On 13 July 2022, the Senate of the University of Applied Sciences elected three vice-rectors for a period of four years.
(Photo, from left to right: Prof. Dr. Susanne Borkowski, Prof. Dr. Volker Wiedemer, Prof. Dr. Kerstin Baumgarten)
The new team, led by Rector Prof. Dr. Manuela Schwartz, will begin their joint work on 1 September 2022.
Prof. Dr. Kerstin Baumgarten will be responsible for the Prorectorate for Research, Development and Transfer. The Professor of Health Sciences was re-elected after her first term.
Prof. Dr. Volker Wiedemer was also confirmed in office. The Professor of Economics is once again responsible for university management and marketing as well as for the Stendal location as Prorector.
New to the team is Prof. Dr Susanne Borkowski. As Professor of Child Development and Health, she takes over the Vice-Rector's Office for Studies, Teaching and International Affairs and succeeds Prof. Dr. Yongjian Ding, who is no longer available for another term.
Together with the Rector and Chancellor, Dr Antje Hoffmann (in office since 2017), the Prorectors will set new priorities in university administration for the next four years: Digitisation, sustainability in teaching and research, expansion of knowledge and research transfer, international projects, offensive university communication as well as support and expansion of student life on both campuses, in Magdeburg and Stendal.
Vice-Rector for Studies, Teaching and International Affairs
Prof. Dr. Susanne Borkowski
Prof. Dr. Susanne Borkowski obtained her first degree at the University of Applied Sciences in Stendal, received her doctorate in medical sociology in 2019 and has been working at the University since 2018. She has held the professorship for child development and health since 2020. Her research projects include health and participation, youth in rural areas, and child health and Corona. As a member of the Commission for Studies and Teaching and as Vice Dean Studies and Teaching, she is already very familiar with the subject matter of her new task. Borkowski not only wants to build on the good work of her predecessor and work with the committees that are appropriate for the subject, but formulates her goals as follows:
- To ensure the utilisation of the degree programmes: to work out the attractiveness of the degree programmes (unique selling propositions) and make them more visible (especially for innovative, but less popular degree programmes).
- Internationalisation: link up with current activities to develop English-language degree programmes and modules.
- Ensure and further develop high quality of study and teaching with regard to current and future requirements
- Implementation of the quality charter within the framework of system accreditation
- Further develop university didactic offers for teachers in a target group-oriented manner - to this end, close cooperation with the Centre for University Didactics and Applied University Research and the projects currently running at the university (h2h2, ZAKKI, eSALSA)
- Use the possibilities of digitalisation for innovative teaching and learning opportunities and thus also enable individual and flexible study.
- Continue to work on the current development of the profiling strategy in the area of continuing education and accompany its implementation in practice.
Vice-Rector for Research, Development and Transfer
Prof. Dr. Kerstin Baumgarten
Prof. Dr. Kerstin Baumgarten has been teaching and researching at the University of Applied Sciences in Magdeburg since 1993. Since 2014, she has held the professorship for Health Sciences (focus on methods of health promotion) in the Department of Social Work, Health and Media and has acted as prorector since 2018. Baumgarten has also been the spokesperson for the Faculty Council for Health Sciences since 2016. Baumgarten, who holds a doctorate in sports science, has led several research projects, such as "Education, Health and Technology Competence in Old Age" and "Healthy Aging with Impact". During her first four years at the HSL, she was instrumental in coordinating the establishment of interdisciplinary doctoral centres. Objectives for her second term:
- Continue and further develop internal research support structures developed during her first term (e.g. project and application service).
- Implement and further develop the research information system
- Implement the university's open access policy (open access publications and research data management)
- Expansion of the doctoral centres
- Against the background of regional structural change - further expansion of the university's Third Mission - transfer of knowledge to the regional economy and society.
Vice-Rector for Higher Education Management and Marketing and for the Stendal location
Prof. Dr Volker Wiedemer
The professor of economics came to the university in 2013 and teaches in the Department of Economics, and has also been the prorector since 2018. He conducts research in the fields of regional economics, market analyses, socio-economic impact analyses and regional online marketplaces. His expertise is in demand in a variety of ways, including in committees such as the Stendal Child Protection Association, of which he is a board member, and in the International Symposium on Economics. Over the next four years, Wiedemer wants to:
- Further strengthen and expand the cooperation of Stendal as a university location with the Altmark region (as most recently with the introduction of a new advisory board structure).
- Further increase the visibility and accessibility of Stendal as a university location (as most recently with the graffiti project and the Stendal Hochschule railway stop and semester ticket).
- Strengthen university communication activities for the entire university, especially in the direction of student marketing and international marketing; and
- Implement university management with a view to maintaining the size and diversity of the subject culture (especially to be considered in the formulation of the upcoming university development plan and the university structural reform).