University Council

The University Council supports the university, assumes responsibility for strategic matters, decides on structural and development planning, and proposes measures to enhance the university's profile and improve its performance and competitiveness. It supervises the management of the rectorate.

Prof. Dr. Cornelia Gräsel was born in Munich in 1966. In 1985, she began a master's degree in education (major), psychology and art history (minors) at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. While working on her doctorate in the same subjects, she became a research assistant to Prof. Dr. Heinz Mandl at the Institute for Empirical Education and Educational Psychology at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in 1991. She completed her doctorate in 1997 (summa cum laude); the title of her thesis was ‘Problem-based learning. Strategy application and design options’. For this work, she received a doctoral award from the Munich University Society. She remained at the LMU Munich as a research assistant and completed her habilitation there in 2001 with a thesis on ‘ecological competence’ (venia legendi for pedagogy and educational psychology). In 2001, she became scientific director at the Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics Education (IPN) in Kiel, where she was deputy head of the ‘Didactics of Chemistry’ department. In October 2001, she accepted a professorship in educational science at Saarland University. Since 2004, Cornelia Gräsel has been a university professor at the University of Wuppertal. From 2010 to 2014, she was the founding chair of the Institute for Educational Research in the School of Education. From 2014 to 2022, she was the prorector for international and diversity affairs at the University of Wuppertal.

Cornelia Gräsel was involved in the founding of the Journal for Educational Research Online as managing editor and has been an editor of the journal Unterrichtswissenschaft for 20 years, at times as managing editor. She was and is a member of numerous advisory boards and commissions, including the expert commission for the further development of teacher training in Baden-Württemberg, the scientific commission of Lower Saxony and the board of trustees of the DIPF Leibniz Institute for Educational Research and Educational Information. She was deputy chair of the selection committee of the ‘Quality Initiative for Teacher Training’. In 2021, she was elected president of the Society for Empirical Educational Research (GEBF).

Dr. Urs Arnold has been COO of Leu Numismatik AG, one of the leading auction houses for ancient coins, since August 2023. As COO, he is responsible for all operational matters – finance, controlling, human resources, legal, IT and customer service. From 2010 to 2023, he worked as COO and secretary of the board of trustees for the Jacobs Foundation. Among other things, he established the Jacobs Network for the foundation, which brings together all of the foundation's scholarship holders, and was responsible for the funding of the private Jacobs University in Bremen, which the Jacobs Foundation supported from 2006 to 2020. In doing so, the foundation was able to demonstrate that private engagement can also make a difference in teaching and research. Dr Arnold has many years of experience in business, politics and society, particularly in the field of education and youth-related activities. Before joining the Jacobs Foundation, Dr Arnold was head of issue and reputation management at Vodafone Germany and worked as a political consultant for international corporations in Germany and abroad.

Urs Arnold studied in Switzerland, the United States, and Hong Kong and graduated from the University of St. Gallen (HSG) with a doctorate in political science. He was, among other things, a member of German government's expert group on innovation dialogue, chairman of the working group of COOs of European foundations, and chairman of the Federal Association of German Press Officers.

Uwe H. Bittlingmayer was born in Minden, Westphalia, in 1970. He studied sociology, philosophy and political science at the University of Münster and graduated with a master's degree with honors, writing his thesis on sustainable lifestyles from an environmental and cultural sociological perspective. He then received a scholarship from the North Rhine-Westphalia State Graduate Funding Program and worked as a research assistant at the Institute for Sociology at the University of Münster, in the Department of Socialization Research and Sociology of Education, under the direction of Matthias Grundmann. In 2004, he completed his doctorate under Rolf Eickelpasch with a ideological critique of the contemporary diagnosis of the knowledge society. In 2005, Bittlingmayer moved to Klaus Hurrelmann at the Faculty of Health Sciences, Prevention and Health Promotion Research Group at the University of Bielefeld, and worked until 2008 in various third-party funded projects at the interface of the sociology of education, inequality and health. Since the winter semester of 2008–09, he has been at the Institute of Sociology at the University of Education Freiburg, where he took up a professorship in general sociology with a focus on the sociology of education. Before becoming a member of the University Council, he was Dean of the Faculty of Education from 2013 to 2021. His current research interests are empirical research in education, inequality and health; critical theory, social theory and contemporary diagnosis, democracy and human rights education, as well as  sociology of Afghanistan. Contact: uwe.bittlingmayer(at)ph-freiburg.de.

Dr. Verena Bodenbender was born in Aalen in 1976. After a stay in the USA, where she studied English and Sociology, she began her master's degree in 1996 at the Eberhard-Karls University of Tübingen, majoring in Romance Studies and Political Science. She completed her studies at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques in Paris in 1998/99 with the Diplôme de Sciences Politiques et Sociales, and in 2003 she received her Magister in Political Science, Public Law and Romance Studies from the University of Tübingen.

