How long have you been working together, and how did it all begin?
Rea Kodalle: It all started with a few casual yet productive conversations. We’d met at training sessions and realized we had many things in common. That must have been around 2016. At that time, the scope of staff council responsibilities in Lower Saxony had just been changed to include academic employees. In Bremen, this had already been the case for some time, so we immediately had a topic to discuss: the Academic Fixed-Term Contract Act.
That’s probably still a concern for you today, isn’t it?
Sibylle Seyferth: Yes, the issue of fixed-term contracts in the academic mid-level sector remains a pressing concern for us, but we’re staying on top of it. However, we exchange information about much more than that, and we support one another in many ways. Currently, we’re working on setting up the planned Northwest Alliance Office, which will coordinate the activities of our university partnership.
Kodalle: This is uncharted territory for us – that our universities operate an office together. Our role is to represent the interests of applicants and of our established colleagues during the hiring and onboarding process.
Eike Mayland-Quellhorst: We’re well prepared for this new challenge. Over the past two years, we’ve already jointly hired researchers for our graduate schools. This serves as a good blueprint for what’s ahead with the Northwest Alliance. Still, it wasn’t easy to establish a fair hiring process that protects applicants’ and staff members’ interests as well as traditional hiring processes at just one university. Oldenburg and Bremen are in different federal states, so we operate under different legal frameworks. That affects us as staff councils and in our hiring procedures.
What does that mean?
Mayland-Quellhorst: The laws governing employee representation in Lower Saxony and Bremen differ, sometimes significantly. For example, the staff council in Bremen has more say in the hiring process than we do in Lower Saxony, where we’re simply notified of job postings. We first had to clarify how staff council involvement should work here, and we’ve since succeeded in doing that.
Are there other issues besides hiring processes that you’re tackling together?
Seyferth: Strengthening democracy is a major priority for us right now. Standing up against attacks from the far right also means keeping democratic values alive within the university. As a staff council, we’re represented on various committees, including the Academic Senate, and we need to keep making employees’ voices heard in these forums.
Kodalle: As staff council members, we advocate for fair employment conditions. For example, we make sure new employees are classified fairly based on their prior knowledge and experience, and we hold firm on the issue of reclassification to higher pay grades. To do this, we exchange practical experiences intensively with one another, focusing mainly on spotting potential pitfalls. This approach works because we trust each other. During the Excellence Review, we saw firsthand just how valuable this kind of cooperation really is.
Are you referring to the joint application by the two universities in the current Excellence Strategy of the German federal and state governments? In April, the German Science and Humanities Council conducted an on-site review at the Bremen campus. What was your role in that process?
Mayland-Quellhorst: As staff council members, we naturally paid close attention to one topic area we’d helped shape: DEIB, which stands for diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. It was important to us that our voice be heard in this area, so we asked to be involved.
Kodalle: In the end, we were fully involved. That was great, of course, but it also took a lot of time and energy. Sibylle and I took the lead on this, and in the end, the effort paid off. We were well prepared for the pressure of the moment and managed to raise the points that mattered most.
What points did you want to convey to the evaluators?
Kodalle: That diversity isn’t an end in itself, but fundamental for a university positioning itself for the future. As staff council members, we’re directly involved in many processes across the university, including central committees like the Academic Senate. Time and again, we see that DEIB, as well as active co-determination, isn’t just a nice gesture. It demonstrably strengthens our universities.
How did you experience the big day?
Seyferth: I found the evaluators approachable and open-minded. They genuinely wanted to understand the experiences of the different stakeholders and groups within the Northwest Alliance.
Kodalle: We worked well together as a team. All I had to do was pass Sibylle a note with a single keyword, and she knew exactly what I meant. Going through the Excellence Strategy process together definitely strengthened our working relationship.
That said, some colleagues also criticized how time-consuming the excellence activities were. How did you handle that, given that you’re supposed to represent the employees’ interests but were also part of the initiatives being criticized?
Seyferth: First, we listened to our colleagues’ concerns and took them seriously. We addressed some of these concerns by reassuring everyone that we, as staff council members, will keep monitoring the situation and asserting our legally guaranteed rights to information and co-determination.
Mayland-Quellhorst: It also raises practical questions, like: “Will I need to travel to Bremen more often now that we’re working closely together? Does that count as a business trip that requires prior approval?” And: “Can I eat at the university dining hall at the employee rate, or will I be treated as a visitor?” There’s still quite a bit to sort out, and we’ll keep working together to address these issues.