our faculty that brought with it many developments that will continue to support us in the future and, last but not least, that still shapes the understanding of the WiSo for many of us. We do this in the form of a conversation with Prof. Dr Frank Schulz-Nieswandt, which is also a look forward (beyond the invitation to the farewell lecture). At the same time, the WiSo 2030 strategy process is progressing as the celebrations for the fifth anniversary of the WiSo Student Service Point are approaching. With this in mind, we recommend that everyone register for the WiSo summer party and hope you enjoy the second part of our WiSSPo interview series.

Contents

• News from the Faculty Meeting
• Emeritus status for Prof. Dr Frank Schulz-Nieswandt
• WiSo Strategy 2030
• Five years of WiSSPo
• News from the Business School
• WiSo Personalia
• PARTicipate in our WiSo Value Events - Join WiSo summer party
• WiSo Workplace Video: Prof. Frank Schulz-Nieswandt
• WiSo in the Media – April 2024

At the faculty meeting on 13 May 2024, the Vice-Rector for Transfer, Professor Dr. Werner Reinartz, presented the University of Cologne's transfer strategy. The Vice-Rector emphasised that knowledge and technology transfer is a central performance dimension for the University of Cologne and is seen as one of its core tasks. Transfer activities are based on the areas of research and teaching. For the University, transfer is a reciprocal process between itself and partners from society, business, politics and culture. The University of Cologne sees itself as playing an active role in society, business, politics and culture and providing impetus for developments.

Please note that the invitations and minutes of the public meeting of the Faculty Council are available on the public server.

Dear Colleagues

It is with anticipation, but also with a heavy heart that we would like to announce an unusual and anything but everyday event:

With Frank Schulz-Nieswandt, we are saying goodbye to one of the great minds of WiSo, who will retire in July 2024 after 26 years at the Faculty.

As Professor of Social Policy and Qualitative Social Research, he has influenced generations of students and, according to conversations with WiSo students, his courses were particularly characterized by his captivating way of conveying complex sociological concepts in an understandable way, the practical relevance of what he taught and a 'personal touch' that is rarely found today.

Most of the colleagues who had dealings with Frank Schulz-Nieswandt probably also felt his personal 'commitment', and in view of his various engagements at WiSo, there were quite a few: As First Vice Dean, Dean, First Vice Dean, Dean of Studies, First Vice Dean (for a total of 18 years in all). He contributed significantly to the further development of the WiSo Faculty, the curriculum and the promotion of young talent. His commitment to interdisciplinary research and international exchange makes WiSo a centre of excellence, and not only in the social sciences.

We spoke to Frank Schulz-Nieswandt about his time at WiSo.

Dear Mr Schulz-Nieswandt, you could already look back on a rich academic life in 1998, having been active at no fewer than six universities. The offer at the University of Cologne was not the only one. What expectations did you have when you came to the WiSo Faculty?

Yes, I had the choice between a professorship for health policy in Kassel and a telephone enquiry as to whether I was still open for a professorship for gerontology, i.e. whether I was free because they had heard that I would accept the supply in Cologne, which was indeed the case. In Cologne, I was to represent the broad field of social policy, whereby the two specializations I have just mentioned (health policy and gerontology) could be integrated well in Cologne, but I was able to expand my breadth and depth in Cologne in a more complex way.

However, Cologne was an inherited home for me, as I came from the ‘school’ of Gerhard Weisser in Cologne. My academic teachers Theo Thiemeyer (Bochum), Siegfried Katterle (Bielefeld), Ingeborg Nahnsen (Göttingen) and Werner Wilhelm Engelhardt (Cologne) were directly influenced by Weisser in the generational succession. I was on the lists in Bochum, Bielefeld and Göttingen, but then came to Cologne.

