“The certificate is extremely important to us, because it allows us to show the public that we are actively striving to be a family-friendly university,” says Prof. Dr. Irmgard Förster, Vice Rector for Equal Opportunity and Diversity. “As a University of Excellence, we consider the compatibility of family and career to be relevant to our strategy, because we want to offer the brightest minds the best possible conditions, whether they’re coming here to work or to study. The work we’ve put in consistently over the past few years has already enjoyed a lot of success in this regard.”
For Xenia Lehr, Head of the Office of Family Services, the permanent award marks an important step toward becoming a family-friendly university: “We view the accolade as a further milestone along the journey we embarked on many years ago. Receiving the lifelong certificate gives us the boost we need to drive this trend forward. The high demand we’re seeing for advice and support shows that this kind of compatibility is really relevant these days.”
It was back in 2011 that the University of Bonn was first presented with the certificate, which up until now has been valid for three years at a time. Its successful completion of the dialogue process has now been crowned with the awarding of the permanent certificate. One of the most prominent new developments during this period has been the creation of the Office of Family Services, which is the first port of call for over 6,000 staff and some 35,000 students and which fields questions about childcare, parental leave and caring for family members. However, there are also some less obvious measures that are important elements en route to becoming a family-friendly university, such as giving staff flexibility over their working hours and location, providing childcare in emergencies and during vacations, and setting up a discussion group with professional support for people with responsibility for caring for family members.
Press contact:
Xenia Lehr
Head of the Office of Family Services
+49 228 73-6565
xlehr@uni-bonn.de
Prof. Dr. Irmgard Förster
Vice Rector for Equal Opportunity and Diversity
+49 228 73-68758
prorektorin.foerster@uni-bonn.de