This story is about a hired course of study, beginners’ numbers, graduate quotas and the reputation of an entire department. Perhaps also for injured pride and certainly about how professors, deans and university managers should deal with each other. It is about the Rhein-Main University of Applied Sciences and the engineering sciences there, which a group of three professors sees threatened-while president and dean believe in the successful future of the department. The Hessian Ministry of Science and the Landtag now also employs what started as a faculty dispute. The three professors who do not want to see their names feel felt to be part of their life’s work. In the early 2010s, they built up the applied mathematics course, which was initially located in the architecture and civil engineering department. In 2016, the offer against the will of the three teachers was part of the engineering department based in Rüsselsheim. In 2023, an admission stop for the course was imposed due to insufficient registration numbers, as it was said. Finally, the university had the setting of the offer; The Ministry of Science approved the decision last year. “Applied mathematics sacrificed” The professors throw the dean’s office and presidium of having “sacrificed” the applied mathematics in view of the overall poor utilization of the department, which has been suffering from lack of money for a long time. Above all, however, she is outraged that they were insufficiently included in attempts to reform the course. Her suggestions for a reorganization were ignored despite positive external ratings, while six foreign experts had certified the concept favored by the university management. The three university teachers see the rules for the accreditation of courses violated; They even feel limited in their freedom of science because they have been excluded from the further development of their own course. The “Nature and Science” department of the F.A.Z. has reported on the allegations, and the three professors are following. They believe that dealing with them is symptomatic of the condition of the department and the entire university: In order to lure more students into poorly buried subjects, the dean and president put on undemanded reforms and accept that the level in the courses – which suffers from the department and university at companies and the opportunities of the graduates are not required. Ministry of Science A reporting application from the FDP parliamentary group in the Hessian state parliament to the Ministry of Science takes up these concerns. For some years now, the situation of engineering at the Rhein-Main University of Applied Sciences has been characterized by “severely declining registration numbers, falling visitor numbers in courses and financial difficulties,” the introduction said. The signs of registration for the Bachelor’s degree programs of mechanical engineering and electrical engineering were significantly lower in the 2024/25 winter semester at the Rhein-Main University of Applied Sciences than at the Technical University of Middle Hesse and the Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences. Because of this situation, the Rüsselsheim department is planning a restructuring in which, in addition to applied mathematics 16 existing bachelor’s degree programs, and should be replaced by a bachelor’s degree in “Applied Engineering” and an English -language offer. Investigation of dealing with the mathematics applied doubt that this reform will succeed. They accuse the university president and dean to only follow fashion trends and to disregard the content requirements of the subjects. As an example, they cite the effort for internationalization: Especially in mathematics – which the department supposedly wanted to continue in a changed form – English -language bacheloral offers are not very promising because of the complexity of the material. It can be expected with very high dropout rates. “Most of the teaching content is school material” In this way the decline of engineering in Rüsselsheim, which, according to one of the professors, has already started around 2010. In the past, the department was primarily a “supplier for Opel”. When the need for engineers had decreased there, the faculty did not manage to reposition itself. In the meantime, the department and its graduates in the economy have a rather poor call. Paths of the low level during their studies are talking about the “Rhein-Main secondary school”; A large part of the teaching content is “medium and upper level school fabric”. Two of the professors want to have heard of colleagues that companies rejected to hire graduates from the Rhein-Main University of Applied Sciences or to employ their students as interns. For renowned companies, the university is on the “black list”. The F.A.Z. has not been able to verify this claim. In view of the low figure of enrollment and the loss of image they claimed, one of the three professors fears that the future of the department is “not rosy”. In the worst case, the engineering science threatens the “processing within the next five years”. More about the themefür Eva Waller are such statements “evil recovery”. The President of the Rhein-Main University of Applied Sciences has the claim that the field of engineering is understood in decline, just as back as Dean Christian Glockner. The latter says that the number of registration has currently developed “significantly better” than a year ago. At the beginning of September, 298 enrollings had already been counted for all courses in the department; In 2024 it was only 125 at this time. Until the end of the registration fee, Glockner expects 500 to 600 beginners. After Corona pandemic, engineering sciences all over Germany had recorded declines in the first semester; That also affected the RWTH Aachen as well -renowned. The less demand compared to neighboring universities in Darmstadt and Frankfurt in the past year explains Waller with the attraction of the main metropolis and the good reputation of Darmstadt as an engineering training center, which also benefits the university. The fact that the Ministry of Science has approved its participation in the new university cross -school doctoral promotion center “System -integrated engineering”: In the future, seven professors from the department, as well as colleagues from the universities in Frankfurt, Fulda and Mittelhessen, will be able to look after doctoral students independently. In addition, the Science Council had just asked the Rhein-Main University of Applied Sciences to apply for a research construction for engineering and computer science worth 40 million euros to be financed by the federal and state governments. Incidentally, the dean adds, the Rüsselsheim campus is already “a real piece of jewelry”: the renovation work there has been completed, the laboratories “state -of -the -art”. University President Eva Wallerlukas Palikdie The negative assessments of companies, of which the two professors report applied mathematics, evaluates Glockner as “individual opinions”. The fact that a graduate or intern is “not so performed” is always true. The department maintains close cooperation with large companies such as Procter & Gamble; You still work together with Opel, even if engineers from Rüsselsheim also get under from other car manufacturers such as Hyundai. In the future, the dean is only a big bachelor’s degree in question about the financial situation of the department; This must always be considered in the overall context of the university. The fact that there is also a need for reform in terms of efficiency can already be seen from the announced reorganization of the Bachelor’s degree programs: According to Waller, from 2026 there should be a single large, German -language bachelor’s degree in “Applied engineering” with many selectable focuses and from 2027 to an English -language bacheloral offer that is currently working titles “Computational Mathematics “Trage. This would be the successor program for applied mathematics. Waller justifies their attitude with the unacceptable low graduate quota, which has just 12.2 percent. The three professors doubt this number based on their own research. They also point out that many students have changed to other universities after the announcement of hiring the course. The assumption that in the applied mathematics would not be durable: “There were fewer than ten students who were briefed because of the final non -existence of an examination.” “Then you have to make decisions at some point” President Waller accuses the three professors that they had refused to meet a compromise in the conversations. If an agreement does not succeed in good, “then you have to make decisions at some point”. Dean Glockner says that they “started” to think about a reform. Then it was not possible to agree on a model. In the allegation of the professors, a “core team” appointed in 2023 to revise the course, not a single mathematician, he replies that colleagues with a “mathematical background”, such as from physics, were involved. These are also enabled to think about curriculum for applied mathematics. Waller denies that English -language bachelor’s degree programs have bad chances of success; There are enough counterexamples, also at your own university.
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A constructive exchange between both sides currently hardly seems possible. Waller is clearly noticeable about the three professors. These in turn feel underemployed since the handling of their course and observed suspiciously by the university management; The word “bullying” also falls. Matthias Büger, spokesman for science of the FDP parliamentary group, studied mathematician and initiator of the reporting application, find the situation “extremely unhappy”. He would like a mediation between the two sides. The Ministry of Science, whose role in the affair is also asked for in the reporting application, has announced its answer for one of the next two meetings of the state committee for science and art. The three professors assume that they are still ready to participate in the establishment of a new course. “If the colleagues are ready to do so, they can be integrated,” says President Waller. Spitz adds: “But we don’t put any stones in your way if you want to leave the university.”
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