My expectation was to make this tradition, as it turned out – between continuity and further development – the basis of my teaching. The theory and methods of qualitative social research were only added later. The field of cooperatives has always been part of social policy, but in recent years I have continued to develop this field (with a good team of colleagues) into a pluralistic public and cooperative economics and third sector-related social economics approach, between theoretical foundations and applied research. In doing so, I have never settled for a simple narrative critical of capitalism, but have sought and found deep foundations in the philosophy of personalism – the Archimedean star around which my more than 500 publications (including over 100 small and larger monographs) have revolved since my first essays in the mid-1980s. I have been able to go my own way by developing an extremely interdisciplinary – I am not a sociologist, but a multi-disciplinary social scientist – school of theory with an onto-anthropologically based philosophy of law and ethics. I never lost the ‘critical philosophy’ that came from Kant in the epistemology of the Weisser school, but I developed it further within the framework of an independent version of critical theory. Above all, I then increasingly grounded my teaching and research in psychoanalysis (psychodynamics). This grew into my version of the microfoundation of social theory.

I still understand my main focus to be on liberal ethical socialism, although it became increasingly alien to me to describe my position – which has always been non-partisan anyway – as ‘left-wing’.

For some years now, and more recently, we have been experiencing a morally authoritarian left-wing hate culture, and now also phenomena of nationalism, xenophobia and anti-Semitism, even among self-proclaimed ethicists. My emeritus lecture will therefore also deal with the understanding of ‘indignation’ in the tradition of the philosophy of law and ethics of the Marburg School of Neo-Kantianism, but always also with the ethics of responsibility of the Southwest German School of Neo-Kantianism.

I am concerned with my humanism, and an ethical freedom-loving socialism has always been a philosophy of love as a force for the spirit of solidarity. Although I have nothing to do with church religion, it is not surprising that I have done a lot of research into religious studies and theology (and published accordingly).

My dream has always been that of a socio-politically motivated, pedagogically responsible – explicitly interdisciplinary – teaching, always at the cutting edge of research, a life of uninterrupted study of literature and its processing in creative synthesis. I don't want to talk about the psychodynamic roots of this sometimes even neurotic stubbornness here; I have presented autobiographical publications on this subject, because here too, writing is liberating and epistemically empowering, initiating wonderful self-transcendence.

So your expectations have been fulfilled?

Yes, more than I could have imagined,

I was pleased to see how I was able to develop the subject area I represented into a popular subject in many degree programmes. At peak times, my department - I always had great teams - supervised over 100 theses a year, of which I often supervised just under half. However - and I am deeply grateful for this - the faculty also helped me with appropriate resources. I was always of the firm opinion that a professorship should have sufficient personal consultation hours during the week - in addition to the doctoral students with whom you may already have ‘papers in the pipeline’. If you don't want this, you should go to a pure research centre, but not become a university lecturer. That would be a farce.

I grew into externally funded projects, especially in forms of applied field research - often transdisciplinary in collaboration with practitioners - slowly but steadily.

What took on an unexpected dynamic was my public effectiveness in specialized political events. Countless lectures followed one another over the years, albeit combined with travelling and overnight stays. Sometimes I was in over my head.

It was also unexpected how I was asked to serve on commissions and scientific boards - often in chair positions for many years. I took on a number of honorary academic positions outside the university over many years.

In short: I have always understood the expectation of taking on transfer tasks, which is anchored in the Higher Education Act, as a genuine part of my role as a university professor - not only fulfilling for me, but also always useful for my fellow human beings in practice (as a stakeholder of the socially financed university institution), just like my self-administration tasks in the Faculty, also in cross-Faculty work contexts. My involvement in the field of (many) doctorates was also characterized by the idea of transfer. An important concern for me – also during my 15-year role as Honorary Professor of Socioal Economics of Nursing in the Faculty of Nursing Science at the Philosophical-Theological University in Vallendar (PTHV, most recently Vinzenz Pallotti University) – was always the part-time doctorate of so-called externals, not only of chair assistants, graduate college students and externally funded researchers.

For me, the idea of the unity of teaching, research, self-administration and transfer anchored in higher education policy was and is meaningful. I think it is a mistake to turn the German university into a top international research university in an ‘exaggerated’ one-sided manner, and ultimately highly problematic, perhaps even problematic in terms of higher education constitutional law, because the German university is essentially an educational institution (and only not for the areas of the often unpopular school teacher training). I have also published very critically on this cultural change at the university.

