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German Fascination With Degrees Claims Latest Victim: Education Minister

99 points by clbrook 14y ago

Hermel 14y ago
Yes, the Germans value degrees. But Ms Shavan having to step back has nothing to do with that. This is not about her degree, this is about her having cheated. The Germans are very sensitive in this regard. A few years ago, a minister got into serious trouble because he used the frequent flier miles obtained as a minister for a private flight.
doktrin 14y ago
> Many Germans believe the scandals are rooted in their abiding respect, and even lust, for academic accolades, including the use of Prof. before Dr. and occasionally Dr. DR. for those with two doctoral degrees. > Prof. Dr. Wanka got her doctorate in 1980, the same year as Dr. Schavan. While the title-compounding effect did strike me as comical, this did force me to reflect a bit on our own worship of pedigree. Anyone who's spent any time on Angel List has undoubtedly been treated to "founders from stanford & MIT", "started by Berkeley students", "MBA from Chicago", etc. These are, of course, almost apples and oranges (double-doctorates vs undergrad / masters), but credentialing is certainly alive and well here in the US. Scott Thompson @ yahoo is a particularly recent public example.
- cmarschner 14y ago
  Good point. For decades the education system in Germany tried to eradicate differences between universities. For the longest time there was also no separate bachelors degree. Getting a doctorate was therefore the only way to distinguish yourself from the student masses. This has changed in the past years after the "Bologna reforms" have replaced the German diploma by the international bachelors/masters system and since the "excellence initiative" has given "elite" predicated to some of the German universities. Ironically this initiative was governed by the education department, headed by Mrs. Dr. mult. Annette Schavan.
  - konstruktor 14y ago
    Let me delve into the speculation about culture a bit more: Back in the day of the emperors/kings, titles and medals were were an extremely cheap way of rewarding somebody without actually paying them. What this incentive system needed to work was a society that respected those titles, so you were and and even today are allowed to use those titles (examples: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nichtakademischer_Titel http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nichtakademischer_Titel). This attitude was probably transferred to academic titles at some point. In Austria, which has even more artifacts of its imperial time, this title-mania was followed so diligently that even the wife of the doctor was called Frau Doctor until a few decades ago. Also, every academic title at least equivalent to a master's degree is still used with your name in any formal dealings (they will call somebody up as Frau Magister Maier in a waiting room etc.). In Germany, they do this only with PhDs, so there is Herr Doktor but not Herr Diplom Psychologe. Judging from the mini-bios of authors on books, though, the Germans seem as title-crazy as Austrians. The guy who cannot call himself "Diplom Psychologe Hans Maier" on the title page of the book will almost certainly start his bio with "Hans Maier is Diplom Psychologe ..." because this way, he is only describing academic achievement (OK) and not using it as a title (not OK). So people who worry about status love titles but can only actually use anything from a PhD upwards with their names. Go figure...
    - fhars 14y ago
      Strictly speaking, in Germany you don't use the PhD (Dr.) with your name, you just use your full name. Getting a "Dr." is a name change, while getting a diploma or masters degree is not.
      - netrus 14y ago
        Strictly speaking, it's not. You can write your PhD in your passport (only in the long form, like "Dr. med.") in a separate field, but you don't have to, and it won't be part of your name anyway. Source: http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/pa_g_1986/__4.html http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/pa_g_1986/__4.html [Law in German]
- beambot 14y ago
  Reminds me of the MIT Dean of Admissions scandal (she faked a degree on her resume): http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2007/4/26/mit-admissions-dean-resigns-after-fake/ http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2007/4/26/mit-admissions-d...
- fauigerzigerk 14y ago
  Not to speak of the incredible levels of debt people are ready to incur for that degree. It can't be that bit of additional support a university setting will provide compared to self study.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
aaron695 14y ago
Ummmm Education Minister who (allegedly) cheated at university forced to step down. Don't really see that as a "Fascination With Degrees" Might have been a interesting topic, but it's a hopeless segue.
- raphman 14y ago
  Yes, the title is quite misleading. While there are a few people who pursue a PhD purely for its status, this was probably not the case for Annette Schavan.
