Campus Expansion:
Guesthouse Opens & Computational Science Lab Renovation Begins [09.10.18]
Tues, 9 Oct 2018, 10:30 a.m.: Ceremonial opening of guesthouse “Marie Berta von Brand“ and interim rooms for the Hohenheim Küken daycare with campus expansion at Steckfeldstr. 4 / Renovation work on Computational Science Lab starts 2019
President Prof. Dr. Stephan Dabbert plans to open the new University of Hohenheim guesthouse on 9 October with the traditional German housewarming gifts of bread and salt for international researchers. He will also officially welcome the parent-child group “Hohenheimer Küken,” which has been using the ground floor as an interim room since 1 June. The opening represents the first step toward using the new campus buildings in Steckfeldstraße 2 and 4. In the following year, renovation work will start for the University’s new Computational Science Lab.
Schedule for Opening:
· Opening speech Prof. Dr. Stephan Dabbert
President of the University of Hohenheim
· Welcome Dr. Salwa Almohamed
Visiting scientist from Syria and scholarship recipient from the Baden-Württemberg Fund for Persecuted Scholars
· Welcome Dr. Wolf Dieter Heinbach
Parents’ representative from the Hohenheimer Küken e.V.
· Tour of the guesthouse and small reception
The new guesthouse “Marie” encompasses 3 floors with two 3-room apartments and one 4-room apartment totaling 220 square meters. In the mid-term, it is to replace the guesthouse “Huberta” at Paracelsusstraße 14, which the University had to rent in 2012 due to a lack of space.
The guesthouses with a hotel character serve primarily as housing for short stays for international researchers. It is operated by the University’s Welcome Center. As the first point of contact for international researchers, the Welcome Center assists “with visas, insurance, foreigner's offices, support for dual-career couples, finds childcare, helps with filing for the child subsidy and parental allowance, finds housing, helps find insurance and with filing taxes... and those are only a few examples,” states Director Dr. Silke Will.
In all, the Welcome Center greets around 100 international researchers each year. Most stay between two and three months or up to six months. Some only stay for 2-3 days.
Interim solution for private parent-child group Hohenheimer Küken e.V.
Since June 2018, the University of Hohenheim has provided the ground floor in the new guesthouse “Marie” for one year to the parent-child group “Hohenheimer Küken” with 10 children between the ages of one and three.
The reason was a need for room that became obvious in the spring of 2018 and was suddenly acute after a permanent solution was cancelled at the end of last year. The rental agreement with the Student Services Tübingen-Hohenheim had run out and could no longer be extended. The group had found other rooms, but at the last minute the arrangement fell through.
Campus expansion with guest house, student residence hall, and Computational Science Lab
By opening the guesthouse, the University of Hohenheim is taking the first step toward using its campus expansion of over 10,000 square meters in the Steckfeldstraße and Welfenstraße. The primary use will be the future Computational Science Lab. In addition, the Student Services plans to create 50 student residence rooms at Welfenstraße 80.
The previous owner of the buildings was the Baden-Württembergischer Genossenschaftsverband (BWGV), which operated an academy building with a conference hotel. Thanks to the generous support of the honorary senator Günther Daiss, the property was purchased by the state, University, and Student Services Tübingen-Hohenheim. In 2018, it was given to the University of Hohenheim to use.
The property at Steckfeldstr. 2 and 4 has floor space of around 8,900 square meters with 3,800 sqm of offices, 500 sqm of meeting and seminar rooms, and around 2,100 sqm of storage space. The building at Welfenstraße 80 has floor space of around 1,500 square meters in a total building space of around 1,900 sqm. The University of Hohenheim’s campus excluding this expansion is around 65 hectares with 32,000 sqm of office space, 19,000 sqm of laboratory space, and 15,000 sqm of lecture hall space.
BACKGROUND Refugee Researchers & Students at the University of Hohenheim
Since the start of the refugee crisis, at the University of Hohenheim the Office of International Affairs has acted as the first point of contact for refugees who want to study and persecuted researchers. The advising offers include:
- Preparatory course for refugees wanting to study in the “Intensive Language Course for Refugees with an Academic Background” funded by the DAAD as part of the Integra program. So far, a total of 71 refugees have taken or are currently taking part in four intensive language courses. Most participants have come from Syria.
- Advising and assisting persecuted scientists. Many affected scientists have already been at the University for a longer period of time and cannot return to their countries of origin. Others have contacted the University from conflict areas and first need assistance obtaining a visa and leaving the country, e.g. Syria. At the beginning of 2018, the University of Hohenheim became a member in the Scholars at Risk Network (SAR) and since then has been an internationally visible point of contact for persecuted scholars. Since 2016, the University of Hohenheim has obtained scholarships for 5 persecuted scholars from Syria and Venezuela. The funds are provided by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Philipp Schwarz Initiative, the DFG with the program for integrating persecuted scholars in existing DFG projects, and the program “Baden-Württemberg Fund for Persecuted Scholars,” which was established by the Ministry of Science and Research with the renowned Institute of International Education. The Baden-Württemberg Foundation and the Max Jarecki Foundation each fund half of this program.
BACKGROUND
Eponym for the Guesthouse Marie Marie-Berta von Brand was the first female doctoral candidate in Hohenheim: Against her father’s wishes, in 1920 she first enrolled at the University of Frankfurt and then completed her studies in Agriculture from 1921 to 1924 at the Hohenheim Academy. She received financial aid from the program “to support needy female students.” From 1924 to 1927, she was a research associate at the Institute of Business in Hohenheim and completed her dissertation on the topic “The economic and cultural situation of farmers in the Fildern” in 1930. Throughout the rest of her life, she worked as a freelance businesswoman, as a research associate at the Institute of Agricultural and Settlement Research at the University of Tübingen, and as an expert for agricultural construction in Freiburg. Even after her retirement, she worked as an assistant lecturer for the Hohenheim Institute of Applied Agricultural Business.
Additional Information
Welcome Center: www.uni-hohenheim.de/en/welcome-center
International Matters: www.uni-hohenheim.de/en/international-matters
Offers for refugees: www.uni-hohenheim.de/en/refugees
Childcare in Hohenheim: www.uni-hohenheim.de/en/childcare-services
Text: Klebs
Contact for press:
Dr. Silke Will, Universität Hohenheim, Leiterin Welcome Center,
T 0711 459 24636, E silke.will@verwaltung.uni-hohenheim.de