What characterized the WiSo back then and what distinguishes it today?

If I have not already included some aspects of the answer to this question in what I have said so far, I will only add briefly: The Faculty used to be more conservative, but was characterized by greater social cohesion. Science always takes place in a social system whose sociotopic coherence is a (quasi-transcendental) necessary, if not sufficient, prerequisite for success in terms of scientific reputation. Now that the generational change is almost complete, the Faculty will have to rediscover this endogenous force for effective and sustainable cohesion building, which - not completely, but noticeably - has become fragile or is even in danger of being lost. The members of the university must learn to master a multi-level game empathetically, attentively, respectfully and systemically thinking like a keyboard: Identification with one's own professorship, with one's own area/department, with the faculty and its three disciplinary areas, with the university, with the region, NRW and the Europeanized nation. That would be, to quote Rainer Maria Rilke, living one’s life in ever-widening circles. The recent debate on ethics and sustainability in the Faculty makes it clear that it is also about future generations, about the exploited majorities of the world's population and about the desecrated and plundered planet.

Not only as dean or vice-dean have you played a decisive role in the development of the WiSo, was it important to you to get involved beyond your teaching and research activities? Which developments would you characterize as outstanding guidelines?

Again, I am only adding to this because I have already addressed some things explicitly or atmospherically between the lines or even just hinted at them.

It was never - as long as I diagnose myself correctly in my psychodynamic pattern, and after two longer psychotherapies I should be able to do so - unproductive narcissism, but a matter of course in my role in a German university as a public autonomous corporation. Being historically one of the roots of the modern university, this comes close to the polis idea of an educational co-operative and meets my passion for the intangible UNECSO world cultural heritage of the idea of the co-operative in Germany. And in this respect, a unity of duty, fun and passion came about in order to take on co-operative, co-designing responsibilities, perhaps a few years too long after 18 years as Dean, because in the end I became a little tired of the office and sometimes weakened in my performance. However, I was never concerned with power as an end in itself. As I have often dealt with sacral kingship and co-operatives as archetypes of social policy (‘from above’ and ‘from below’) in my writings on legal, cultural and religious history as well as psycho-history, my guiding principle has always been the idea of good leadership of a collegial system under the university constitution's requirements of the democratic participation culture of the other professional groups and students at the university. I have always taken a skeptical or even critical view of an exaggerated centralism of the university management.

I did not see the self-administration tasks as an escape alternative from the tasks of research and teaching, but as a contribution to the self-evident unity of all dimensions. People who know me very well describe it as a mystery that I was able to creatively ‘cultivate’ all these fields mentioned above in parallel to the self-administration tasks in order to use this agricultural metaphor on the way to the telos of the harvest; I myself understand it well from my biography and therefore from my social background, childhood, etc., also as a risk of overexploitation of my own balanced well-being in a ‘good life’.

The WiSo has a diverse structure. ‘Social sciences, political science and economics’ can only roughly (and inadequately) summarize the whole thing. Hardly anyone at WiSo has as much experience of what this diversity means in practice. Can you 'briefly' describe the challenges and enrichment this ‘swarm of bees’ has brought you?

It was never my challenge, but met my idea of my own becoming as growing in concentric circles, to paraphrase Rilke again. I firmly believe in the possibility of an interdisciplinary science. My disappointing experiences therefore relate, even if this may sound somewhat narcissistic (but it is not), not to the limits of the success of my own profile, but to the significant observation, in my opinion, of how little the faculty, i.e. the others, have made of this opportunity and still do today. Even if something has changed in some areas: The public self-presentation of the potential remains like a chimera (which is ex definitione a hybrid figure as a hybrid of reality and dream) behind the idea. Too many very good individual players don't make a successful team, but as a Bochum boy from the Ruhr region, I don't want to slip too much into football language, although in my childhood, before my enthusiasm for science matured with my first microscope, we often did nothing else but play street football.

You reintroduced the gowns and the WiSo graduation ceremonies are generally regarded as almost legendary, not least because of your moderation of the certificate presentations. What do you see as your greatest contribution to the WiSo community?

