Alumni travel back in time to the year 2000
25 years ago, when the graduates of the University of Siegen received their certificates, there was little ceremony involved. You collected the envelope from the office or simply received the document in the post. "This time we want to celebrate with you," explained Dr. Susanne Padberg, Head of the Alumni Association of the University of Siegen. She had therefore invited the graduates to a reunion on the Haardter Berg campus to mark the silver jubilee. And over 100 alumni came to celebrate this period, to share memories and to see how their university has changed. Sentences such as "Do you remember...?" and "It looked different back then!" were therefore frequently heard in the Audimax. The lecture hall has also changed enormously since she was a student. People used to sit at tables one behind the other at ground level, but now the guests took their seats in the ascending rows of chairs.
They were welcomed by Rector Prof. Dr. Stefanie Reese. "For the first time, we are honoring graduates of our university after 25 years and it is nice to see that so many have accepted the invitation. There are even guests from Spain, Morocco, Sweden and Switzerland here today," said the Rector happily. In her speech, she took the guests on a journey through the history of the University of Siegen.
A lot has changed, not only in terms of buildings, but also structurally. Diploma and master's degrees are a thing of the past, the faculties have become faculties and departments. There are hardly any overcrowded lecture halls like those that were commonplace in the alumni's student days, but there are digital forms of teaching that were unthinkable back then. "Like me, you probably spent hours at the photocopier in the library," recalls Stefanie Reese. Most people still sat in lectures with a pen and pad of paper, and to draw up the timetable, they laboriously leafed through the pages of the course catalog. The alumni nodded with a smile at the memory.
As well as looking back, they also talked about the current study situation, the university locations in the middle of Siegen and the latest research highlights. The alumni were very impressed by the success of the University of Siegen with the excellence cluster "Color meets Flavor", which Rector Stefanie Reese was able to report on recently, as well as the new INCYTE building, the interdisciplinary research center for nanoanalytics, nanochemistry and sensor technology, which will soon be opened.
Rector Reese then ceremoniously presented the jubilarians with their certificates and congratulated them on their successful careers. During the afternoon, the alumni had the opportunity to join various campus tours to get to know the renovated library and the INCYTE, among other things, or to continue reminiscing in the buildings on the Adolf-Reichwein-Straße, Hölderlin and Paul Bonatz Straße campuses, accompanied by staff from the Department of Architectural History. In the evening, the guests came together in the bistro, one of today's LEOs (places of learning), where they had already met or celebrated in their student days, to round off the anniversary day.
Some alumni also took the opportunity the next day to take part in the varied program of the Open University and to get to know the campus at the Lower Castle on a tour organized exclusively for them.
