The tasks and roles of professors are diverse. In addition to excellent research and good teaching, they are involved in university committees, manage staff, support students and doctoral candidates in qualification work and represent their subject or the university at national and international specialist conferences, etc. In addition, there are tasks from private life that can be challenging for professors alongside the demands of their professional role. 

Questions that many people ask themselves here are: How can I manage a balanced change between the individual role requirements? How can I pursue my own academic goals while at the same time being a good supervisor or manager? But also: How can I reconcile an exciting and challenging professional life with a good private or family life? And how can I manage all of this without constantly being ‘on the limit’? 

Although these challenges can be seen on an individual level, they are also a collective phenomenon; it is therefore a good idea to discuss these issues in a protected exchange with colleagues and to learn from each other. In a moderated exchange format of collegial counselling, innovative solutions for questions and problems of the .

Content and goals

• Working on ‘cases’: Participants bring in their topics and specific questions and develop innovative solutions together using various case and counselling methods
• New perspectives are developed through dialogue with professorial colleagues and input from the moderator
• Participants are relieved by the experience that colleagues often have similar problems and can thus learn from each other
• They learn about different methods of case work and counselling
• Ultimately, the participants connect across departmental boundaries

Methods:

Methods of collegial case and counselling work; the focus is on the ‘cases’ brought in by the participants (in the sense of problems, questions, topics); these are supplemented with creative thinking and writing methods.

Important notes:

The central principles of working together in the group are absolute confidentiality and commitment.

The group is designed for four to a maximum of seven people. New additions to an existing group are agreed with the group in advance.

Moderator:

Dr Sabine Brendel