University Elections 2019

In the period from June 4th to June 6th, 2019, enrolled doctoral students were eligible to participate in the University elections as an own voting block for the first time. Four representatives for the University Senate and one to three for each Faculty Council were elected.

Election Results

University Administration has published the election results in great detail: https://www.uni-heidelberg.de/md/zuv/recht/wahlen/ergebnis.pdf

A summary:

Senate

Senate seats were won by

1. Linda Shen (physics),
2. Theresa Möke (history),
3. Maximilian Kellner (law),
4. Martin Schröter (chemistry)

who ran on one list, „Freie Doktoranden“. This list provides further information at https://freie-doktoranden.de/about-us/.

The voter turnout was at 12.8 % (calculated only by the number of enrolled doctoral students that were actually eligible to vote in this status group, excluding e.g. Academic Employees).

Faculty Councils

Representatives have been elected to eight of ten Faculty Councils open to doctoral students:

• Faculty of Theology (two seats)
  1. Marina Zumstein
  2. Salome Lang
• Faculty of Law (two seats)
  1. Annika Vorfelder
  2. Robert Pracht
• Faculty of Philosophy (three seat)
  1. Mark Fischer
  2. Void
  3. Void
• Faculty of Modern Languages (three seats)
  1. Isabella Camilla Rosa Managò, Simon Pupic
  2. Void
  3. Void
• Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences (three seats)
  1. Anne-Marie-Parth
  2. Jonathan Gruhler
  3. Abu Sayed M. Mostafizur Rahman
• Faculty of Behavioural and Cultural Studies (one seat)
  1. Florian Karl Günther Ermark
• Faculty of Chemistry and Earth Sciences (two seat)
  1. Deborah Hartmann
  2. Void
• Faculty of Physics und Astronomy (two seats)
  1. Linda Shen
  2. Hans Maurus

Two Faculty Councils will be void of doctoral representatives:

• Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Sciences (two seats)
• Faculty of Biosciences (three seats)

At the two Medical Faculties, doctoral students are represented together with students.

For lack of candidates, ten (43 %) of 23 seats for doctoral students remain unoccupied. The overall turnout was at 18.3 %, the average turnout of all faculties at 18.1 %, and therefore higher than for Senate.

Election modus

The elections were held as postal votes, each doctoral student having four votes for Senate and one to three for Faculty Councils. Doctoral students who were employed at the University had the possibility to choose in which voting block they wanted to cast their vote until April 30th. Those who did not declare their decision to vote as doctoral students by this date participated as Academic Employees.

For each council, only one list of candidates was running. Therefore, the elections were conducted as majority elections: the candidates winning the highest numbers of votes were elected.

Background

With the amendment of the University State Law (Landeshochschulgesetz), effective since March 30th, 2018, doctoral students became an independent status group at the universities in Baden-Wuerttemberg implying the right to vote in university boards.

The Basic Statute (Grundordnung) of Heidelberg University was adapted accordingly in the beginning of 2019. Consequently, doctoral students received four seats in the Senate, the highest decision-making body of the University, and up to three seats in each Faculty Council. Besides students, Academic Employees and non-academic employees (all occupying four of 39 voting seats in Senate), doctoral students now constitute the fourth non-professorial status group of the University Senate.