I brought out the gowns again because I didn't want to embarrass myself internationally as dean and therefore as Cologne's representative at the CEMS 20th birthday celebrations in Paris. Because internationally, the wearing of gowns is a normal liturgical part of a customary ceremonial rite or cult. The taboo was the - justified - consequence of the deficient denazification of universities in Germany after 1945, when - if I remember the story correctly in my spontaneous search for an answer - our famous Cologne sociologist René König showed the so-called characteristic ‘colour’, as he always personally ignored an equally famous Münster sociology colleague.

Without a gown, I would not have been able to gracefully present the famous sociologist and communitarian Amitai Etzioni (of German-Jewish origin) with an honorary doctorate from the Faculty. But the time was also ripe from the point of view of the new generations of students: they wanted graduation ceremonies with ritual substance again. I was therefore looking for a balance between a ceremony of appreciation on the one hand and an atmosphere of relaxed joie de vivre on the other, which - usually more or less civilized (since speech acts today, as they say, can go backwards: It's meant to be respectful and uno actu humorous) - culminates in the party.

Perhaps my greatest achievement for the WiSo community was that I had a certain fool's freedom with my humour: Whenever everyone was exhausted or stranded on the brink of unsolvable problems in long committee meetings, the quips or humour came to me - not as rehearsed, planned techniques of strategic rationality, but out of my enjoyment of my Faculty life. A true anecdote: I had a good relationship with the penultimate chancellor. When we were discussing a lack of space, building and renting in a committee, I said that we still owned Schloss Wahn: the administration could move there: The name would fit! Everyone laughed, nobody misunderstood it as malicious or evil. Yes, such relaxed times despite the stress were simply wonderful back then.

How did you experience the personal cooperation with colleagues and employees at WiSo - were there any outstanding experiences?

Here, too, the selectivity of my answers to your questions is blurred. I am pleased that I was appreciated early on in a way that probably characterized me accurately in my special field. Peter Funk (who came to Cologne from Paris at the same time as me in 1998) once called me the ‘literary intelligence’ of the Faculty. With this image, especially since in recent years I have actually also realized some rather literary publications (in the area between philosophy, psychodynamics, literature/art and responsive spirituality), I was able to continue to ‘grow’. I never became a top international researcher, because I was always very problem-orientated towards German socio-political practice, even though I could easily have placed my theoretical contributions in the English-language book world if I had been a little cleverer in my self-marketing. My career has only taken me to Vienna or Zurich, for example, on advisory boards or as a scientific advisor.

The Bachelor's and Master's lectures and seminars that we (Martina Fuchs, Detlef Fetchenhauer, Wolfgang Leidhold and I) successfully organized together over many years on the topics of ‘Religion in the  dispute of the Sciences’ and ‘Culture and Identity’ will always be fondly remembered.

Together with Holger Pfaff as a bridge professorship between the Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Human Sciences, I realized joint third-party funded projects for many years. In general, I was more involved in multi-disciplinary, cross-Faculty projects. A lot could be said here. In general, I should slowly come to the end, especially as you probably still have a few questions?

The discussion about qualitative and quantitative methods in the social sciences is a controversial ongoing issue. As a qualitative sociologist, do you have a hard time with your colleagues (at ISS)?

No - not at all. Mixed methods designs have become more common today. The old dispute between so-called fly-leg counting and storytelling is over. The fiercest controversies tend to take place in the field of qualitative theorizing itself between the various qualitative schools.

I am probably also taking some rather ideosyncratic paths in the basic theory work of qualitative epistemology, for which the college will have fewer shared epistemological interests, as it is a matter of psychoanalytically orientated habitus hermeneutics based on structuralist understandings of cultural grammar, and my extremely clear way of representing normative perspectives beyond a pure empirical science may also encounter differences. But as a sociotope, there are only tolerant, appreciative, authentic people in the ISS.

You have always been committed socially (e.g. in the Society for Social Progress). Generally speaking, should scientists do things in society and if so, why?

