By 2030, more than 20 professorships need to be filled at TH Lübeck. With these upcoming appointments, the university wants to focus on equality, because: The university has not come closer to its goal of at least 30% women among the professorships for years, but remains at around 17%. In addition, it will not be easier to find women for the university in the future, as it competes with industry, which has also recognized this potential.
For this purpose, the President of the TH Lübeck, Dr. Muriel Helbig and the central equal opportunities officer, Dr. Daphne Reim, invited to the first equal opportunity summit at the TH Lübeck. Prof. Dr. Maximilian Schüler moderated the eventful day.
The event combined specialist topics, problems, analyzes of the development of the proportion of female professors, gallery and dialogue walks and a lively exchange between all those present. At the beginning, Dr. Daphne Reim presented the current situation at the TH Lübeck and gave an outlook on how the proportion of female professors could change in the coming years using a wide variety of levers. Impulse lectures by Dr. Birgit Grote from JR Cape and Susanne Plaumann, the Equal Opportunities Officer at the Berlin University of Applied Sciences (BHT), provided a broad base of facts.
They highlighted the difficulties in the search for female specialists and executives and the women-specific employer marketing for universities in a particularly clear way.
The family burden is still considered the main obstacle, the potential change of main residence with family, advertisement texts and appointment committees still prefer “male career patterns” and the advertisements often do not reach the addressee group or are not noticed.
At the same time, arguments such as flexible time management are no longer an argument, since nowadays it is already possible to work remotely at companies. The lack of personnel marketing in the public sector or even outright “ghosting” often leads to uncertainty.
In the conversation and discussions, the importance of a strategic and long-term perspective on the topic became clear. It is important to establish and maintain contacts, to maintain contact with alumni, but also with conference acquaintances.
What was particularly striking at this first equality summit was the positive and constructive mood among the participants and the willingness shown by all those responsible to question themselves and existing processes. “It’s great that so many accepted the invitation and, in the hot weather, actively enriched the whole program with questions, ideas and exchange. We now have a lot of input and will see what we get implemented and how,” said Daphne Reim.