On 5 December, the FernUniversität in Hagen’s electoral assembly elected Prof. Dr Stefan Stürmer as the new Rector.
Prof Stürmer will take over the management of Germany’s only state distance learning university for the next six years. The social psychologist, who is currently Vice-Rector for Teaching and Learning at the FernUniversität, will succeed Prof Dr Ada Pellert, who moved to the University of Klagenfurt on 1 December.
Half of the University Election Assembly is made up of members of the Senate and the other half consists of members of the University Council. It elected Prof Stürmer with a clear majority in the first ballot. Following the successful election, Stürmer still has to be appointed by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.
The appointment of the new Rector was spearheaded by a search committee. This committee had submitted an election proposal and nominated Prof Dr Jutta Emes (Bauhaus-Universität Weimar in first place and Prof Dr Stefan Stürmer in second place. As stipulated in the North Rhine-Westphalian Higher Education Act, the first vote was held for the candidate nominated in first place. After she failed to achieve the required majority in three ballots, a vote was held for Prof Stürmer.
Prof Dr Stefan Stürmer has been Professor of Social Psychology at what is now the Faculty of Psychology at the FernUniversität since 2007. From 2018 to 2021, he was the founding dean of the Faculty of Psychology, previously long-serving managing director of the Institute of Psychology and from 2016 to 2018 deputy chairman of the FernUniversität Senate. He has been Vice-Rector for Teaching and Learning at the FernUniversität since 2 March 2022 and Vice-Rector since 1 December 2024.
Before his time in Hagen, he was Junior Professor of Applied Social Psychology at Kiel University. He completed his doctorate there in 2000 after studying psychology at the universities of Leipzig and Münster.
Text adapted from a German report available here.
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