Politicians like to use the summertime to visit Bavaria’s colleges and universities to find out about current developments. With Verena Osgyan, deputy parliamentary group leader and science and higher education policy spokesperson, and Ursula Sowa, construction policy spokesperson, two high-ranking representatives of the Green Party in the Bavarian State Parliament were now guests at Hof University. They were accompanied by Hof’s mayor Sebastian Auer, city councilor Gudrun Kiehne as well as Ralf Reusch, spokesman of the Green district association Hof
The goal of the discussion with university president Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Jürgen Lehmann as well as representatives of the State Building Authority Bayreuth and the Bavarian Ministry of Science was to inform themselves about future-oriented university building concepts. In particular, they took a look at the construction of the new Center for Water and Energy Management (ZWE), on which the topping-out ceremony was recently celebrated. During the talks, the often very lengthy approval processes and construction procedures were also addressed. During the talks, University President Lehmann repeatedly called for greater powers for the state building authorities in order to speed up the processes in the future.
Denise Bohrisch and Hannes Steinel, two active members of the student council, were also invited to the discussion to provide an insight into the topic of “Studying in Hof”. Both were pleased that after years of the pandemic there were now more offers for students. However, there are still difficulties with bus and train connections within the city and district. Both make it necessary to carpool time and again.
The discussions also focused on best practices with regard to new teaching methods or the intended climate neutrality of Hof University of Applied Sciences. Current problems such as renovation backlogs, financing issues and responsibilities were also discussed.