In October 2022 two workshops on the rebranding process were held at Freie Universität Berlin for employees and students. The aim was both to involve members of Freie Universität and to incorporate their opinions and experience.

The first workshop was held in person at the Henry Ford Building at the start of October. Participants were selected and personally invited to this workshop with a projected total of about fifty-eight participants, fourteen of whom were to be students. In the first step of the selection process, the structure of the university was analyzed with regard to its organizational units, status groups, and departments. Based on these results, units and groups from which invitees were to be selected were identified. For administration and other organizational units, managers were contacted and asked to nominate staff members. In addition, the Botanic Garden and Botanical Museum was asked to invite employees from its gardening staff. Members of the departments (such as non-academic staff, research assistants, and professors) were selected using random generators. If the invitation was rejected, the next person in the alphabet would be selected. The Department of Veterinary Medicine was also asked to nominate two trainees from the field of animal care.

Since there were many cancellations – including during the selection process – the original group of selected participants had to be modified frequently. By the end of September there were twenty-eight confirmed participants from the fields of academia and administration.

It also proved difficult to recruit students for the event. Unfortunately, neither AStA nor the International Club responded to our requests to invite students to participate in the branding workshop. That was why at the end of September both the student body initiatives and the mentoring programs at Freie Universität were contacted by email and asked to send the event invitation for the session on October 6 to students via their distribution lists. However, no registrations were received through this channel either. As a last effort, we reached out directly to contacts from the departments at very short notice at the beginning of October. This finally resulted in five registrations from students.

By the beginning of the workshop the total number of participants amounted to fifty-two. After last-minute cancellations or no-shows, thirty-three participants attended the workshop.

All members of Freie Universität were invited to the digital event on October 21, 2022, via a mass email. The event was also announced on the @fu_berlin Instagram account via “Stories.” A total of seventy-four registrations for the event came in, including twenty-four registrations from students and seven registrations from members of the Staff Council: Entire Freie Universität Berlin (Gesamtpersonalrat). Between forty and forty-five people attended.

The technical support was provided by the agency con gressa.

The content of the two workshops was largely the same. The program of the second workshop on October 21 was adapted slightly on the basis of the experience gained in the first workshop. You can find details about the content of the workshops here.