  - adulau 14y ago
    I don't know if my experiment is valid but looking at the collected business cards (~1200) from the past years. 90% of the business cards with Ing, Prof titles and alike are mainly from Germany. Looking at the German wikipedia page about Academic degrees http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akademischer_Grad http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akademischer_Grad compared to the other languages. I don't know if they run for its status but at least they showed those titles on their business cards. It might be interresting for Ken Robinson to make some seminar in Germany about his point regarding academicism.
    - michaelt 14y ago
      I once read an opinion piece in a British engineering journal that suggested one of the reasons Germany is such an engineering powerhouse is in Germany 'engineer' is roughly equivalent in status to 'doctor' while in the UK it's conflated with 'mechanic/repair man' or at best 'office worker'.
- arrrg 14y ago
  Yeah, this wasn’t really about her title. I’m not even aware of her ever using it in public, the media certainly didn’t. That said, the German system is broken and needs to be fixed. I think that part of the discussion is probably the most useful one - but I don’t see it going anywhere.
- drpgq 14y ago
pilooch 14y ago
The German hierarchy in academia is unbelievable. Few years back I moved from a federal lab in California to a state lab in Germany. I felt abashed at the extravagant praise of the head professor there. Also, the Prof. Dr. thing on business cards used to make me laugh, until I could grasp the whole system, and how detrimental it was for students (high pressure, never ending hierarchy, blind worship, ...).
- raphman 14y ago
  This hugely depends on the field of research and the individual research groups. Medicine is traditionally very hierarchical - mathematics or computer science not so. Could you elaborate on the detrimental effects?
  - pilooch 14y ago
    sure, I refer to computer science btw. Detrimental effects that I could witness: - Prof. are secured in their large offices, hard to get in touch with. This leads to useless work or idle students, waiting for feedback, or picking up the wrong problem, solution or conference. - Full dependency on the Prof (e.g. for funding, to get a position, ...) - Students don't voice their concern much, as they need Prof. support. Don't get me wrong, overall, the system works, and the same observations could be made elsewhere as well (e.g. France, US, ...). Although I'd say the magnitude differs. With colleagues, we used to make this joke that a 'deadline' in the US would always be slowly pushed back until the project can be stamped as a success (best for everyone, motivates teams, etc...) whereas in Germany the deadline is so deadly that the team hits the wall and leaves blood strains on it, until the next deadline comes up :)
    - PeterisP 14y ago
      Well, the current funding systems in many countries naturally result in Prof's being unaccessible, and it has nothing to do with the offices. A well respected researcher (at the time working in Germany IIRC) told me "Professor's here don't have time to write research papers, they write grant proposals".
roel_v 14y ago
"“I just think that many Germans have a police gene in their genetic makeup,”" Lol, discussion Godwin'ed by the OP itself - the NYT, no less.
- kybernetyk 14y ago
  Well, I'm living in Germany and I'm inclined to side with the NYT on this.
  - roel_v 14y ago
    Oh I realize all too well - I lived and worked in Germany some time ago too, and only a few weeks into the job I was scolded for not putting dr and prof into the field on the signup page where people could enter how they wanted to be addressed. To be fair, the marketing guys were right on that one, me leaving it out was my youthful arrogance - the same disdain for honorifics that is being displayed in the article, actually. Anyway, I wasn't so much saying that the article is wrong as that the snide tone of the remark came across as somewhat unbecoming of a purportedly 'serious' publication as the NYT.
opminion 14y ago
“title arousal.” If the Germans had a fascination with degrees, they wouldn't have Mercedes engineers without a university degree http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16159943 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16159943
- kayoone 14y ago
  Thats a different thing. The Apprenticeship programs in germany are very popular in the whole range of sectors. You basically train on the job in a company for 3 years earning a minimum wage and have to go to school for about 1/3rd of that time. At the end your company might offer you a full time job. However this kind of education is very practical, not too much theory, so the guys at mercedes for example are more like mechanics that assemble the cars. Its still a very good and highly regarded education, but the real engineers at mercedes have studied Engineering and have university degree. Same goes for IT, you can do basic apprenticeships for programming or system administration, but its far less theoretical than studying computer science at the university. Still many people do it, because for being a programmer its mostly enough basic knowledge and you learn the rest on the job and with experience anyway. But these people will probably not tacke the hardest problems of computer science.
