Uni-Tübingen

A strong Network: Elected for Equality and Diversity

The University Equal Opportunities Officer is elected by the Senate for a term of office of two years. She is a professor (or from the academic service) and works on a part-time basis. The university's constitution allows for up to 11 elected deputies - three at central level and eight at decentralized level (for the seven faculties and the Center for Islamic Theology).  

The three deputies at the central level relieve the University Equal Opportunities Officer in the central committees by taking on key topics and regularly exchanging information.

The eight decentralized deputies in the faculties are mostly the same person as the Faculty Equal Opportunities Officer. They provide advice and support in decentralized committees and are the contact persons for all questions or conflicts relating to equal opportunities in the dean's offices and in the faculties and subjects. Due to the large number of tasks, the faculties also have equal opportunities commissions in which departments and/or various status groups are represented.

Contact

Wilhelmstraße 19
Raum 027, 028, 029, 031, 033

 

Office Irene Gust

+49 7071 29-74958
equity@uni-tuebingen.de

Mailing Address

Geschwister-Scholl-Platz
72074 Tübingen

Office Hours

via Email

With this large number of deputies, the University of Tübingen has a unique selling point!

 

The Senate Equal Opportunities Commission is an advisory commission of the Senate, which is made up of an equal number of members from the groups represented in the Senate. It is chaired by the University Equal Opportunities Officer and supported by the Advisory Board of the Faculty Equal Opportunities Officers.

Together they form a strong network of gender equality activists.

The Equal Opportunity Officer

Professor Dr. Ingrid Hotz-Davies took up the position of the Equal Opportunities Officer at the University of Tübingen on November 16th 2023.

Professor Dr Ingrid Hotz-Davies took up the post of Equal Opportunities Officer at the University of Tübingen on 16 November 2023. The Senate voted unanimously in favour of the English studies graduate, who succeeds Professor Ruth Scoralick, with no votes against or abstentions. This is Hotz-Davies' third term in office, having previously served as Equal Opportunities Officer from 2002 to 2006 and from 2014 to 2019. From 2007 to 2011, she was spokesperson for the State Conference of Equal Opportunities Officers at universities in Baden-Württemberg.

In her acceptance speech, Hotz-Davies said that she was very happy to be able to accompany the university once again as Equal Opportunities Officer: "Equality and the practical appreciation of diversity at this university are an important prerequisite for us to be able to research, teach and learn from each other well and successfully." The Professor of english studies also referred to the upcoming process of applying for excellence. Here she can draw on extensive experience from the last application process.

Ingrid Hotz-Davies was born in Munich in 1961. She studied English and German language and literature in Munich and at Dalhousie University in Halifax (Canada), where she gained her doctorate in 1993. From 1993 to 2001 she was a research assistant at the LMU Munich. After her habilitation in 2000, she was appointed as Professor of English Literature at the University of Tübingen just a year later. Since 2013, she has been co-director of the Centre for Gender and Diversity Research (ZGD) in Tübingen. Her research focuses on early modern literature, literature by women from around 1600 to 2000, techniques of subversive writing, queer studies and affect and literature.

The Gender Equality Representative is responsible (according to the LHG) for equal opportunities for women and men in science and studies.

Professor Dr. Ingrid Hotz-Davies is supported in her many different tasks as the University’s Gender Equality Officer by the Gender Equality Office.

The Family Office and the Diversity Office are also attached to the Equal Opportunities Representative.

The University Equal Opportunities Officer is responsible for gender equality in science and studies in accordance with the State Higher Education Act.

 

Professor Dr. Ingrid Hotz-Davies is supported by Team Equity (Gender, Diversity, Care) in the implementation of her duties as University Equal Opportunities Officer.

The deputy Equal Opportunities Officers of the University introduce themselves:

Deputy University Equal Opportunities Officer apl. Professor Dr. Heike Oberlin

I am currently Head of the Department of Indology at the Asia-Orient Institute of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities as a senior academic advisor and adjunct professor.

