Recently, to mark International Women’s Day, we asked students across campus which women at the University of Mannheim inspire them. Quite often, the names they mentioned were those of the very six women profiled on the following pages. We were delighted to hear that, because that is exactly what we hoped these portraits of women professors would do: show just how many inspiring women are at the forefront of research at this university.
Credit: Anna Logue / privat / Illustration: uc graphic
Gender data at the University of Mannheim reveal a pattern seen across German academia: women make up just over 50 percent of students, but less than 30 percent of professors. Where do women drop out along the academic path — and how does the university plan to respond? FORUM spoke with the university’s equal opportunity commissioners, Karin Hoisl and Christiane Koch.
She studies capital markets from a gender perspective. Economist Alexandra Niessen-Ruenzi discovered the subject that would define her career while still a student. Today, she is one of the most respected and visible researchers in the field.
Curiosity as a driving force: Michèle Tertilt has been drawn to unconventional questions since early in her career — and has always pursued them with confidence. Far from hindering her progress, that instinct has helped shape an impressive trajectory. Today the highly decorated economist and current Leibniz Prize laureate looks back on a remarkable academic career.
Credit: Alexander Münch / Illustration: uc graphic
She is among the world’s most frequently cited scholars: Sabine Sonnentag. After starting out as the first and only female doctoral student in her department, the professor of work and organizational psychology at the University of Mannheim now looks back on a distinguished academic career.
Credit: Alexander Münch / Illustration: uc graphic
Her first encounter with the law came through television courtroom shows. As a teenager, Mannheim law professor Stefanie Egidy was fascinated by the back-and-forth of legal argument — and by the idea that conflicts could be resolved fairly based on objective criteria. Today, the former top graduate studies how institutions and democratic systems continue to function in times of crisis and amid sweeping transformations such as digitalization.
The high school classroom gave way to the lecture hall: When Margret Keuper began training to become a schoolteacher in the early 2000s, she had no idea her career would one day bring her to the Schloss. Today she holds the chair in machine learning — making her the only woman professor of computer science at the University of Mannheim.
A single thread runs through Lidia Becker’s career: a deep love of languages. Following that love has taken her from Voronezh in southwestern Russia, near the Ukrainian border, to Germany, where she has built an impressive academic career in Romance linguistics.
We need more women in academia. The numbers tell a clear story: gender parity is still a long way off at German universities. Three out of four W3 professorships in Germany are held by men. The University of Mannheim is no exception, though it is now stepping up its efforts to change that. One important part of that push is its participation in the “Professorinnenprogramm 2030” — the competitive federal and state governments’ program for women professors.
Credit: Universität Mannheim / Illustration: uc graphic
When Gudrun Höhl and Elfriede Höhn were appointed in the mid-1960s to what was then the Mannheim State College of Business and Economics, they were pioneers — both at the university and in their fields. Their paths into academia, however, had been shaped by war, new beginnings, and institutional resistance.
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