  - opminion 14y ago
    the real engineers Ok, if the definition of a real engineer is someone with a degree, then there's no argument to have.
lutusp 14y ago
The Germans may lust after advanced degrees, but we Americans might not want to call the kettle black -- it's well-established that we struggle to acquire Ph.D. degrees even though, on average, this choice produces a decline in income and employment compared to a "professional" degree: http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm
msvan 14y ago
If someone chooses to spend several years of her life only in order to get a few letters in front of her name, that's her problem. Meanwhile, the rest of us can get out there and do something productive. Degree obsession is a choice.
- rbanffy 14y ago
  Many PhD's I know didn't work on their research for the extra letters on their business cards, but out of a genuine devotion to further our knowledge on their research subjects.
  - coldarchon 14y ago
    Exactly this devotion makes us Germans think people become a better politician when getting an academic title, having the devotion to make this world a better place by science might include devotion to make a better society by good politics.
jk4930 14y ago
1. Once Germany was a leading intellectual, scientific, and engineering powerhouse. Academic titles still have some cultural significance. It might be a kind of a relict. 2. It's worse in Austria.
- killerpopiller 14y ago
  they even adress you as Herr Magister, not only Dr. :D
  - spdy 14y ago
    Magister is Austria not Germany
    - wolfgke 14y ago
      "Magister" is also a German academic title (that was not uncommon in Germany before the Bologna reform to graduate in especially in humane disciplines). But it's only common to adress someone as "Herr Magister" in Austria.
    - sek 14y ago
      No it does exist in Germany too, my mum has one.
      - zura 14y ago
        It exists in Georgia as well, and it is equivalent of Masters degree. Although, it is not used as title - maybe because it would sound much cooler than Dr. :)
- markokocic 14y ago
  > 1. Once Germany was a leading intellectual, scientific, and engineering powerhouse. Academic titles still have some cultural significance. It might be a kind of a relict. Why past tense? It still is a powerhouse, especially in engineering.
floppyspinner 14y ago
This whole discussion reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut's Player Piano. Sadly no such reference has been made yet. Maybe that's because not a lot of Germans have read it. Anyway, it sheds the whole discussion in a new light. The person in charge of education and research should not plagiarize, no doubt, but in general, if a person proves consistently that they can do their job, isn't the degree system that's supposed to determine who is able to do a particular job a little too rigid and deserves to be undermined? On the other hand there's the real hard work of those who don't cheat, and they'll demand justice. A difficult problem.
- ableal 14y ago
  [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_Piano_%28novel%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_Piano_%28novel%29 , not part of the half dozen KV books I've read either ] I'd also guess it's not the ability to the the job that's in question, it's the will to do it ethically. Would you trust the work of someone who's known to cut corners in order to declare the job done?
  - xyzzy123 14y ago
    Sure. Sometimes it beats the alternative.
- raphman 14y ago
  The issue here is not primarily that the minister for education and science should have a PhD. The scandal here is that Annette Schavan claims that she did not plagiarize when it is obvious that she did. When the university rescinded her doctorate, she announced to sue it. A minister who is unable to accept a university's (rightful) decision undermines their independence. For me, the most egregious part of this affair was that several officials of big research organizations - who get a majority of their budget from the federal ministry - defended Schavan and attacked the university.
- PavlovsCat 14y ago
  if a person proves consistently that they can do their job What if the opposite is the case? Humboldt said education is so important, the whole nation has to support it by paying taxes. Now? Elite universities, university fees. Not her fault alone, but also not something she resisted a whole lot, right? Hence I claim a shitty job, and how she can be called a "victim" is beyond me; good riddance I say, pity the next one will likely be just as bad and in the pockets of her handlers.
o1iver 14y ago
How is it that such dishonest people become leaders in our countries? I would expect those leading my country to at least have some integrity!