 

I studied Indology and Ethnology (previously German Studies, Art History and Empirical Cultural Studies) in Tübingen and completed my doctorate in Würzburg with a thesis on the South Indian Sanskrit theater tradition Kūṭiyāṭṭṭam (Ernst Waldschmidt Prize 2008). Back in Tübingen, I completed my habilitation in May 2013 and received the “venia legendi” for Indology; in December 2016, I was then appointed adjunct professor.

Parallel and closely intertwined with my academic career, I studied Kūṭiyāṭṭṭam Sanskrit theater in theory and practice at the South Indian dance theater academy Kerala Kalamandalam from 1995 to 2001 and learned the Malayalam language. My main focus was on the development of actresses and female role characters and expanded to gender studies in South Asia. These focuses are now continued by my PhD students from Kerala. I continue to perform as a Kūṭiyāṭṭṭam actress, give talks and lecture-demonstrations at universities, theaters and schools. In 2018, I was honored by the state government of Kerala as a “Scholar in Residence” as part of the “Erudite Program”, in 2019 the Indian Council of Cultural Relations awarded me the “Gisela Bonn Prize” for special achievements in the field of Indo-German relations.

I have been involved in various committees for years; I am currently the spokesperson for the “Landesvertretung Akademischer Mittelbau an den Universitäten in Baden-Württemberg”, a member of the University Council and DHV contact person at the University of Tübingen. In the five years that I held the elective office of Equal Opportunities Officer at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities (2014-2019), I became directly acquainted with the variety of equality-related topics and problems in everyday university life, ranging from the lack of childcare facilities to sexual harassment, the introduction of gender-neutral toilets or the administration of travel allowances for female early career researchers to equality issues in appointment procedures. As a “first generation academic”, I would like to bring the aspect of equal opportunities and the topic of equal performance more strongly into my gender equality work at the University of Tübingen in order to find and promote “latent excellence”.

 

Deputy University Equal Opportunities Officer apl. Professor Dr. Ursula Offenberger

I have been an academic councilor and adjunct professor at the Methods Center of the Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences since 2023, where I am responsible for the Qualitative Methods and Interpretative Social Research department.

 

Since my studies of Sociology, Scandinavian Studies and Gender Studies in Tübingen and at the Humboldt University of Berlin, I have been dealing with methodological questions of empirical social research as well as questions of gender sociology, related to the topics of work, organization, profession, science and technology research. This has given me an understanding of the mechanisms of gender inequality, from which the university as an organization is not exempt.

As a postdoc at the University of St. Gallen, I empirically investigated how the pursuit of excellence at Swiss and German universities is linked to efforts to increase equal opportunities: there are both synergies and areas of friction between the two concerns. In my gender equality work at the University of Tübingen, I would like to contribute to university organizational development understanding gender equality as a natural, helpful, albeit sometimes uncomfortable part of its work. We will not run out of work, because: Reforms are always incomplete.

Deputy University Equal Opportunities Officer Professor Dr. Annika Goeze

work in progress, coming soon!

 

The Faculty Equal Opportunities Officers and their Committees:

The Equal Opportunities Officers of the Faculties

The University of Tübingen is divided into seven faculties and the Center for Islamic Theology (ZITh). These faculties perform their tasks in research and teaching largely autonomously within the framework of academic self-administration - due to this autonomy, gender equality policy must also be institutionalized decentrally at faculty level. The respective commissions and further information on activities at faculty level can also be found under the links below.

 

These are the current Faculty Equal Opportunities Officers:

