During the general meeting, the board and members of the Society of Friends and Supporters of Hof University e.V. looked back on a successful and eventful year 2019 as well as on a special year 2020. A total of about 79,000.00 € in funding was made available for a wide variety of projects in 2019. The board was confirmed in office for another three years.
Already for over 25 years the society of the friends and sponsors of the university yard registered association sees it as its task to promote the university yard as research and teaching institution and to support this in its tasks. As part of its activities, therefore, in 2019 again numerous projects, events and other topics at and for the university were promoted by the association.
Corona as the greatest challenge for the university
In his report on the development of Hof University of Applied Sciences, Professor Lehmann, the re-elected president, reported primarily on the challenges associated with the Corona pandemic. While the summer semester 2020 was mainly held in an online format, the recently started winter semester now also includes some face-to-face courses again, albeit under strict hygiene regulations. The summary of the university management, the teachers and the learners after this digital semester is clear: The desire for face-to-face courses is great, because while knowledge can be imparted online, the promotion of competencies has a clear disadvantage in this format. At the same time, there are also positive things to report from the university’s side: planning for the 4th faculty in Kronach has progressed significantly, there are a number of additional study programs, e.g., automotive and design in Selb in cooperation with the local technical college for product design, as well as very good developments in the area of continuing education programs for working professionals. The planned Center for Digital Administration is to be unique in Germany and will, among other things, bring about an additional expansion of the range of courses on offer.
Establishment of a permanent exhibition at the university on the digital award
A positive assessment of the development of the sponsoring society in 2019 as well as the first half of 2020 was drawn by the chairman of the board Dr. Dorothee Strunz and treasurer Ute Coenen. Thus one participated with the Alumni and friends -Lounge in 2019 in the celebration weekend on the occasion of the 25 – year anniversary of the university Hof. The award of the society “Digitaler Aufbruch der Lehre”, endowed with 20.000,00 €, was offered again. At a ceremony in November 2020 at Rausch & Pausch GmbH in Selb, Prof. Arian Hedayati was honored for her “2-in-1 concept: multimedia lab and digital media course”. In order to make the award and its annual winners visible at the university, a touch screen was installed in July 2020 that provides information about the sponsoring company, the award and the winners. Likewise, the portraits of all winners will be displayed here on a long-term basis.
University magazine Campuls now digital
Another step towards digitalization was taken together with the university by digitalizing the university magazine Campuls. From now on, this will no longer be produced in print, but will be published exclusively on a website and published as a newsletter
In addition to supporting the university’s digitization efforts, the main reason for this step was the ability to communicate content flexibly and features such as linking video sequences or social media links.
In addition to these sponsorship projects, the membership fees and donations received, totaling €66,550.85, were used to support a wide variety of other projects and events:
- Prizes for two graduates of Hof University of Applied Sciences
- Support of the digital start-up center
- Provision of scholarships and support for foreign students
- Support of the project “MobiDig
- Support of the new experimental plant for aquaponics of the Institute for Water and Energy Management of the Hof University of Applied Sciences (iwe) from the annual generous donation of the Volks- and Raiffeisenbanken
- Support of the Bio-Polymer Institute
- Extension of the university license “Citavi
Following the activity reports, the auditors’ report was read out by Bernd Schnabel. Both the board and the auditors were unanimously discharged by the members present.
Unanimous re-election
In accordance with the statutes, the board of the association was also newly elected in 2020. The previous board of the association as well as the auditors stood for election. There were no opposing candidates. The board and the auditors were re-elected unanimously. Following the general meeting, another board meeting took place, in which the board confirmed the board positions. Dr. Dorothee Strunz will continue to lead the Fördergesellschaft as chairwoman of the board.
Professor Dr. Thoms Meuche also presented to those present the “Beruf plus Studium” (“Career plus Studies”) program at Hof University of Applied Sciences, which was launched in 2019. Within the framework of this, a wide variety of in-service training courses are offered, which focus on knowledge of data, processes and IT technologies.
