RUB Alumni - Portraits & Memories
The Ruhr-Universität is proud of its outstanding graduates, but also of academics who have achieved great things in many fields.
Curiosity and perseverance, luck and talent are probably the main ingredients in the recipe for a successful career. Many graduates, as well as researchers who have advanced their careers at the Ruhr-Universität, have achieved outstanding things over the past 60 years.
Greetings, memories and stories
On the occasion of RUB's 60th birthday, alumni have taken a look into the past and sent us anecdotes and memories or just a fond greeting to their alma mater.
Content:
- More than a place of education, Dr. Aladdin Sarhan
- Video Norbert Lammert: Gute Erinnerungen (video in german)
- ROTFRONT!, Gudrun Pluta
- The Glass Pavilion, Wolfgang R. Schütze
- Friends for life, Sandra Hilse
- “Repressive and joy-killing architecture”, Prof. Dr. Jürgen Schlumbohm
- Video Kai Gehring: Eine Prise Nostalgie (video in german)
- From Tübingen to Bochum, Dr. Manfred Marquardt
- Video Svenja Schulze: Über die Architecktur lässt sich diskutieren (video in german)
- What we lacked were books, Dr. Karl-Heinz Best
- How RUB changed my life
More than a place of education
by Dr. Aladdin Sarhan
Dear RUB team,
dear fellow alumni,
for me, Ruhr-Universität Bochum was much more than just a place to study - it was the entry into a new world: culturally, intellectually and biographically. As a young man from the Egyptian Nile Delta, I came to Germany in 1997 with a suitcase full of hopes, enthusiasm for languages and curiosity - driven by the desire to develop not only academically, but also personally.
At RUB, I found an academic home that enabled me to consciously live my hybrid identity: as a bridge between Arabic and German intellectual culture.
What was particularly formative was the experience that my cultural background was not only recognized in academic discourse, but could also become the starting point for critical self-reflection and productive debates. I met lecturers who opened up new perspectives on my origins - and at the same time encouraged me to develop my own views.
At RUB, I learned not to stand between cultures, but to connect them in dialog.
I vividly remember my first lectures in Islamic Studies, intense discussions about Quranic exegesis, political ideologies and historical narratives, many wonderful encounters with students from all corners of the world and countless hours in the library, during which my horizons opened up far beyond the German and Arabic regions.
At RUB, I learned not to stand between cultures, but to connect them in dialog - with scientific precision and social responsibility. This attitude still shapes my thinking today - in research, teaching and professional practice.
RUB was and is more than just a place of education - it is a strong community that welcomes people from abroad with an open heart, accompanies them and enables them to develop their potential. I am still grateful for that today.
60 years of RUB - that means six decades of educational awakening, diversity, debate and intellectual growth. I am very proud to be a part of this history - and I hope that my alma mater will continue to be a place where young people with open questions are welcome and go out with new answers.
With warm regards and great gratitude
Dr. Aladdin Sarhan
Alumnus of Oriental Studies, Islamic Studies and Political Science (graduated in 2006)
ROTFRONT!
by Gudrun Pluta
It was 1969 when I graduated from a sheltered, strict, all-girls convent school in Essen. Today, it's hard to imagine how politically clueless I was when I was released into the world. I was eager to start my humanities degree at the newly opened University of Bochum.
But what on earth was going on at Bochum University?
Leaflets, posters, banners, loud megaphones, rallies, general assemblies, actions, demonstrations, strikes. Lecture halls were occupied, seminars boycotted, professors locked in their rooms - a veritable cauldron. Somehow I hadn't imagined studying like this. I was confused. What was actually going on here?
This was the "Red Ruhr University", they said. And this was the "student revolt"! Yes, and what was actually going on with my fellow students?
Leaflets, posters, banners, loud megaphone shouting, rallies, general assemblies, actions, demonstrations, strikes. Lecture halls were occupied, seminars boycotted, professors locked in their rooms - a veritable cauldron.
They were long-haired figures with shaggy beards, in parkas and baggy corduroy pants, with old canvas shoulder bags. They were the leftists, communards, revolutionaries. "Red Front!" and "Victory in the People's War!" they greeted with raised fists.
