Re-elected for a second term“Intensive communication is just as important to me as the participation of faculty members.”

1 September 2025, by Zsuzsa Becker

Photo: SUB

On July 16, 2025, the Faculty Council re-elected Prof. Dr. Silke Segler-Meßner as Dean of the Faculty of Humanities. Her second term of office will begin on March 1, 2026, and will again last five years. In this interview, she talks about her motivation, the challenges ahead, and her goals for the next five years.

Congratulations on your re-election! What motivated you to run for a second term?

In recent years, I have initiated a number of projects that I would like to continue developing and finalizing. In addition, a very lively communication has been established between the dean's office and the departments, characterized by mutual appreciation and trust. I really enjoy promoting and expanding the networking between the dean's office, the departments, and the faculty members themselves. Finally, in times of increasing polarization, it is important to me to promote a culture of openness and inclusion and to encourage critical discussion of socially relevant topics from different perspectives in the humanities.

The faculty is facing major challenges in light of the necessary cost-cutting measures. How will you tackle these?

In view of rising personnel, energy, and cybersecurity costs, our faculty is currently facing the challenge of initiating structural change that will not only enable necessary savings but also explore future potential. The nationwide decline in the number of applicants for university places in the humanities, which has been ongoing for years, is also having an impact on us and requires a critical rethinking of the range of courses on offer and the associated capacities. My goal is to preserve as much as possible the wide range of minor subjects that is a unique feature of our faculty and to initiate necessary reform processes in joint discussions with the departments. Intensive communication is just as important to me as the participation of faculty members.

Are there any specific projects or initiatives you would like to implement during your second term?

Thanks to our outstanding success in attracting third-party funding, our faculty ranked fourth in the DFG's funding ranking last year. In May 2025, our Cluster of Excellence Understanding Written Artefacts received approval from the DFG for the second funding phase – a more than impressive result given the dominance of existing and new applications in the natural sciences and medicine. Together with all members of the dean's office, I would like to promote new research initiatives in my second term, whether as a consortium or as excellent individual research. We will support and accompany researchers who are in the early stages of their careers and are seeking to obtain Heisenberg funding or an Emmy Noether Group. In the area of career planning, we are considering the introduction of staff researcher positions and are committed to ensuring that teachers with a high teaching load can receive a temporary reduction in their weekly semester hours in order to further develop their teaching programs. Finally, in the area of program development, we need to explore in which areas we can improve our offerings and introduce further interdisciplinary programs.

What role does digitalization play in your strategic planning for the faculty?

In my view, it is crucial for the future viability of our faculty to highlight and systematically expand the contribution of the humanities to digitality and AI in teaching and research. The uniqueness of our faculty lies not only in the application of digital tools, but above all in the critical reflection on the ongoing digitalization of all areas of our lives. In our Digital Office Humanities, we are currently bundling all services and facilities that support the development of digital skills in research and teaching. In the future, libraries will play a very important role in the provision and dissemination of digital information, but also in the provision of digital workspaces for students. The DH Lab in the GW Library in the Philturm serves as a catalyst for the systematic networking of researchers, teachers, and students on the topic of AI and other issues. The development of a specific range of courses in the digital humanities will expand the digital skills of students in teacher training and in undergraduate bachelor's and master's programs.

Is there anything else you would like to say to the students and staff of the faculty?

In these times of rising nationalism and crisis, let us hold fast to our culture of open communication and commit ourselves to diversity-sensitive teaching, research, and committee work. Let us stand up for our democratic coexistence and together oppose all forms of racism, sexism, and exclusion.