Congratulations on your service anniversary! Hof University of Applied Sciences says thank you!
Prof. Dr. Beatrix Weber and Prof. Dr. Jens Beck, two long-standing members of the university, were personally honored for their 25 years of public service by our President Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Jürgen Lehmann personally.
Prof. Dr. Beatrix Weber, MLE – 25 years of research and teaching between law and IT
Prof. Weber looks back: ” 25 years of service, 16 of them at Hof University of Applied Sciences. That’s a long time. When I think back to the first days and weeks, I remember feeling impatient. Everything went so slowly. Degree programs had to be set up, applied for and planned months, if not a year or two in advance. If someone said it had to be done quickly, I thought: “Okay, tomorrow.” But they meant in two to four weeks. So I came from industry, was used to a fast pace and ended up at Hof University of Applied Sciences more or less by chance after spending time abroad and looking at career development from all angles. The middle ground between Berlin and Munich seemed good to me, as did the fact that a very specialized position was advertised for “Intellectual Property and IT”. These were exactly my areas. In my trial lecture, I showed well-designed slides on global trademark protection and the strategies for this, and I had marked the §§ on the last slide with a note that the students should then read through them again. I don’t think I would have hired me!
Why did I stay? The freedom to design two Master’s degree courses in the faculty (Master’s in Human Resources and Work) and in continuing education (Compliance, IT and Data Protection) and to head one of them, to set up a research group (Law in Sustainability, Compliance and IT), to maintain it for years and to conduct research together with universities of excellence in large collaborative projects is almost unique, even at a university of applied sciences. What remains for the interim balance sheet: four books written, many articles and papers, countless lectures designed and held, and research carried out in over 20 research projects in recent years. Experienced, accompanied and sometimes suffered with great employees, two doctoral students and many students. Hof University of Applied Sciences is a living university, always ready to change, to reach new shores, to become even more international, digital and sustainable. This is where I feel comfortable, have fun, work (sometimes too much) and find excellent conditions for research and teaching.”
Prof. Dr. Jens Beck – Industrial practice meets university teaching
After training as an industrial mechanic, Jens Beck studied mechanical engineering at Osnabrück University of Applied Sciences and Newcastle University. He then completed his doctorate at the University of Stuttgart as a research assistant in the field of energy process engineering. In the following 15 years of industrial activity in power plant construction and energy plant technology, Mr. Beck held various management positions in the areas of design and construction, service and maintenance as well as project management.
Since March 2017, Jens Beck has represented the teaching areas of “Thermodynamics and Fluid Mechanics”, “Heat and Mass Transfer” and “Fluid Machinery”. Not least due to his previous work in industrial practice, he is particularly interested in the practical relevance of the teaching content and the interlinking of university teaching and applied engineering work. As a dual representative of the Faculty of Engineering, he devotes himself to precisely this subject area in addition to his lectures in order to further expand cooperation with companies in the region, vocational schools and the university.
I finally have the opportunity to teach graduates what I have often missed in the industry with young engineers.”
Prof. Dr. Jens Beck
In addition to an analytical approach, this requires a certain perseverance and, above all, the ability to document and prepare complex content in a structured and comprehensible way. As a university of applied sciences with extensive workshops and very good contacts to regional industry, Hof University of Applied Sciences in particular offers ideal conditions for this.