I thought they were great! Someone like that as my first friend - that would be exciting!
And so I soon joined them at a rally, in my modest, knee-length pleated skirt from convent school, and when a small group wanted to continue the discussion in Uli's student digs afterwards, I was right there with them!
When we had all taken a seat on the carpet in Uli's room, I looked around furtively and curiously; after all, this was my first contact with a student flat. Everything was a bit run-down, I thought, but at least he had a nice star poster hanging on the wall. To make myself popular, I wanted to praise it properly.
"Nice poster you have on the wall, Uli! Who is this exceptionally good-looking guy?" "That's Che," said Uli, visibly irritated. "Che? Never heard of him. What movies has he been in?"
Icy silence. Everyone stared at me in amazement. Then: "Gosh, tell me, Gudrun, are you kidding us all here?"
To this day, I still have the image in my mind of how I tried to hide in a corner, red-faced and stammering.
"So," said Uli at last, "now listen carefully, Gudrun, let's explain something to you." -
Today I can smile about it; and we have a big red Che Guevara poster hanging in our house!
The glass pavilion
by Wolfgang R. Schütze
My connection to our alma mater is long, if not very long (by human standards). It even began more than 60 years ago, before the university really existed. At that time, I was still a child attending elementary school (today we would call it elementary school). My parents took me on a tour of the site where Ruhr University was to be built. However, the only building there so far was a small glass pavilion in which the population was shown what it would look like in the future.
I can still remember my father exhorting me to do my best at school so that I might be able to study here one day.
Well, perhaps those stern words had an effect on the young man. At some point, I actually studied at the RUB (mechanical engineering) and graduated there.
At least at the beginning of my studies, the small glass pavilion was still empty and quite lost between the I-buildings. It was always a pleasure for me to let my fellow students guess what the first building of our university was. To the best of my recollection, none of them came up with the tiny hut.
After graduating, I worked in industry until my (hopefully well-earned) retirement. Here, too, I still had the opportunity to keep in touch with the Chair of Transmission Technology (Prof. Jarchow when I was a student), where I also worked as an assistant as a student (they also called me an "auxiliary brakeman" back then). For example, some quite specific studies were carried out there for the company I worked for.
– Wolfgang R. Schütze
Friends for life
by Sandra Hilse, M.A.
Dear RUB,
You were my alma mater from 1993 to 2000 and you still are!
I studied journalism and communication sciences, with minors in German studies and art history. I’m grateful for an amazing time and the opportunity to forge friendships and relationships for life.
I look back most fondly on an exciting excursion to Madrid with art historian Professor Bruno Klein and on the day of my oral Master’s exam.
While I was sweating through my exam, my father attended a talk by Peter Scholl-Latour as part of a series of lectures organized by Professor Heinz-Dietrich Fischer. He still reminisces about it today!
Dear Ruhr University Bochum, thank you for everything and happy birthday! I am determined to come and see you again in 2025! Glück auf!
Yours, Sandra Hilse, M.A.
Among the first thousand students at Ruhr University – “repressive and joy-killing architecture” – teaching assistants’ strike
When Ruhr University Bochum opened in the winter semester of 1965, I was among the first thousand students. Nearly half of them, like me, lived in the state-run student dormitory on Laerholzstraße. And nearly half were also employed as assistants in various departments, including the task of affixing call number labels to the books in the departmental libraries. So we were together almost all day and night, not only sharing the work but also having fun together. When graffiti began to appear on the massive concrete blocks of the RUB, denouncing the “repressive and joy-killing architecture,” we “founding students” couldn’t quite relate to that sentiment. We all knew each other and filled those huge buildings with life.
In 1968, Rudi Dutschke spoke in the university’s largest auditorium. Students protested against the passage of the emergency laws alongside metal workers from Bochum, who dared to stage a so-called “wild” strike for a day.
At the university, students and teaching assistants pushed for the democratization of university structures. In the Department of History, where I was studying, a reform commission consisting of three professors, three teaching assistants and three students was established following a general assembly. Things were quite lively within this group for several months in 1968–69, and the debates were heated.
In the end, however, a compromise was reached that granted students and teaching assistants extensive rights to participate in decision-making—almost a “one-third parity.” It was the only department where such a consensus on reform was achieved. In all other areas, efforts ended in deadlock and conflict.
