GD School Circle March 2026

P GEO Exchange, November 5th, 2025

  • P highlights the importance of gender equality, especially at the professorial level. Bavaria has set a 40% threshold for new hirings, if that is not met, the budget may be cut.
  • Highlighting also the role of the VD who develops structures and measures for diversity, while the GEO is more operational
  • We discussed some sort of support for the GEO work (student supporter, some hours are paid, Leistungsdaten, etc.), but P considers this as part of the acedemic service. Arguably, this role is not tied to a specific person as the role of the VD, dean or P, but tasks can be distributed among other people,
  • As a measure to increase gender awareness, P will revise the letter sent to the committee chair, highlighting gender biases and suggests training, etc.
  • We also asked P about the list of questions that was supposed to be on his deck, he apparanetly was not aware of this and e will check this and will comec back to us.
  • Most importantly, P highlighted the role that the GEO in committees plays. If matters are not  perfect, the GEO should note this down in the report and take the opportunity to send this sentence directly to P.P is willing to call the committee chair to ask for clarifications, especially if there are only three men on the list.

TUM Gender Equality Conference, July 16th, 2025

Nadine Osbild represented SOT.

I wanted to report on the most important points which I brought to the conference from our side, and which were brought to our attention vice versa. There is one item in particular, that needs our attentio

1. What I pushed for in the name of SOT (based on our last GEO meeting): 

a) To make the option to send the GEO report directly to the presidential office the standard procedure: This is on the general radar and will be implemented in the online platform for the commissions soon.

b) To have a flowchart that gives an overview on all the different points of contact for different cases, both on the side of students and employees - Stabsstellen, Compliance Office, GEO, Sexualized Violence,...: This is a need of many other Schools as well, and we keep pushing for it. Not sure if anyone feels particularly responsible though. 

2. What the TUM Gender Equality Office brought to our attention: 

a) In the last round of TUM budgeting, the central TUM Gender Equality Office was surprisingly budgeted with 0€. 

b) This item is the one that needs action from our side: 

  • In the senate meeting in November, the election for the central TUM Gender Equality Officer (Frauenbeauftragte) and their representatives will take place. Daniela Schwarz will run for the role of TUM Frauenbeauftragte again, Felix Kramer will however not run for the rep position, and he was vital for the Gender Equality Office in the past. The office now wants to change the strategy for representatives. Instead of one or two reps, the general idea is to have one rep coming from each School to ensure a better communication and a stronger network of advocates across all Schools.
  • While the idea is welcomed by all Schools, many have serious issues and doubts that they will find a person willing to take on this responsibility. In the case of our School, we are already lacking the budget for an actual Frauenbeauftragte (sth like half a E13 position). 
  • It is unclear what this rep position entails - basically, it would be part of the task to build this position and fill it with life, which is a great opportunity but also a big time commitment if one wants to do this well. My gut feeling (and what I communicated to the Office) was that we are struggling with the GEO tasks as it is, and while we could find someone who acts as passive point of contact in this rep role, said person will most likely not be able to take on an active constitutive/creative role. 
  • Nevertheless, we would need to find someone until propbably mid October the latest, so that the list can be ready in time for the senate in November. Generally, there were different opinions on whether this task should be automatically filled by the main GEO person per School, but the group landed on appointing just any employee from the scientific staff, whereby it would make a lot of sense if that person is at least part of the School's current GEO pool. 
  • I think it would be great to have a GEO meeting to discuss further steps soon. @Allister Loder Do you think you could send out a when2meet? People should think about whether they would be willing to run as rep in the meantime. 