I think I have already answered this question in essence from the interdependence of my various answers. I hope that the coherence of your series of questions also corresponds - is it true or am I right? - the internal coherence of my attempted answers.

Empirical findings cannot speak. We have to let them speak, learn to understand their meaning for us as a "we of the community of responsibility of freedom together". This corresponds to my origins in the neo-Kantian theory of science, but today it is linked to critical theory (more to that of Adorno/Horkheimer, but also Benjamin/Bloch than to that of Habermas and Honneth or even the younger and most recent generation of critical theory). As a university professor at a public university, I am committed to the "sacred federal covenant" of Article 1 of the German constitutional order (GG), which is committed to the natural law doctrine of the personhood of man, in the light of the moral law of Article 2 of the GG as the task of civil society, to which I belong. Without this anchor, a deliberative democracy of (but not unlimited) tolerance is not possible for me. From there, one can ascend upwards in the multi-level system of legal regimes via EU law to the UN Conventions on Fundamental Rights or descend downwards to the idea of social justice in paragraph 1 Social Code Book (SGB) I.

Even modern physics cannot do without the metaphysics of ontological assumptions. That is why I spoke, for example, of the "need for metaphysics" in empirical social research.

So it all boils down to a social responsibility commitment of science, not simply out of the arbitrary private opinions of the university teacher as a private citizen (m/f/d), but because there is a philosophy of personhood as a sufficient reason in the ‘juridical substance’ of our super-positive ‘spirit(s) of the laws’. As a civil servant of the state of NRW, I cannot escape this. But that brings me to the core of my planned retirement lecture.

Once again, however, I would like to emphasize that ethics is not a foreign element of a WiSo Faculty, but its genuine duty.

And a ‘detour’ in this context, what do you think of ‘Bologna’?

Better than the widespread negative reputation, but not without problems in many respects. However, many promises and expectations have - so far - become a chimera. As I have published on cultural change of the public university, as mentioned above, it is now difficult for me to explain the complex differentiation that I feel is necessary. Sometimes I recognize Kafka's view of the world: new questions keep arising, the solutions to which raise new questions, which in turn demand new solutions ... academic freedom loses its scope, the culture of self-administration is submerged in a bureaucratic regulatory machine. Some of these are also neoliberal deep scripts, a Pandora's box that we have opened. But hope came out of this box, even if it was a later redemptive-religious remythification: At some point, hopefully, modernization on the one hand and de-radicalization of the development path on the other will rebalance themselves.

What will you miss? What will you 'gain'? Do you already have specific plans?

I will probably continue to be involved with tasks for some time (dissertations, third-party funded projects, teaching assignments). I will continue to publish the ‘Zeitschrift für Gemeinwirtschaft und Gemeinwohl’ and the specialist policy journal ‘ProAlter’ on behalf of the Kuratorium Deutsche Altershilfe (KDA). I already know my pension statement: I have 44 years of service. That's enough. I can let go.

I couldn't extend for 3 years because of the continuation of cluster professorships. Now the money in the Faculty would probably have been enough after all, but I'm glad that the rule of my ancient Greek Gods and Goddesses have set the course in this way: I feel a certain selective fatigue: some things I no longer want to do, some things (writing books, giving lectures) I can still do well or even better. And I will continue to contribute here for some time, even if not as hyperbolically. Of course, my family has been waiting a long time for me to have more time. But this status passage of letting go of specialized science should only last about three more years. I will then still read and write something, but no longer about what has occupied me for four decades. But I'm not sad. Although a - creative - melancholy has always been a central characteristic of my personality, it can form a unity with the joy of being. My age research is now catching up with me as my own development task. I am determined not to fail at it.

Is there anything you would like to say to the Wiso Faculty and its colleagues?

I have already performed sufficiently in my answers. Should I now also play the role of an old wise man as an upcoming emeritus professor? I think I have already addressed some of the development recommendations more or less cryptically. I will end my reflections with a symbolic indicator of an exemplary nature: on the day when the entire front row of the auditorium is filled with professors in gowns to take part in the graduation ceremony and show the morally appropriate respect for our target group, for whom we have essentially been called to this dream job in the first place, we will have become an educationally cooperative Faculty with a professorial culture.

