Our committee work

I thought you only organize events?

Photo: Fabienne Donau

We asked around the faculty what do you actually think we do. Most receive emails from us announcing "Women in Tech"-Events, student networking meetings, or other information about grants or the like. The attendees then see us at the events, since we run those as well. But our duties don't end there, because the Gender Equality Officers have a lot more to do.

Few people know about all the commissions and bodies of university policy of which we are (mostly advisory) members. Our main roles on these committees are to support, advise, and report. That's right, we advise not only faculty members but also commissions. But beyond that, we also attend other meetings to plan further steps or to educate ourselves. We have therefore compiled an overview of our committee work below, which, in addition to enforcing the measures from the Equal Opportunity Plan, are also part of our tasks.

Photo: Fabienne Donau

To get started, we'll first begin with the question:

Are we the only Gender Equality Officers (GBAs)?

No, because gender equality work is a (legal) obligation for the university. The Brandenburg Higher Education Act (BbgHG) §68 stipulates that a central Gender Equality Officer is elected for 4 years at each university. In addition, decentralized GBAs can be elected for e.g. faculties, which are assigned tasks of the central GBA for the duration of the term of office (2 years). Thus, there are decentralized and centralized GBAs. The decentralized GBAs include the GBAs of the faculties, central scientific institutions, university library, presidential area & central administration. The central GBAs include Christina Wolff and her deputies. For the office of the GBAs one is elected by the faculty members, i.e. mainly by students at the Digital Engineering Faculty (DEF).

Photo: Lisa Ihde

Having addressed the above, let's move on to the second question:

How do we work?

We provide advice and support on all matters relating to gender equality. Therefore, we are part of many commissions and boards. In addition, we meet regularly for open faculty meetings, take part in further training courses and then, for the most part, work on tasks and answer e-mails in between.

In the following, we will be introducing you to various commissions, committees and meetings. We will also explain what is our concrete role there and how much time is involved.

Berufungskommission (BK) appointment committees

The task of appointment committees is to supervise procedures for hiring new professors for life. According to §68.4 (BbgHG), our task is the examination of equal opportunities for qualified female applicants. Since the founding of the faculty in March 2017, there have already been more than 10 appointment procedures, all of which we have supervised.

In total, there are usually four meetings per appointment process. In the first meeting, the members of the appointment committee can decide which criteria should be used to evaluate the applications according to the call for applications. The first meeting can last from one to three hours.

Then, until the second meeting, the appeal members look at all the applications and take notes on them to decide later which applications will be prioritized. We GBAs like to exchange ideas with the other appointment members. Most of the time, some applications are formally dropped because of a lack of habilitation equivalency or because the application does not match the call. This session can become very time consuming. We have sat in appointments where this was spread over two days. After this meeting, it is determined who will be invited to give the technical presentations and teaching samples. These usually take place over 1-4 days, depending on how many are invited. Per application approx. 2 hours are planned, because after each teaching sample (30Min) and specialized lecture (30Min) there is still a one-hour question round.

This will then be followed by the third meeting, where it will be decided who has now convinced, in order to then obtain expert opinions. This meeting can also last 1-2 hours.

In the fourth meeting, the expert opinions are then used to decide in which order an appointment list is created. So if the first candidate cancels, the second candidate is asked and so on. We GBAs then have to write a statement, which is usually 2-4 pages long. Here we go through the complete process of the appointment committee and check whether qualified female candidates were not overlooked.

After that, the result goes to the Faculty Council (where we also participate) and then to the President and the Senate of the University of Potsdam (where the central GBA participates).

Senate Commission for Equal Opportunity (CGK)

Faculty Council

GBA-Meetings

Our Protocols

We keep you informed about our meetings by providing protocols where you can read our reports or read our decisions for the next activities. The minutes are available for faculty members to view after logging in at gba.team/protokolle .We would be happy if you read through them regularly and also like to ask questions about them.

There you will find the minutes of the Faculty Council, the CGK and our meetings as well as meetings with the Women's Representative of HPI.

Photo: Fabienne Donau

That's it, right? Not quite, we have another regular meeting regarding gender equality:

Exchange on gender equality issues between DEF and HPI

Since the end of February 2020, Prof. Katharina Hölzle has been dedicating particular attention to the topic of women’s advancement as the Hasso Plattner Institute’s (HPI) women’s representative. A women's representative alongside the Gender Equality Officers (GBAs)? That generated some confusion, but we’re clearing it up:

GBAs are required by law in the Brandenburg Higher Education Act (BbgHG), whereas women's representative are less common in the private sector due to the lack of legal provisions in this area.

The GBAs at the Digital Engineering Faculty (DEF) work on the basis of the Gender Equality Plan, which must exist according to the BbgHG. Such a legal basis and further regulations such as a duty of confidentiality or freedom from instructions are not existent for the women’s representative. In addition, she was appointed by the managing director of the HPI, while we GBAs of the DEF are elected every two years.

In order to avoid overlaps and parallel offers, we meet regularly and discuss our next steps. At these meetings we regularly have Sina Jurkowlaniec from the public relations team at HPI with us. A meeting usually lasts 1-2 hours.

These were all the regular meeting dates. Another component of our committee work is our regular participation in further training courses:

Further training

Photo: Fabienne Donau

In the course of gender equality work, we GBAs are confronted with very different tasks, questions and problems. The quality of the gender equality work to be carried out depends on many factors: experience in office, knowledge transfer from predecessors, the amount of time off work, the availability of opportunities for exchange with other gender equality stakeholders, attendance at training courses, and personal interest in the topic.

Being an Gender Equality Officer is not a profession and is often more of a vocation. The knowledge required for this must be acquired proactively and successively. To support this process, the Equal Opportunity Coordination Office has designed a target-group-specific and free continuing education program with external trainers, as well as annual retreats.

Photo: Fabienne Donau

Workshops

We regularly participate in professional development modules on gender equality work. Past topics of the modules were:

Legal framework of gender equality work at universities.
Anti-bias training & action strategies in appointment and personnel selection procedures
Working with resistance & empowerment & self-care
Counseling in cases of sexualized discrimination and violence at universities

Photo: Fabienne Donau

Retreat

The retreat of the GBAs takes place annually, where, in addition to workshops and lectures, we network with all other Gender Equality Officers and get to know the team from the Equal Opportunity Coordination Office at the University of Potsdam. At this two-day event, there will be an introduction to the legal issues of gender equality work, basics of intersectional gender equality work at universities, processes in selection and appointment committees, and practical work introductions. Timing-wise, the retreat takes place at the beginning of the winter semester.

Photo: Fabienne Donau