The super election year at the big Berlin universities begins with a bang. The challenger Geraldine Rauch prevailed in the first ballot at the Technical University of Berlin.
Rauch, Vice Dean for Teaching at the Charité, will become the new President of the TU. In the first ballot, she received exactly the necessary absolute majority of 31 votes from the 61-member electoral body.
Incumbent Christian Thomsen, who has been president for eight years and is seeking his third term, received 21 votes. He is thus voted out. The physicist and former TU Vice President Ulrike Woggon received seven votes, two votes cast in the Extended Academic Senate were invalid. In February, presidential elections will also be held at Humboldt University and Freie Universität.
You can read the background to the TU election on Tagesspiegel Plus: Who runs the TU Berlin? Tough competition for a university in transition
In the run-up, many at the TU had expected that none of the candidates would receive an absolute majority in the first ballot. “I never thought that it would be decided now,” was the astonished voice of an elector to be heard when the result was known after double counting. Rauch’s success is all the more remarkable because the TU has traditionally recruited its presidents from among its own professors.
Massive problems in the TU administration
Science Senator Ulrike Gote (Green Party) congratulated Rauch on his election. Gote Rauch said there would be major tasks for the university in the coming term of office: “These include the negotiations on the university contracts, but also the organization of the university after the pandemic.” In short, it’s about finding answers to the question of “how we want to teach, learn, research and work in the future, and what we learn from the pandemic period”.
However, it was clear that it would not be easy for incumbent Christian Thomsen. The TU is in a good position to the outside world, among other things it became a university of excellence under Thomsen. On the inside, however, it looks different. There are massive problems in administration, for example there is talk of a lack of staff, which has led to a large backlog of hiring. Another example: Students are said to have waited months for their grades to be entered into databases.
More applause for Rauch and Thomsen
Rauch (40) had already presented himself as an alternative to Thomsen in the numerous rounds of introductions, for example in the university trial. She held the President weak points clearly focused weak points than the second challenger Ulrike Woggon. Rauch has been a professor of biometrics at the Charité since 2017 and vice dean there since 2020. Before that she had stations in Hamburg, Heidelberg, Cardiff and Bremen, among others.
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Before the ballot, the candidates introduced themselves to the electorate in a ten-minute presentation. Even there it was noticeable that Rauch and Thomsen received significantly more applause after their statements than Woggon. She was the first to speak and emphasized that the TU needed a change of perspective.
Thomsen, on the other hand, clearly responded to criticism of his previous term of office, especially at the beginning of his very committed speech. “There have been oversights in recent years,” he admitted: the administration had “stumbled” and difficulties should have been dealt with earlier and better.
Rauch appeals to the sense of togetherness
“Do you trust us to achieve the goals set?” he asked the group – not only to point out the first successes in the restructuring of the administration, but also to explain other concrete steps for the future. He also promised “unconventional ways” to solve problems.
Rauch also started by addressing her biggest reservations about her as the youngest and external applicant right at the beginning. Anyone who chooses her and her team “needs a little courage to start over,” she said. Rauch then continued in a relatively fundamental manner: The TU has a pioneering role in solving the major social problems: “Politics and society cannot ignore the TU, we must seize this opportunity.” Rauch appealed to the committee members’ sense of unity: “The TU Berlin is you and all of you who want to make a difference.”
Immediately after the election, the future president said: “I will try not to disappoint you.” The fact that it would not be easy for them either was shown immediately afterwards by the election for First Vice President. The candidate from Rauch’s team, Stephan Völker, did not receive the necessary absolute majority in the first ballot, unlike Rauch, and will have to face a second round in the coming week.