Register now!

We cordially invite you to the Lecture

“Wissen oder Erkenntnis? – Die öffentliche Aufgabe der Universität im Lichte neukantianischer Wissenschaftslehre, juridischer Substanz und kritischer Theorie"

Farewell lecture by Prof Dr Frank-Schulz Nieswandt

Date: 10th June 2024
Start: 3:30 p.m.
Venue: Lecture hall XXIV, followed by WiSo coffee bar

Please give us a short feedback about your participation so that we can get an approximate estimate of the number of participants: https://terminplaner6.dfn.de/b/342d4b021f79d311a08f0974dd4a0174-719410.

If you have any questions, please contact our event manager Andrea Leon Diaz at any time: leon-diazwiso.uni-koeln.de.

Work on the FEP ('Fakultätsentwicklungsplan' or Strategic Development Plan) kicked off with a dedicated full-day Managing Board session in January 2024. There have also been meetings with key internal stakeholders representing teaching, research, transfer, and professional services. Discussions covered our current strengths and weaknesses as well as opportunities and threats, and potential activities that could help us successfully steer WiSo through the second half of the 2020s. Many questions were raised: What is our role as a multi-disciplinary Faculty… or should that be interdisciplinary Faculty? Is our location in Cologne still unequivocally an asset (long (academic) history, strong business connections, 'Karneval') or might it be becoming a deterrent to students and staff, especially from abroad (high cost of living, dismal chances of finding a rental property)? How can we transcend the limitations imposed on us by infrastructure, both physically (the WiSo 'Hochhaus' – so close, yet so far away!), and operationally (e.g. insufficient digitalization)?

We know that creativity and perseverance are needed to move things forward – please contribute your ideas!
We are available at strategy2030wiso.uni-koeln.de

An anniversary, such as the fifth anniversary of the WiSo Student Service Point (WiSSPo), provides a good opportunity for reflection. Since its inception five years ago, the WiSSPo has transformed how students find support within the WiSo Faculty. WiSSPo’s evolution from a single point of contact to a comprehensive hub of expertise is thanks in no small part to the cross-departmental collaboration of many colleagues from different fields. They provide support and advice on nearly all aspects of student life.

Today Inken Host, Vanessa Wemba and Julia Monzel continue our little interview series.

You are the 'first face' at WiSSPo for many people seeking advice and receive all enquiries unfiltered. Surely there have been some 'strange cases or special experiences' over the years?

Where should we start? We've had a lot of experiences in the last five years, but we can't really pick out one in particular. From a prospective student who came with his whole family, to a student who handed in her dissertation and was greeted by her friends with confetti cannons and champagne. Happy and sad students, crazy and funny moments. Everything you can imagine and much more.

 

With the opening of the WiSSPo, the previous front office of the Examination Office has been integrated into your reception area. What does that mean for your work?

The integration of the Examination Office's former office into our reception has significantly shaped and created our work. We filter all enquiries related to the Examination Office or examination matters, issue the official final documents or forward documents/applications to the Examination Office.
We have also become an important point of contact between the Examination Office and the students, which makes up a lot of our daily activity.

From over 150 FAQs submitted to you by all our service and advice centres: What are the three most frequently asked questions at reception?

There's no general answer to that. It depends on the time of year. Now, in spring, there are a lot of questions about enrolment and timetabling, questions about exam registration for the summer semester and questions about exam results from the winter semester. At the same time, the application phase for the Master's programmes is running, and we are noticing this at the reception and on the hotline, especially with questions about the application process and admission criteria.

From over 150 FAQs submitted to you by all our service and advice centres: What are the three most frequently asked questions at reception?

There's no general answer to that. It depends on the time of year. Now, in spring, there are a lot of questions about enrolment and timetabling, questions about exam registration for the summer semester and questions about exam results from the winter semester. At the same time, the application phase for the Master's programmes is running, and we are noticing this at the reception and on the hotline, especially with questions about the application process and admission criteria.

