Dear students, colleagues, alumni, and friends of our Faculty!

By and large, our bachelor’s students here in Frankfurt are satisfied with their study program. A large majority of students think that there is an agreeable degree of diversity in the program, that the content of the courses is coordinated in a reasonable way, and that there is a sufficient amount of mentoring in the introductory phase of the program.

How would I know? Well, I’ve asked around.

Assisted by the SSIX team, we distributed questionnaires in selected, mainly large courses at the end of the last winter term and were able to collect some 880 responses by our students. With some 2400 bachelor’s students enrolled, this amounts to roughly a third of our student body, and the answers should be largely representative.

 There are also areas where we could do better. For example, most students think that it would be good to have more choice in the selection of courses. Failures in exams seem to be a major source for delays in finishing the program.

One of the questions was related to the general layout of the program. If students had to start all over again and could choose between 3-year and 4-year programs, a wide majority would lean towards the shorter program. The detailed results can be found here.

Clearly, there is no reason to play down the discontent that has been expressed in recent student protests. At the same time, the feedback that we receive from the questionnaire is that the bachelor’s programs of our faculty need fine tuning rather than a major overhaul. Many of my personal conversations with students confirm this impression.

Best regards,

Alfons Weichenrieder
Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration

With effect from February 2010, Professor Roland Holten from the Information Systems and Information Economics Department has been the new program director of the Management Master (MSM) Program, in which function he succeeds Professor Hans-Joachim Böcking, who had held the position since 2008. As early as 2007, Professor Holten had significantly contributed to the conception of the MSM program in his role as core subject speaker on Information Management. In addition, he has long been a member of the selection committee and can thus draw on important experience.
Professor Holten can start his tenure with the good news that the number of places in the MSM program has been raised from 120 to 135.

A further increase in places in the MSM program is currently under investigation in the context of the development of a new Information Economics master program, which is being prepared in collaboration with Faculty 12 (Informatics and Mathematics), and in which Professor Holten will participate as a representative of the Information Economics department.

The change of the program director goes along with an important change in the applications administration process for winter term 2010/2011. The master program will be the first to follow the new guidelines from the Academic Senate, which stipulate the introduction of a standardized online application procedure for all master programs of the Goethe University within the next two years. The online application system is being administrated by  uni assist e.V., an organization that already has long experience in the field of administration and preliminary examination of foreign applications for German study programs. uni  assist e.V. has now extended its service offer by the processing of German and foreign applicants’ master program applications. The process of selection through the selection committee can be made significantly more efficient by dividing the administration of the application materials appropriately.

Professor Holten will be assisted in the development of both the program and the selection for winter semester 2010/2011 by Professor Michael Hommel from the Accounting Department and Professor Holger Kraft from the Finance Department.

I am delighted to introduce myself in this issue of SSIX News. My name is Dr. Esther Schinke. Since February 16, 2010, I have been head of the Student Services Department at the Dean´s Office of the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration. Following my baccalauréat in Marseille (economics with Chinese as a third foreign language), I graduated in history at the universities of Aix-en-Provence and Tübingen. My doctoral thesis is about state supervision and local self-government in the nineteenth century.

I wish to bring to the Faculty my long-standing experience in the management of internationally oriented university programmes (most recently as coordinator of the International Max Planck Research School for Comparative Legal History).

My responsibility will be to make the Faculty even more attractive to students and to improve its standing through the provision of excellent study conditions. My task will include the revision of the admission criteria for the bachelor’s programme from concept to realization – in cooperation with the Deans and central bodies of Goethe University. Furthermore,  I seek to enhance the contact between students and alumni and I wish to stimulate networking with former graduates.

I am very much looking forward to working with the various departments of the Faculty and with our students. Please do not hesitate to address your ideas and suggestions to: eschinke@wiwi.uni-frankfurt.de

This year’s E-Finance Lab Spring Conference was held on Campus Westend on February 23. The conference topic was “The New Financial Markets Infrastructure – Trading and Clearing”. It received very positive feedback by 380 international participants from exchanges, clearing houses, regulators, banks, consultancies, and research institutes. This highlights the current importance of topics concerning securities trading and clearing.

