Fri, 30 Mar 2007

University of Witten-Herdecke looking for strong financial partner – further management resignation

By Cornelie Unger-Leistner

WITTEN-HERDECKE (NNA) – The University of Witten-Herdecke appears to be looking for a strong financial partner to help it survive.

The spokesman of Germany’s first private university, Dirk Hans, confirmed to NNA that the university management was in talks with the Heidelberg health group SRH (Stiftung Rehabilitation) about a “cooperation” between both institutions.

SRH represented a “ray of hope” in view of the difficult financial situation of the university, Hans said. SRH was currently undertaking its due diligence investigation. Such an inspection of the books was normal if there was interest in making a financial commitment going beyond sponsorship.

However, Hans denied reports according to which there had been talk of a “purchase” or “takeover” of the university by SRH. The talks, which had unanimously been given the green light by the university’s senate, were concerned with developing a new “financing model” for Witten-Herdecke. It is expected that the SRH investigation will be concluded by the spring.

One of the problems for the university is that about one third of its budget comes from sponsorship which involves constant fundraising. So far the necessary funds had always been generated but it was not a responsible long-term financing model vis-à-vis the 1200 students and the staff, Hans emphasised.

The dispute with the German government’s Science Council, which in a 2005 report had criticised medical training at the university, had clearly driven away some sponsors, Hans confirmed.

Changes undertaken by the university led the Science Council to withdraw its negative report one year later. The Herdecke model is seen as exemplary throughout Europe because of its patient-oriented training of doctors.

It is also becoming clear that the university management has been unable to achieve a consensus about the strategic direction of the institution.

After the co-founder and first rector of the university, Konrad Schily, left late last year due to differences about the proposed direction of Witten-Herdecke, the academic director Prof. Matthias Schrappe also resigned in January in a surprise move, albeit for different reasons.

Schrappe repeated to NNA what he had already told other media, namely that he had resigned due to “profound strategic differences” about the course of the institution.

Schrappe declined to give further details but as dean of the medical faculty he developed the concept which successfully tackled the criticism of the Science Council. However, Schrappe told NNA that the planned cooperation with SRH did not remove the obligation from the private university to clearly formulate an independent strategy: “Otherwise it will be a weak partner,” Schrappe emphasised.

In an interview with the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper after his resignation, Schily criticised the response of the university to the criticism of the Science Council as abandoning some of its innovative approaches and said the university was becoming too much like a business. The professors were increasingly only seen as “service providers” and the students as “customers”. The “community of teachers and students” was on the way to disappearing.

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Item: 070330-02EN Date: 30 March 2007

Copyright 2007 News Network Anthroposophy Limited. All rights reserved. See: www.nna-news.org/copyright/

More NNA reports at: www.nna-news.org/en/

Waldorf association in Berlin distances itself from controversial school

BERLIN/FRANKFURT (NNA) – The Waldorf school association in Berlin has moved to correct reports in the German media that a school mired in controversy is a Waldorf school.

The Novalis school in Berlin had created headlines in the national and local media as a result of a serious dispute at the school in which the parents’ association, as the carrier of the school, sacked all the teaching staff, leading to the school being closed for several days.

According to local newspapers, the police were called to stop some former teachers entering the school when lessons started again with new staff.

The spokesman of the Waldorf school association in Berlin, Detlef Hardorp, told “Spiegel online”, the website of the national news magazine “Der Spiegel”, that the Novalis school was not allowed to claim that it was teaching on the basis of Rudolf Steiner education and was not allowed to describe itself as a Waldorf school.

The names “Steiner” and “Waldorf” were protected under law. There was no connection whatsoever between the Novalis school and the German Association of Waldorf Schools, Hardorp said.

Only schools which were members of the association were allowed to call themselves “Steiner”, “Rudolf Steiner” or “Waldorf” in Germany. The school would therefore have to cease describing itself as working on the basis of Rudolf Steiner education, as it had been doing.

There was a risk that the activities at the school would damage the reputation of genuine Waldorf schools, Hardorp added.

The dispute was reported in several German media, including “Spiegel online” and the alternative newspaper “Tageßeitung” (TAZ). According to TAZ, parents criticised the authoritarian atmosphere at the school, claiming that some teachers had acted like “gurus in a sect”. In an interview with the paper, one of the teachers had repeatedly stressed the “anthroposophical approach” of the school.

A spokesman of the Anthroposophical Society in Germany told NNA that the society could do no more than emphasise that the Novalis school had nothing to do with Waldorf education. The term “anthroposophical” as such was not protected under law. Only if the Anthroposophical Society was directly named could it take action under trade mark law.

In their initial reports, the media had described the Novalis school as a „Waldorf school“. These reports have, in the meantime, been corrected as a result of the intervention of the Berlin Waldorf association.

The education authorities in Berlin are also investigating the status of the school and whether its teaching meets the standards to qualify for state funding.

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Item: 070330-01EN Date: 30 March 2007

Copyright 2007 News Network Anthroposophy Limited. All rights reserved. See: www.nna-news.org/copyright/

More NNA reports at: www.nna-news.org/en/