Of Doubters, Mistakes and Critics

All large systems are not only brimming with possibilities, opportunities, benefits and know-how, but also with problems. The following paragraphs are intended to address some of these absurdities, processes, ideas and structures that pose risks, are risky or are still in need of significant improvement.

Some may have already heard of it, some may already be completely fed up with it: The key points paper on a new higher education law (If you'd like to take a look at it – here's the paper and a brief overview: https://stmwk.bayern.de/ministerium/hochschule-und-forschung/hochschulreform.html).
The Student Convention has already taken a position on this, you can read this resolution here (https://www.uni-wuerzburg.de/fileadmin/34000000/Konvent/2020-21/2020-12-17/hochschulgesetz.pdf) .
But if all that is too much for you, here's a little "destruction of the Bavarian higher education law reform" below.

We know and value universities as open spaces for encounter, exchange, of course for knowledge and teaching, freely accessible and without censorship and clear favouring of particular interests. It would be a bit of a stretch to say that the law that could result from this key points paper would rob us of these privileges and rights; but they are certainly under threat.

The big issue being discussed is "deregulation" and "economisation". Following the model of American university systems, the state wants to gradually withdraw from financing universities. The newly required funding can and should increasingly be covered by free enterprise and foundations. Universities should thus become more entrepreneurial, participate, be innovative, seek profits, cut empty (and teaching) positions. In itself, this may not sound too alarming at first; greater involvement with the economy is not inherently a bad thing. But when this economy begins to set the tone for science, alarm bells ring. Under the new mandate (alongside teaching and research) "transfer", there is talk of "founder's semesters", in which professors can devote themselves to business start-ups, financed and covered by universities, as well as measuring scientific quality by economic parameters, and loss of academic freedom. Through drastic linkage with economic interests and economic goals, academics suddenly face decision pressure between profit and progress, freedom and dependence, external interests and their own aspirations, far beyond what already burdens university life today. Instead of greater insights, denser know-how and more networked departments, a combative capitalist, risk-driven profiling competition for coveted funding injections is created, which at best only benefits the investing donors. The fact that the state is withdrawing from many of its genuine areas of responsibility, thus reserving oversight and control of the university to a small university-based, presidential elite, is the petrol can in the campfire.

This power of the presidency comes through radical deregulation of internal university structures. Where student participation, broad representation of interests and co-determination currently take place at all levels (even if there is certainly room for improvement here), in future a centrally organised and controlled presidential system, in which all decisions are made by an arbitrarily composed council whose members do not even have to belong to the university, can make all decisions. External "expertise", then, which sets the internal course and the tone of representation. The state does not impose regulations ensuring that all interest groups at a university are involved in decisions affecting them, and thus sells democratic ideals down the river to authoritarian profit interests.
Academic freedom cannot fluctuate where interests are not discussed and debated on equal terms by representatives of scientific freedom. Period. 

The entrepreneurial focus manifests itself in yet another dramatic point: not only does the impression arise that the new transfer ideal is given equal space as the previous ones of research and teaching – there is even a hierarchy to be seen that comes at the expense of teaching. This is marginalised in the present paper to such an extent that one should not be surprised at the clear resistance from the teaching staff side. Through the introduction of an overall teaching load, no longer is each individual expected to contribute their share to teaching; instead, the institute/chair can freely distribute the shares of teaching among its teaching staff and professors. This means that along an internal hierarchy, individual persons can shirk teaching whilst others have to take on more – at the cost of their research. This creates a multi-tier society with teaching and research professorships, harms scientific freedom and also unnecessarily inflames the collegial situation at universities. Even now, staff, teaching associates and professors are under enough stress, even without Corona.

If you would like to delve further into this topic, feel free to approach us or look at the resolution of the Student Convention.

Equally annoying, but for a much longer time: Bavaria is the only state in Germany that does not have a constituted student body. What is a constituted student body? Historically introduced after the Second World War by the Allies to promote democratic self-organisation and further anchor democratic values, this regulation gave students far-reaching possibilities for self-determination. In the course of the increasingly public and government-critical activities of many students in the 1970s, Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria decided to curtail this branch of political participation. Since then, it has been re-decided and reintroduced by the Baden-Württemberg state parliament, leaving Bavaria once again as the sole laggard in terms of broad co-determination and pluralistic promotion of democracy.

What does this specifically mean for the work of your representation:

Generally speaking, we are dependent on the goodwill of certain institutions in all matters. We are not allowed to conclude contracts independently and must therefore always rely on the willingness of legally competent bodies of the university or the Free State to cooperate. Furthermore, we have no independent control over our finances. Whilst student representations are allocated money from the state budget, the respective universities are not only permitted to carry out a purely legal review of expenditures, but can also in practice carry out a substantive review. Moreover, the funds available to student representations in Bavaria, usually less than €1 per student, given the scale of the tasks and the burden on those who take on these tasks, are not just scandalously little, but in themselves already a hand pressed over the mouth before we can even think of opening it.

Furthermore, we are neither allowed to decide amongst ourselves how we organise ourselves, nor which policy areas we are permitted to address. Whether we regard a convention, a student council or parliament, a mixture of these or a general assembly as democratically legitimate is not decided by us, but is dictated to us by the universities. Besides, we also cannot invoke a general political mandate – that is, a right to speak out on all matters that we as a student body consider important – but must strictly limit ourselves to higher education policy issues and are nonetheless often simply ignored and dismissed by official bodies (particularly at state level) in our statements and arguments.

When we have fought our way heavily laden through the jungle of laws, and with firm steps ever onwards, along the various institutions and levels – from the respective university up to the Bavarian State Ministry – we have climbed the heights of higher education policy, we suddenly find ourselves at the top of the political hierarchy and thus at federal level. The Corona pandemic has also hit many of us students particularly hard financially. With the closure of gastronomy and retail, a broad number of students lost their only sources of income. If there were a word to describe the response of the Federal Education Minister to this problem, it would be "unsolidary". Instead of broadly facilitating access to BAföG for the student body and thus establishing real basic security for students, short-term loans were taken out that merely postpone worries to tomorrow, and the costs ultimately, as so often, fall on those who suffer. To date, there is no meaningful support for financially struggling students.

Many of us here in Würzburg are not the only ones dealing with these issues; students throughout Bavaria or Germany are affected by them. Solutions are therefore usually only possible at these levels. Nevertheless: only through participation and involvement in all areas and from all sides, the small as well as the large, can these problems be tackled and a strong voice be set against them. And one of these voices is the respective student representation at the respective universities and higher education institutions.