Do you often have to talk to colleagues outside the WiSSPo to distribute complex enquiries, or are all topics largely covered in-house? Has it always been this way or has it evolved?

Inken Host & Vanessa Vemba: Before the WiSSPo existed in this form, all counselling and service centres (including the Examination Office) advised and acted independently. In the beginning, it was a challenge to create collegiality and a sense of community. Especially as the WiSSPo was closed for a long time due to the pandemic shortly after it opened. Bringing in new colleagues and working together had to be done through different channels and was a challenge. We are now in regular and close contact with colleagues from the other WiSSPo units and within the faculty.

In fact, most of us probably assume that the career opportunities for our students are excellent anyway. Who comes to the WiSSPo and what are their main concerns?

Students come with different concerns. For example, they ask for support with their first steps towards professional practice, i.e. finding an internship and preparing an application. We often discuss the CV or cover letter together. We prepare intensively for interviews and work on the documents submitted. Our aim at this stage is to explore with the students what they really want to do, where their interests or curiosities lie. Many are very inexperienced and we support them as they take their first steps towards practical experience. There is a lot of uncertainty here and we try to help them to look at themselves and their abilities in a positive way and to approach this process with self-confidence and self-esteem.

The WiSo-Career-Sevice organises a lot of events throughout the semester, has anything changed with the establishment of WiSSPo, e.g. new formats? What was it like

We have kept some of the classics like workshops with companies, and networking events like Meet'n Greet or Career Tuesday. However, we are increasingly addressing issues that come up in our advisory sessions. There are now Get Started group counselling sessions for specific target groups such as Sowis or CEMS students. Or Career Tuesdays, which cover topics such as LinkedIn, and preparing for job fairs or internships abroad. We rely on our own expertise, but we also have colleagues from other areas to help us with broader topics such as internships abroad. A new addition in recent years is the WiSSPo 2+ format, in which we work with the other WiSSPo advisors to address important issues that arise throughout the bachelor's programme. For example, we offer input on the topic of 'Tips for finding an internship and further career planning'.

You recently organised an anti-racism workshop for WiSo staff, including WiSSPo advisors. How did this come about and can we expect more soon?

We advise students. This is always very personal and requires our full attention and care. As WiSSPo advisors, we want to be as prepared as possible to give the best possible support to anyone who comes to us for advice. But even we are not infallible. That is why we are constantly training ourselves. Some of our colleagues are already MHFA (Mental Health First Aider) certified or have completed counsellor training at university. There are also issues that come up again and again. For us, the anti-racism workshop was a kind of prelude to raising awareness. A workshop is not enough, the topic, the connections and the scope are much too big for that. But it helped me to better understand the problem, the issue and the depth of racism in our society. This day with my colleagues and the wonderful trainer and alumna Alexandra Conrads showed us all that we have the opportunity here at WiSSPo to actively contribute to changing our society for the better.

Digitization significantly shapes our present time – and that's precisely why we want to introduce you to our new certificate programmes: 'Digital Product and Process Design' and 'DevOps for Business'.

Our 'Digital Product and Process Design' programme is designed to bridge the existing gap between the increasingly demanding challenges of digitisation and the necessary technical expertise in design. Our journey offers exciting insights into the fields of design and digitisation, through practical discussions, interactive case studies, and proven best practices. In the first module, you will master digital designs and further develop your design and digital competencies. In the second module, we delve deep into the design of business processes, revolutionising the core of value creation in a visionary way. Finally, the third module focuses on the agile implementation of requirements for digital products and processes. You are most welcome to join the programme on 10 October in Cologne.

For those who want to delve deeply into the efficient development of digital products, we offer the 'DevOps for Business' programme. Dive into the fundamentals and principles of DevOps, learn about the necessary tools, processes, and workflows, and work effectively with software development. In the second step, you will learn to understand all the requirements for digital products and processes and implement them in an agile way. In 3 modules over 6 days, you will receive all the answers you need on the topic of DevOps. The programme starts on 21 November at the University of Cologne Business School.

For more information about the programmes, visit our website: https://business-school.uni-koeln.de/en/certificate-programmes/digital-product-and-process-design or https://business-school.uni-koeln.de/en/zertifikatsprogramme/devops-for-business.