- lutusp 14y ago
  > I would expect those leading my country to at least have some integrity! You want people with integrity to run for public office? Isn't that a contradiction in terms? I'm not speaking of the appearance of personal integrity, something that can be manufactured, I'm speaking of real integrity. "It's not what you are, but what people think you are that is important." -- Joe Kennedy
  - o1iver 14y ago
    Me too. And I would wish that those people had real integrity.
- joopa 14y ago
  That is perhaps a little naive. People attracted by power (i.e., power over other people's lives) are by definition not saints. Expect most of them to be sociopaths, and your expectations would be closer to reality.
  - o1iver 14y ago
    I guess it's the old saying of absolute power corrupts absolutely. It is very sad though!
cnvogel 14y ago
I don't think that Germans have a "Title-fetish", in general they couldn't care less. I'm working in engineering, having a Physics PhD myself, but titles are never mentioned in daily work. Politicians on the other hand had always tried to give themselves some additinal credibility by bragging about their alleged academic merits, but searching for plagiatism was not something anyone would seriously had thought to endanger politicians careers. I mean, it was fun to try and hunt down politicians theses but hardly would have anyone expected that a politician could loose his mandate over them. Furthermore these theses most often had been written in "the old days", and were available only on special request from a few libraries where they were collecting dust for years in some non-publicly-accessible storage room for books no one ever borrows. But then came Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg, whose thesis (written just 2007) started the whole debate about misgotten degrees in 2011. He had dismissed all charges about having cheated with unprecedented arrogance. Even though claiming to live up to higher standards, himself being a whealthy aristocrat, he had wholesale-copy-pasted the whole work from undisclosed sources, some even produced by the parliament's research service for him. By additionally handling the resulting public-relations disaster pretty inapt, he gave a unbelieveably strong boost to the plagiatism-finders, who normally would have been ridiculed as nickpicking footnote and quotation-mark-counters. Now they were the judges for the integrity of a large number of public persons. Anette Schavan is only one of many persons accused of copying a relatively few paragraphs in her thesis, not even on the same scale as Karl-Theodor, this theses would never have created the current public outcry if not preceeded by Karl-Theodor's. And she's even defended by a lot of academics that claim that this amount of un-disclosed copying, 30 years ago, would be on a level that's would not warrant the whole process that has now started and led to her demissal. I mean, she probably has written that manuscript on a mechanical typewriter, with drafts written by hand, not assisted by a software marking handling quotations automatically! But universities are under a high pressure to show a merciless approach in re-evaluating these theses, and unfortunately there isn't even a limitation-period after which given titles would be incontestable, and hence what appears to be the current obsession with titles in Germany. -- References :-) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl-Theodor_zu_Guttenberg#Doctorate_plagiarism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl-Theodor_zu_Guttenberg#Doct... - The "Guttenplag" wiki has a graph (and statistics): 94% of pages, 64% of lines have copies of foreign text without attribution: http://de.guttenplag.wikia.com/wiki/GuttenPlag_Wiki http://de.guttenplag.wikia.com/wiki/GuttenPlag_Wiki - This side shows pages in red that contain foreign material without attribution: http://schavanplag.wordpress.com/ http://schavanplag.wordpress.com/
stesch 14y ago
The real scandal is that somebody studying catholic theology can become education minister.
- simonh 14y ago
  A real scandal would be if someone was hounded out of office or blocked from attaining it due to their religious beliefs.
- raphman 14y ago
  Excuse me, why?
