University of Applied Sciences Potsdam – A Place for Families
The University of Applied Sciences Potsdam sees itself as a family-conscious and family-friendly university that is committed to achieving a sustainable balance between working, teaching, researching, studying and family life through a successful reconciliation of interests.
The FAMteam: Contact, initial counselling and placement office for university members
We provide you with orientation on existing counselling and support services for reconciling studies, work and family. We advise studying and working parents, pregnant students and employees, expectant fathers and caring relatives. Our services are also aimed at people with children who are interested in studying as well as students and employees in family planning.
The FAMteam includes Diana Zill as head and central family representative, her deputy Sandra Cartes (equal opportunities commissioner), the student assistant Augusta Dienelt and Prof.in Dr. Karin Borck for the professional support of the competence and quality development "Family-friendly university".
Decentralised family affairs commissioners are active in each department to support the FAMteam:
- Social and Educational Sciences: Henriette Sonntag and her deputy Prof.in Dr.in Annette Dreier
- CITY | BUILDING | CULTURE: Prof.in. Dr.in Sabine Cousin
- Civil Engineering: Ulrike Wygasch-Otte
- Design: Prof. Boris Müller and his deputy Prof.in Wiebke Löper
- Information Sciences: Anna-Martina Lentz
- Further Education Unit: Beatrice Jurth
- Student decentralised family representative: Augusta Dienelt
The two educators Theresa Scheinemann and Karolina Plate accompany the families in the parent-child group, which has been offered in the family room in cooperation with Kinderwelt gGmbH since April 2022. In addition, Karolina in charge of flexible childcare in the FAMteam.
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Apply now for the Graduation Scholarship for Female Students with Family Responsibilities in the Summer Semester 2025
The University of Applied Sciences Potsdam is supporting female students with family responsibilities in the final phase of their studies and is once again awarding up to five scholarships for the summer semester 2025.
Retrospective
FHP Children Compose Their Own Songs: Successful Autumn Holiday Workshop by the FAMteam
The FAMteam offers a holiday workshop twice a year to bridge the lecture period for students and to relieve employees of the stress of looking after their children during the holidays. This is aimed at FHP children between the ages of 6 and 12 and has been free of charge since 2022. Here, children…
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Two Free Childcare Places in Day Care from April 2024
Andrea Britz and Steffi Parlitz look after up to 10 children in the private childcare centre in House 5 on the campus of the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam. This is the right place for families who want their child(ren) to be looked after in a small group, want direct contact with the carer…
Press release
International Girls' Day at the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam
Wednesday, the 11th of October, is International World Girls' Day. As a global day of action, it gives girls a voice and makes their needs visible. World Girls' Day has existed since 2011 and calls for an international commitment to the rights of girls and young women. The University of Applied…
Dates
More events"Hidden Lives": Studying with Care Responsibilities
Principles & mission statement as a family-conscious and family-friendly university
"With the expanded concept of family, we no longer speak only of the classic mother-father-child triad in the area of family support, but include all persons who take on long-term responsibility for other people in their private lives. This means that family support cannot continue to be limited to measures to support parents with children, but must also consider the needs of caring relatives, the activation of fathers beyond the "women's part-time model" or other persons with family responsibilities. The extent to which universities should provide services for all of these cases will certainly have to be discussed. What is undisputed, however, is the necessity of addressing this question in order to achieve a clear description of the university's tasks and roles."
(Statement of the Centre for Higher Education (CHE) for the Committee on Innovation, Science, Research and Technology and the Committee on Family, Children and Youth on the motion of the CDU parliamentary group – printed matter 15/675)
Charter FAMILY IN UNIVERSITY
Since 2008, the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam has been a member of the FAMILY IN UNIVERSITY association, a network of now 134 universities and one student union that have signed the FAMILY IN UNIVERSITY charter in recent years.
By signing the charter on 24/06/2014, the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam is pursuing the goals:
- Making work and study opportunities more flexible in order to meet the demands of family responsibilities.
- Establish family friendliness as an essential management task and part of the organisational culture.
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In the course of this, a central family officer and decentralised departmental family officers have been appointed and family-friendly times, spaces and structures are considered in all decisions.
Family affairs commissioner of the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam
Equal opportunities concept of the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam
The overall concept of measures to reconcile family and career is embedded in the equal opportunities statutes of the University of Applied Sciences.
Current research findings state that, in addition to many other social, socialisation-related, gender stereotyping and promoting mechanisms, a central cause for the underrepresentation of female academics can be found in the fact that women are still more heavily burdened by family obligations than their male colleagues, especially due to the coincidence of starting a family and beginning a career. Thus, in its equal opportunities concept under point E, University of Applied Sciences Potsdam has set measures for the compatibility of family and career with the main focus on the expansion of the family-friendly university, which maps the framework concept of University of Applied Sciences Potsdam for the compatibility of study/profession/teaching/research and family.
Equal Opportunities Statutes of the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam
Quality standards for equal opportunities and family orientation at Brandenburg universities
The universities in the state of Brandenburg have set standards with their "Quality standards for equal opportunities for women and men at Brandenburg universities" from 2010. In their further development, the present "Quality standards for equal opportunities and family orientation" take into account current social developments and the increasing importance and appreciation of diversity. They are based on the research-oriented equality standards of the German Research Foundation (DFG) as well as on the charter "Family in University" charter signed by all eight Brandenburg universities, which includes all the diverse forms of family lived in our society. In this way, they also contribute to the implementation of the equality policy framework for the state of Brandenburg and the Brandenburg state government's mission statement "Equal opportunities for women and men".
The update of the equality standards was signed by Dr Martina Münch (minister for science, research and culture) and Prof. Dr Burghilde Wieneke-Toutaoui (chair of the Brandenburg state rectors' conference) on 10 July 2017.
Equal opportunities for women and men in the state of Brandenburg
Family and university in the state of Brandenburg
In the network "Family and University in the State of Brandenburg", the family officers and employees of the family service offices of all eight Brandenburg universities are in regular dialogue. The network meetings serve to exchange experiences, discuss current family policy issues and organise joint training sessions.
Contact
Counselling at the Family Office takes place on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9.30 am - 1:30 pm without prior appointment.
For counselling enquiries outside office hours, please write briefly to famteam@fh-potsdam.de stating what your concern is and how we can best reach you. To make counselling sessions as personal as possible, we also conduct video counselling sessions via Zoom or Microsoft Teams.
Family representative of the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam
Professional support of the competence and quality development "Family-friendly university".
Linking function to the Social and Educational Sciences Department and to the university management