Professor Peter Gomber (Chair of Business Administration, especially e-Finance/ Goethe University Frankfurt), who hosted the conference, outlined the focus areas in his welcoming speech. The first part of the conference focused on securities trading: In the opening speech, Frank Gerstenschläger (member of the Executive Board, Deutsche Börse) discussed issues around fragmented markets and potential problems for transparency. Carl James from Fortis Investments described the institutional investor’s perspective as well as the impact of new technologies on the investor-broker relationship. Benn Steil (Council on Foreign Relations, New York), in his keynote address, compared trading structures in Europe and the US after the crisis. The subsequent panel discussion on competition and regulation constituted a highlight of the conference. Benn Steil as the moderator, Carl James, and further top executives of the industry participated in this panel: Richard Balarkas (President and CEO, Instinet Europe), Robert Barnes (Managing Director, UBS Investment Bank), Marcus Hooper (Executive Director, Pipeline Financial Group), Peter Randall (CEO, Equiduct Systems), and Rainer Riess (Managing Director, Deutsche Börse).

OTC Derivatives Clearing was the key topic of the second part of the conference. Two speeches presented current initiatives for increasing the integrity and transparency of OTC derivatives markets – Tatjana Verrier highlighted these initiatives from the EU Commission’s perspective, and Andreas Schönenberger outlined the European Central Bank’s point of view. The closing panel discussion was moderated by Markus Heer (Managing Director, WM Data Service). Here, representatives of clearing houses (Thomas Book, Member of the Executive Board Eurex Clearing) and banks (Stephen Wolff, Managing Director, Deutsche Bank, as well as Lee McCormack, Vice President Fixed Income, Morgan Stanley) discussed the issues with the Commission and the ECB representatives.

The success of this conference with top-class speakers and very insightful discussions underlines the importance of the EFL conferences as a hub for fruitful interaction between research and the industry.

Contact and further information: Prof. Dr. Peter Gomber (Chair of Business Administration, especially e-Finance).

http://www.efinancelab.de/events/conferences/fruehjahrstagung-2010/

As one of the first German faculties of economics and business our Faculty had subjected itself successfully to the accreditation procedure of AACSB International (Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business), which requires a periodical reaccreditation process every five years. Early April the good news about reaccreditation reached the Dean’s office.

The Peer Review Team, John Seybolt, Michael Lechner and Frank Bostyn, were positive about the high quality of the programs and the ability and strength to reform. The Review Team was also impressed by the research output of the Faculty and recognized the strong links with the local business community.  

The accreditation process includes a detailed self evaluation and a two day visit of an international Peer Review Team. These are instruments to secure continuing high standards of the teaching programs and the organization. The Faculty has to document that the curricula, resources and personnel are adequate to provide for an excellent education and continuing quality improvements.

Currently, there are 579 institutions from 35 countries that AACSB accredited. In Germany, Goethe University is one of only three Universities carrying this seal.

For further information about AACSB, please click here: www.aacsb.edu 

Dear WiWi students, Dear freshmen,

The student representatives at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration would like to take the opportunity to thank all the students who went to vote last term. The voter turnout at our Faculty was significantly above the university average. Even though the latter was not particularly high, it shows that here at the Faculty, we managed to get some students to participate in the election.

The results and seating are to be found – along with a host of other information – on our website at 
http://www.wiwi.uni-frankfurt.de/fachschaft/  

As the new term starts, the representatives will be glad for any freshman and higher semester students to participate in our activities. Find out what you can do with the student representatives on our website. In the events section, we will announce the weekly meetings at the beginning of the term. Why don’t you join?

If you have questions, send us an email at fachscha@wiwi.uni-frankfurt.de. We will help you in all matters pertaining to your studies –student to student. We are happy to share our experience and knowledge. Where we cannot help you with individual advice ourselves, we can certainly direct you to someone who can.

As in previous terms, there will be a Faculty party. Some of you will have been to one already, those who haven´t are invited to join us at the next one. Take a look at our website, where we will inform you about the latest developments.

The student representatives wish you an excellent term start. Thanks to your votes, we will continue to work for you.

Marco Keidel, spokesman of the student representatives, Faculty of Economics and business Administration, Email: fachscha@wiwi.uni-frankfurt.de