Bringing the region together: The UBT Board of Trustees

How can one imagine a meeting?
The meetings can be thought of as a mostly very entertaining "ping-pong game". Responsible people from our university present essential topics of everyday life, ideas for the future and strategic considerations. However, the participants of the Board of Trustees do not consume such lectures at all, but rather there is an intensive dialogue back and forth and it is always noticeable: everyone is struggling to find a common good path for our university and our region.

Who decides who the members of the Board of Trustees are?
In particular, the President of our University and I as Chair are of course regularly on the lookout to find further personalities for the Board of Trustees. The most important decision, of course, is always that the person we have "picked out" is at all willing to devote time and commitment to this activity. Most of the time, these are busy people. Formally, a member of the Board of Trustees is then appointed by the President.

What do you associate with the University of Bayreuth?
Even during my time on the IHK presidium, I was excited by the development of the University of Bayreuth in increasingly new and interesting markets and its interdisciplinarity. Instead of one-dimensional courses of study, different fields are being networked and even forged together into new courses of study. This is exactly what the region's economy needs to meet the challenges of the future. Why am I involved? Because I am a repeat offender! Ever since my school and youth days, and throughout my life, I have been committed to my home region and the people there. Again and again in the most diverse challenges and most recently for 19 years in the Chamber of Industry and Commerce for Upper Franconia as a committee member and 10 years as a member of the executive committee.

How can you "help" the university as chairman of the board of trustees?
Take up impulses from our university and enrich and supplement them where possible. Helping these impulses to gain momentum by finding networking opportunities outside the university and thereby providing additional speed for these impulses.

What plans do you have with the Board of Trustees for the next few years?
We are currently working on forming specialist working groups from among the Board of Trustees to work on specific topics between Board meetings. A first step is a detailed examination of the topic of the school landscape in Upper Franconia, as the entry world for our university. What can we do better here and link school and university with each other? Continuing to work on the topic of business and the university in a circle and to think about and discuss even better networking ideas here as well, and then to adopt them in the Board of Trustees and carry them into the region.