The calls for reform did not subside. In 1970, it was the teaching assistants who spoke out. Overburdened with work related to the establishment of the RUB, teaching, and assisting the professors—and under pressure to qualify for permanent positions within the fixed terms of their contracts—we decided to go on a two-week strike in May 1970.
One of the key demands was to replace the strictly limited assistant positions with assistant professorships on a “tenure track”—that is, with the prospect of permanent employment upon successful completion of the probationary period.
The protests caused quite a stir; a delegation was received by North Rhine-Westphalia’s Minister President Heinz Kühn, who was attending the SPD party convention in Saarbrücken at the time. Nevertheless, no major successes were achieved, apart from mobilizing the “mid-level faculty” in support of reform demands.
I still remember one anecdote from the strike. We hung a poster just as large as the big sign at the entrance to the RUB campus that read, “Here, the State of North Rhine-Westphalia is building the Ruhr University,” with the slogan “Here, the State of North Rhine-Westphalia is ruining the future of the Ruhr University” and our demands. A few hours later, a police patrol car arrived, took down our poster, and took it away.
But the law students among us weren’t idle: they called the police headquarters and explained that the officers had no right to confiscate the poster. Soon the patrol car returned and delivered the incriminating evidence to the student strike office. We handed it over to the university archives. I wonder if it was kept there and can still be found?Back to contentBack to contentBack to contentBack to contentBack to contentBack to content
Prof. Dr. Jürgen Schlumbohm
From Tübingen to Bochum
by Dr. Manfred Marquardt
Dear fellow alumni in Bochum,
In August 1966, I left the traditional University of Tübingen (at that time with around 700 students in Protestant Theology) to enrol at the fledgling Ruhr University Bochum (3 semesters).
When our Tübingen professor Gerhard Ebeling asked the 50 or so students attending his seminar for passport photos with their names written on the back in order to memorize their names and faces – that was the moment I knew I was going to Bochum.
My family lived in Essen, and I’d just married my partner from Hamburg. Back then, the RUB campus existed of three tower blocks and the cafeteria.
I met my doctoral supervisor Eberhard Wölfel, passed my final exams, received a doctoral scholarship and followed my doctoral supervisor’s appointment to Kiel University.
Dr. Manfred Marquardt
What we lacked were books
by Dr. Karl-Heinz Best
The Institute of Linguistics was founded in 1966. I came from the University of Bonn and was involved right from the start as a student assistant.
It’s hard to believe: What we found at the institute were rooms, fully furnished. What we did not find was a library necessary to have research and teaching up and running. Our first challenge was to develop a signature system so that incoming books and journals could be signed and shelved correctly. And then, we still had to procure the books and journals we needed.
In terms of personnel, pretty much everything hinged on one person: Professor Karl Horst Schmidt, head of Historical Comparative Linguistics – with a focus on Caucasian Studies and Celtic Studies – who was also in charge of General Linguistics. It wasn’t until much later that a second chair was established.
Fortunately, our gradually growing library was located on the same floor, as was a seminar room. If we needed another seminar room at the same time, we could get there by elevator.
By the end of my studies, I was in charge of our seminar library for about a year and a half. In 1971, I completed my doctorate, including a minor in Scandinavian Studies, which did not exist as an independent subject, but could be examined with the approval of the faculty (examiner E. Ebel, chaired by Professor Grosse).
I was a research assistant until 1974 and then applied for an academic council position at the University of Göttingen and transferred there. For a long time, I maintained strong ties with Bochum, especially with Professor G. Altmann.
In conclusion, I can say that I’d have liked to have stayed in Bochum if only I’d had the chance. But that doesn’t mean that I regretted the move to Göttingen.
How RUB changed my life (video in german)
Five alumni reminisce about their time as students at Ruhr-Universität Bochum. Frank Goosen, Johanna Waimann, Sylvia Löhrmann, Murat Vural and Stephan Anpalagan took very different paths after their studies, but all followed their passion and became successful. How did studying at the Ruhr-Universität change their lives? How do they still benefit from it today, both professionally and personally? And what advice would they like to give young students?