  • Equal Opportunities Officer of the Faculty of Protestant Theology (also elected as deputy by the Senate)
    Prof. Dr. Martin Leuenberger
    Tel.: (07071) 29 - 75253
    Link Homepage
  • Equal Opportunities Officer of the Faculty of Catholic Theology (also elected as deputy by the Senate)
    StR'in Simone Hiller
    Tel: (07071) 29- 74049
    Link Homepage
  • Equal Opportunities Officer of the Faculty of Law (also elected as deputy by the Senate)
    Claire Marshall
    Tel: (07071) 29-76121
    Link Homepage
  • Equal Opportunities Officer of the Faculty of Medicine (also elected as deputy by the Senate)
    Prof. Dr. Birgit Derntl
    Tel: (07071) 29 - 85437
    Link Homepage
  • Equal Opportunities Officer of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities (also elected as deputy by the Senate)
    Prof. Dr. Monika Schrimpf
    Tel: (07071) 29- 73959
    Link Homepage
  • Equal Opportunities Officer of the Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences
    Prof. Dr. Martin Biewen (Deputy elected by the Senate: Karin Bürkert)
    Link Homepage
  • Equal Opportunities Officer of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences
    Dr. Annette Denzinger (elected by the Senate as a deputy at the same time)
    Tel: (07071) 29- 72958
    Link Homepage
  • Equal Opportunities Officer of the Center for Islamic Theology
    Prof. Dr. Lejla Demiri (elected by the Senate as a deputy at the same time)
    Tel: (07071) 29-75367
    Link Homepage

 

The tasks of the Equal Opportunities Officers of the Faculties

Most faculties regulate the election of their equal opportunities officers, their tasks and the faculty's equal opportunities policy goals and planned measures in a faculty equal opportunities plan.

 

The Equal Opportunities Officers of the faculties are elected by the Faculty Council; at the same time, they often represent the University Equal Opportunities Officers and their tasks at faculty level as regulated in §4 LHG. They are therefore legitimized in two ways: Firstly as a representative of the University Equal Opportunities Officer and secondly as the Faculty Equal Opportunities Officer elected by the Faculty Council.

The main tasks of the Faculty Equal Opportunities Officer are as follows:

  • Advising the Faculty Board, the Faculty Council and faculty members on all matters relating to gender equality
  • Supporting the Faculty Board in the development of equality plans, equality measures and targets to increase the proportion of women in the respective faculty
  • Accepting complaints about discrimination/harassment as the first, low-threshold contact person and referring them if necessary
  • Developing proposals for accompanying measures to eliminate discrimination due to study and working conditions
  • Organization of information events for female students and academics
  • Organizing lectures and lecture series on topics related to women's and gender studies
  • Representation of the University Equal Opportunities Officer, e.g. in recruitment and appointment procedures

Important information on equal opportunities work at the faculties can also be found in the Handreichung Fakultätsgleichstellungsbeauftragten

This is the Senate Equal Opportunities Commission:

Senate Commission on Equal Opportunities

The Senate Equal Opportunities Commission is responsible for the topics equity, diversity, gender equality and care.  

The Senate Equal Opportunities Commission is an advisory commission of the Senat, which is made up of an equal number of members from the groups represented in the Senate. Its tasks include, in particular, monitoring the effectiveness of equal opportunities measures and developing proposals for updating them. It supports and advises the Equal Opportunities Officers of the University and the faculties and has the right to propose candidates to the Senate for the election of the University Equal Opportunities Officer and her deputies. The Senate Equal Opportunities Commission usually meets once or twice a semester under the direction of the University Equal Opportunities Officer.

Members of the Senate Equal Opportunities Commission:

Professoral Members:

Prof. Dr. Martin Leuenberger, Faculty of Protestant Theology 
Substitute: Prof. Dr. Renate Dürr, Faculty of Philosophy

Prof. Dr. Kerstin Pull, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences 
Substitute: Prof. Dr. Hannah Markwig, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences

Academic Service:

Dr. Dr. Carsten Köhler, Medical Faculty

Isis Mrugalla, Faculty of Philosophy
Substitute: Dr. Gero Bauer, Center for Gender and Diversity Research

Students:

Rita Lang
Substitute: Elena Pfister

Sarah-Elisabeth Mayer
Substitute: Pauline Menge

Non-Academical Service:

Gregor Schulte, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences
Substitute: Nicole Doppstadt, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences

Margit Fritz, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences 
Substitute: Gabriele Baumann, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences 

The Commission's term of office ends on September 30, 2025. Students until September 30, 2024.


Maps

Equal opportunities officer for the scientific service (Diversity, Gender, Care)

You will find all the speakers of the Equal Opportunities Officers on the topics of Diversity, Gender, Care at Wilhelmstrasse 19 (Verfügungsgebäude).