Appointment of APL Professor Dr Bastian Gribisch

Introducing Bastian Gribisch to the WiSo Faculty is a bit like carrying the proverbial owls to Athens. His first lecture at the University of Cologne dates back to 2013. There are probably only a few WiSo students who have neither heard this annual lecture “Beschreibende Statistik und Wirtschaftsstatistik” nor taken part in one of Bastian Gribisch’s many other courses. He is a two-time winner of the Albertus Magnus Teaching Prize, which is awarded by the WiSo students for outstanding teaching.

Many employees have already come to know Bastian Gribisch as a colleague who is committed to the WiSo far beyond his personal and institutional interests. With his research interests in simulation-based inference, Bayesian statistics, financial market econometrics, and risk management Prof. Gribisch makes significant contributions to the academic development of the university. We are therefore all the more pleased to be able to extend a warm ‘welcome’ once again and welcome Bastian Gribisch as a new adjunct professor at the WiSo. We look forward to working with Prof. Gribisch and are confident that his contribution will further enrich the university’s academic environment.

PARTicipate: WiSo Coffee Chat

Our popular WiSo Coffee Chats will be available every month again this summer.

Meet your colleagues and get a hot drink on the house.

Next dates:

• LOCATION: Wiso Cafe Bar on the ground floor (building101), Universitatsstr.24
  
  TIME: Wednesday 6 June, 1:15 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.
  
  Sign In: https://terminplaner6.dfn.de/b/ba448ef5e002167999d34231cea1ded4-708525

• LOCATION: Wiso Cafe Bar on the ground floor (building101), Universitatsstr.24
  
  TIME: Thursday 4 July, 12:30 p.m. - 1:30 p.m
  
  Sign In: https://terminplaner6.dfn.de/b/431121594ef6b90109a45b672bcbcc2a-708545

• LOCATION: E-Raum, University Main building (due to summer closing of the WiSo Coffee Bar)
  
  TIME: Wednesday 7 August, 1:15 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.
  
  Sign In: https://terminplaner6.dfn.de/b/ba448ef5e002167999d34231cea1ded4-708525

All your questions and comments on a wide variety of topics are welcome at this meeting. In the relaxed atmosphere of the Cafe Bar, open issues can be addressed in an uncomplicated manner.

In keeping with our WiSo Values, we are once again holding a WiSo Summer Party on Thursday, 20 June 2024 this year.

This year, however, we will not only end the summer semester together in our WiSo courtyards in a convivial atmosphere with entertaining hands-on activities, Kölsch beer, soft drinks and barbecue food, but will also start the day together with a city rally around our university.

The meeting point for the start of the city rally is at 2:30 p.m. on Albertus-Magnus Platz in front of the main building.

Here the teams will be put together and set off on a two-hour tour around the campus and the surrounding streets.

The focus of the event is on fun and communication. There are not only tricky puzzles to solve, but the playful competition and interactions between the teams offer plenty of fun and action. There will also be a short stop for refreshments along the way.

The city rally ends at around 5 pm in the courtyards of the WiSo Faculty, where Kölsch beer, soft drinks, barbecue food and relaxed socializing await you. 

In addition, our WiSSPo will be celebrating its 5th anniversary with a sparkling surprise.

We look forward to numerous participants and a great day.

Please register here: https://terminplaner6.dfn.de/b/6b2d07ad7bd30e510ccd735f953be7b3-725600 

If you have any questions, please contact our event manager Andrea Leon Diaz at any time at: leon-diazwiso.uni-koeln.de

WiSo Marketing regularly checks the press review of the University of Cologne for articles and mentions of the WiSo Faculty and its professors in the national and international media. These press clippings are constantly reviewed and collected after WiSo reports. Here we would like to give you an overview of the publications in the national media in which WiSo professors serve as experts or which publish articles written by them. If the article is available online, you will find a link to it below. Press articles that are only available in print media are mostly available via the electronic journals database of the University and City Library.

The list is compiled according to available data. If an article is missing, please send us an email.