From 2003 to 2013, she worked as a coordinator for the German-French degree program between the UHA Mulhouse and the University of Education Freiburg. From 2010 until completing her doctorate in 2013, she was a scholarship holder of the Brigitte Schlieben-Lange Program.

Dr. Bodenbender has been head of the International Office at the University of Education Freiburg since 2015.

Hansjörg Droll was born in Offenburg in 1968. After studying at the University of Education Freiburg, the University of Vienna, and completing the 2nd state examination for teaching at primary and lower secondary schools, he worked as a teacher for several years. He completed a postgraduate degree in education while working, and went on to become a seconded teacher at the University of Education Freiburg. From 2004 to 2007 he was an academic associate at the University of Education Karlsruhe, and since 2007 he has been at the Institute for German Language and Literature at the University of Education Freiburg.

Anne Hegemann was born in Witten in 1980. After studying business administration at the Ruhr University in Bochum, she began her professional career as a research assistant and lecturer at the Institute of German Studies at the Ruhr University Bochum. This was followed by professional positions in human resources in Essen, Angers, Madrid and Stuttgart from 2008 to 2012. Before joining FREIBADEN Transformation Consulting GmbH in Freiburg as managing director in January 2024, she worked as head of personnel and organizational development and head of talent management and HR transformation at badenova AG & Co.KG. Prior to that, Ms. Anne Hegemann was head of HR Learning & Development and head of Organizational and People Development at SICK AG in Waldkirch.

CEO of the Schwarzwaldmilch Group

Andreas Schneider was born in Olpe in 1963. After graduating from the University of Cologne with a degree in Business Administration, he started his professional career in the food industry and now looks back on over 30 years of professional experience in this sector. He has held key management positions as director and managing director at well-known national and international branded companies in the brewing, confectionery, spirits and dairy industries.

Before joining the Schwarzwaldmilch Group as CEO/sole managing director in October 2013, he worked as a management consultant for companies with a focus on medium-sized industry and the international bottling industry. Before that, Mr. Schneider was CSO/Managing Director of Hochwald Nahrungsmittel-Werke GmbH and in this role also sole Managing Director of the subsidiary Allgäuer Alpenmilch GmbH, as well as Managing Director of Wurstkonserven Hochwald Meppen GmbH and the French and Dutch subsidiaries.

Mr. Schneider is involved in the executive committee of the IHK Südlicher Oberrhein, in the committees of the Milch-Industrieverband, the BLHV, the BWGV and the wvib in Freiburg.

Silke Stoll was born in Löbau, Saxony in 1971. After training as a library assistant, she studied biology in Potsdam, Jena, and Rio Cuarto (Argentina), specializing in special zoology, microbiology, ecology and anthropology. She completed her doctoral studies, with a minor in philosophy, in Münster, where she received her doctorate at the Institute for Neuro- and Behavioral Biology in cooperation with the Department of Medicine, Clinic and Polyclinic for Ophthalmology. After her traineeship at the Reutlingen Natural History Museum, she worked for almost 10 years as a curator at the Aquazoo Löbbecke Museum in Düsseldorf. There she was responsible for the exhibitions, scientific collections, archives, and library. In 2017, she was elected by the municipal council of Freiburg i. Br. as the new director of the Museum of Nature and Man. The special challenge of this museum is to present socially relevant natural history and ethnological topics in a diverse and interesting way, while also taking into account the limited space available.
Silke Stoll has been an active member of the German Museums Association since 2008, spokesperson for the Natural Science Museums special interest group within the German Museums Association since 2014, and co-editor of the group's journal “Natur im Museum”.

Carla Dettling was born in Ludwigsburg in 2000. Since October 2021, she has been studying mathematics and political science for secondary education at the University of Education Freiburg. During her secondary education, she completed a six-month school internship in Limerick, Ireland. In addition to her studies, she is involved in university politics and works as a student assistant at the Central Student Advisory Service and at the Institute of Political Science.

Dr. Georg Matthias Schneider, Senior Lecturer

Prof. Dr. Hans-Georg Kotthoff, Rector
Prof. Dr. Katja Zaki, Prorector for Teaching, Learning and Quality Development
Dr. Timo Leuders, Prorector for Research and Academic Career Development
Prof. Dr. Franziska Birke, Prorektor for Transfer, Continuing Education and Digitalization
Hendrik Büggeln, Chancellor
Prof. Dr. Jennifer Stemmann, Equal Opportunity Officer