Meeting, April 23rd, 2025

Attendees:

  • Ruth Müller
  • Allister Loder
  • Nadine Osbild
  • Cansu Guner

  • Oleksandra (Sasha) Poquet

Topics/Protocoll:

  • Discussion about what GEO Tasks.
    • We need an overview of the relevant stakeholders and the associated processes to direct victims to a helping hand. This might be done by desk research as well as meeting with the people below. We acknowledge that some sort of easy-accessible documentation of this is required, including an opportunity to document anonymized case studies. The latter must be access-restricted and only accessible to the GEO team.
    • Nadine suggests that in case of someone is approaching you regarding a GEO matter, please immediately involve a second GEO as a mean of protection
    • Ruth proposes to have a shortlist of therapists we can call in case an employee requires mental support; she wants to ask for 1000-2000€ of funding for this service. We acknowledge that for students already various support schemes exist.
  • Workshops
    • Ruth suggests organizing a crisis communication workshop, i.e., how to handle as a GEO a situation where a person approaches you. As Nadine has experience here, this might be a good starting point.
  • Appointment and Evaluation Committee work: Allister as GEO can collect the reports legally and thus can be approached in case someone has questions; here also other experience or Zentrale might give a helping hand.
  • Next steps
    • We aim at promoting the GEO services such that people are aware of us and know how to approach us; idea to be visible in the starting week of the semester.
    • Organize a meeting with Michaela Wenzel (ED) as well as as Clarissa Ruge and Veronika Diem (Respect)
    • We should set up a signal or similar group for communication.


Meeting November 27th, 2024 

Attendees:

  • Allister Loder
  • Nadine Osbild
  • Konstaninos Krikis
  • Alexandra Ochs
  • Jörg Niewöhner
  • Efe Bozkir
  • Auxane Boch

Agenda

  • TUM GEO
    • the position is vacant and TUM is soliciting applications (Eva Sandmann stepped down), in case you are interested, please reach out to Tim Büthe asap, applications close at the end of the week. 
    • Eva Sandmann was pushing a lot for having more than one deputy for GEO. Thus, whenever you have the chance to endorse this, do it!
    • TUM GEO deputy, where you may have received a ballot recently, is to be voted (Prof. Felix Krahmer). The election of the deputy was now enforced to not leave TUM without a GEO 
  • Training
    • Allister will participate in the appointment training next week
    • Ruth Müller’s Gender Awareness Training is recommended
  • School
    • Allister informs that Ruth is not yet re-elected as VD Talent and Diversity
    • Allister asks whether anyone has experience with GEO aspects in project proposals (DFG, EU, etc.) to tap on financial resources
  • Other
    • Jörg brings up discussing what happens when we observe a change in discourse attitudes, in particular more anti-democratic movements. He was attending a Volkswagen-Stiftung event recently and they are willing to fund an observatory project. He also suggests actively communicating at our school, e.g., through posters, offering a mailbox, and workshops like Ruth's Gender Awareness Training. He is arguing that we have resources at SOT. Allister recalls the discussion at the school level about handling protests at TUM related to the Palestinian/Israeli-conflict, where Urs and Zoraida offered that they could be contacted.
    • The topic of discriminating Chinese applicants at ETH Zürich that recently made the news was discussed. There is a fear that this could lead to a general suspicion of Chinese.
    • The handling of discriminating situations is discussed. Allister clarifies our roles (c.f. SOT GEO Roles), while Jörg proposes to derive a set of protocols for handling common discriminatory situations, which will be published on the Wiki page here for quick reference of the GEO team.


Next steps

  • Allister talks to Urs regarding observing anti-democratic movements, protocols for handling discriminatory situations, and the Chinese situation.
  • Jörg talks to a colleague of his regarding the general suspicion of Chinese.
  • Set up Teams for everyone.



Meeting September 3rd, 2024

  • Allister Loder
  • Oleksandra Poquet
  • Konstantinos Krikis

Topics

  • We discussed the tasks of our role of GEO
    • Appointment procedures
    • Other committee commitments (school council, Stabsstelle diversity etc.)
    • Contact person for any diversity or gender issue
  • We discussed what our task is in case we are approached for a sexual harassment matter
    • Agreement on that we do not want to be dragged into a conflict as well as we cannot act or improve the status quo with our means
    • but we need to understand where we can direct people to in case something gets reported to us
    • Allister will check with Anja or Eva about options, also check ethics options
  • Keine Stichwörter