Senate releases statement on Corona pandemic.

No other event since its foundation has affected our university in its tasks and processes in research, teaching and administration as significantly as the current Corona pandemic. Never before have students, teachers and staff at our university had to adapt so quickly and so comprehensively to changes in the general conditions of university life.  As a university, we have done a lot right in a short time with early communication, decisive action and a great deal of creativity. In particular, the crisis team of the University of Kassel under the leadership of Chancellor Dr. Fromm, the ITS and the Department of Studies and Teaching have done an outstanding job in this phase and are to be mentioned here on behalf of the many employees in the departments, the administration, the technical service and the scientific institutions who have ensured a basic operation of the university. We would like to take this opportunity to express our appreciation and thanks to all of them.

Now it is time to look ahead to the semester that has just begun, which will be challenging in many ways for all members of the University of Kassel. The importance of occupational health and safety for all members of the university will increase. We support this. Personal interaction and thus the usual social exchange will only be possible in a limited and distanced way for the foreseeable future. This has implications for research, teaching and the democratic principles of academic self-governance. Especiallyin a time of crisis like this, when decisions often have to be made under high time pressure, it is imperative to ensure the transparency of decision-making processes and extensive communication to the university public in order to continue to guarantee trust in the management levels, to maintain democratic control functions, and to take the academic community along with us on the way through the crisis. For the committees of the faculty council and the senate, which are open to the public, it is therefore urgent to develop procedures with which publicity and democratic participation can be ensured, taking into account the requirements of infection control law and using low-threshold means. The public cannot remain permanently excluded from the forward-looking issues that are discussed and decided in these bodies.

In research, all those whose work bases and research fields have changed dramatically as a result of the measures taken to combat the Corona pandemic need the support of the university management, the funding agencies and the respective department heads.  Staff members who are employed on a temporary basis for qualification and who, in addition to the restrictions and changed requirements of their daily work, experience additional uncertainty due to the approaching end of their contract term, are particularly affected by the impact of the Corona pandemic. Therefore, we support the efforts of stakeholders at the federal and state level as well as various funding agencies to appropriately extend the contracts of employees with fixed-term contracts under the WissZeitVG, taking into particular account the situation of employees with family responsibilities.  We appeal to the university management to maximize the duration of employment contracts. The same must apply to scholarship holders, who are only supported in their work at the University of Kassel for a limited period of time and whose social security following their scholarship lags significantly behind that of salaried employees. 

In teaching, virtual forms will play a dominant role. In the meantime, suitable tools and methods are available for virtual teaching, and the changeover in teaching as in other university processes, accelerated by the Corona pandemic, is also understood by many as an opportunity to realize the digital transformation of the university, which has been pending for a long time. But we cannot and should not pretend that virtual teaching, given the short time scale of its introduction, is equal in terms of effort, quality, and results to the forms of teaching/learning we have used so far at the University of Kassel. Virtual teaching in the upcoming summer semester has consequences for both teachers and students:

• The effort: virtual lectures, seminars and exercises can only be prepared and followed up with considerable effort, even when using optimal technical conditions. In many cases, the necessary familiarization with the corresponding tools, which often requires a great deal of communication, is required. The path to routine and familiar use of the various digital options involves a great deal of basic technical work, which only makes it possible to plan teaching in terms of didactics and content in a second step. Furthermore, due to the lack of direct feedback on the courses, an additional offer of virtual interaction (e.g., chats or forums) is required in order to obtain feedback, at least indirectly, to respond to the learners, and to secure results. Such additional effort is particularly noticeable for teachers with high-deputy positions and teaching assistants, whose preparation and follow-up times are only insufficiently taken into account. These staff groups urgently need clear assurances about their contractual arrangements in order to ensure that teaching in the departments can continue in a basic mode.
• Quality: The shift to virtual formats, which is now occurring very rapidly, requires both faculty and students to be willing to compromise on the requirements for quality of delivery. For many teachers, virtual teaching is a challenge, both technically and in terms of didactics of higher education, which - despite all efforts and experimentation - will lead to fluctuations in quality. For students, too, virtual teaching formats sometimes mean significant losses in quality, depending on the technical equipment and living situations. Complicating matters further is the fact that many learning spaces, such as the Leo and the library, are currently closed.
• Asa result, the general regulations for Bachelor's and Master's degree programs (AB-Ba/Ma) and the doctoral regulations (AB-PromO) have been updated by the Senate and the Presidential Board to adapt deadlines and examination forms for the time of the Corona pandemic. The responsible examination committees are required to deal with problem cases with goodwill and to grant the appropriate exceptions after individual case examinations. Creativity and a willingness to compromise are also required for final and project work in international contexts where travel restrictions prove problematic for research and survey phases on site.

In addition to the aspects of virtual teaching outlined above, courses that must necessarily be conducted in face-to-face teaching formats also require special planning. This applies not only to courses in the natural sciences and technology, the arts, social pedagogy, and teacher training that involve practical phases, but also to those in which discursive practices must be practiced. For the respective attendance phases, study plans, implementation regulations and requirement profiles must be adapted in times of the Corona pandemic. Where necessary, personal protective equipment must be procured centrally and made available to the areas. The organization of examinations will also not be manageable for the implementing areas without central support due to the strict hygiene and distance standards to be applied. Students, teachers and employees from health risk groups are particularly at risk. For them, there must be alternatives without presence and/or particularly strict hygiene measures. Efforts must be made to ensure that the Hessian Teachers' Academy also adapts examination forms and deadlines to current conditions in the area of state examinations.

The summer semester 2020 is an experiment in the real laboratory of our university. We are confident that the University of Kassel is ready for such an experiment. As the Senate, we will continue to ensure that under these special conditions all members of our university are not overburdened in their respective living, learning and working situations and can successfully shape university togetherness.

Kassel, May 13, 2020

The Senate of the University