Die Austreibung des Geistes aus der Universität

What once made German universities great – the orientation towards a scientific ideal that united research and teaching and whose target was far less based on the conveyance of knowledge than the building up of characters -, is today endangered by several factors. The Bologna Process led to the separation of studies from the process of research, to an education that did not automatically inspire intellectuality. Because of the economization taking place on the universities their self interest calculations have become more meaningful. Professors and students respectively behave in a rationally economic sense when they weigh up the costs and advantages against each other. The common advantage that lies in science as such disappears hereby from view. On the basis of the cultivation of research on the part of the Federal Government the university scene differentiates itself in a way which is not at all in keeping with the Federal tradition in Germany. There is the threat of a disintegration into research and teaching universities, and winner and loser high schools. All this not only undermines the spirit of Humboldt whose academic ideals have shaped German universities. It endangers the realm of intellectuality by introducing paradigm to the universities that are in no way compatible with the responsibility to educate through science.