woodpanel 14y ago
Germans place a greater premium on doctorates than Americans do as marks of distinction and erudition. [...] According to the Web site Research in Germany, about 25,000 Germans earn doctorates each year, the most in Europe and about twice the per capita rate of the United States. Visiting a university in Germany is almost free. More people having a "Diplom" degree means that if you want to stand out you have to aim for a "Doktor". (I use "Diplom" and "Doktor" here since the mentioned fraud-cases stem from a time without bachelors and masters) - that's the easy explanation. Here in the homeland of schadenfreude, the zeal for unmasking academic frauds also reflects certain Teutonic traits, including a rigid adherence to principle and a know-it-all streak. I wouldn't subscribe to the word "fetish" but there is a certain "Teutonic Trait" here and the acadmic fraud cases are just one symptom of something deeper. People in this society, contrary to what many of them claim, feel a deep need for an authority to follow. [...] It's in them to worship authority and to totally rely on it.[...] It makes sense to me that a strong and faithful believer [...], can in his disappointment become so venomous when, as he feels, that authority has failed him. It's this huge disappointment that turns blind obedience into an uncontrolled need for slaughter. - http://www.amazon.com/Sleep-Hitlers-Room-American-ebook/dp/B005WZYWA2 http://www.amazon.com/Sleep-Hitlers-Room-American-ebook/dp/B... (a funny but often stupid book, nonetheless I think here the author has a point on us Germans) A society, keen for authority, provides a reliable way for elite offspring to fill the upper ranks of politics or public service. Our fraternities are almost always tied to one of the two major political parties (SPD or CDU). While beeing a great asset for students after graduation (Alumni-Network) their main service for that offspring is to use all the dirty tricks to get you your (law) diploma. Since these student bodies are very old and established, they often fill the ranks of the personnel in the universities. They might be the ones doing the evaluation of your thesis. They can provide you with the tests beforehand and even if they can't they usually keep log of every test written by a professor, so they can provide you at least with a good approximation of future tests. It doesn't wonder that there's an established market for ghostwriters providing you those titles, since you have so many people using that "reliable path to power" that don't seek the academic or professional acceptance at all. Most of Germany's politicians are lawyers and most of them never seen a court from the inside. For me, this Title-Thing is a teutonic trait but it's not tied to genes but tied to culture. And culture can change. This German Title-Mania is getting less. For instance, you don't have to own a "Meister"-Title to open up certain businesses anymore since recently. How this disposal of the "Meisterpflicht" (allowance to open a business is tied to having a Meister-Title, by law) came upon, though, tells about the difference between Germany and the US: It wasn't a succesful grassroot kind of story, demanding personal/economic freedom, but an order from the EU. And the sentence "an order from above" sums up pretty much every German right or freedom we were entitled to during our history. That makes us prone to dislinkg "game-changers" because, if you spent time obeying the rules, you won't loose on that investment by letting others take shortcuts. This translates to less career changers than in the US, and a higher stigma if you do. It translates to total absence of entrepreneurs or acclaimed business people from entering a political race, because social envy gives them no cance there. This translates to parts of our Acadamia being a thought free market of status. We don't have an american culture of self-education. And the term "Populärwissenschaft", scientists releasing books for the masses, is considered an insult in German Acadamia.
16s 14y ago
They are academic royalty, however, God did not give them royal divinity, Universities did. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_right_of_kings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_right_of_kings
deleted 14y ago
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rmk2 14y ago
This article seems to not mention another important fact for Schavan: If she loses the Doctorate, she will not have any degree whatsoever. The Doctorate is the only degree she ever did, she does not hold a Magister. (→ Grundständige Promotion) The English wikipedia entry has that added by now, however, it doesn't list any sources...so in that sense: http://www.heise.de/tp/blogs/8/153683 http://www.heise.de/tp/blogs/8/153683 & http://www.wiwo.de/politik/deutschland/plagiatsaffaere-ohne-doktor-haette-schavan-nur-noch-abitur/7255390.html http://www.wiwo.de/politik/deutschland/plagiatsaffaere-ohne-... edit: Also, leave it to a right-wing Prof. Dr. from Munich to call all Germans crypto-fascist because of their degree fixation. Oh, the irony... → https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corps_Rhenania_Freiburg https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corps_Rhenania_Freiburg
- cmarschner 14y ago
  She will still have a honorary doctorate of 4 universities, so technically she is still Dr.h.c.mult.
  - rmk2 14y ago
    Yes, but for any other purpose, she will not have a degree that proves her own qualifications.
rbanffy 14y ago
I think our discussion focused on the degrees themselves misses the point. What we see here is plain dishonest conduct. Not having a PhD is acceptable. Plagiarism is not - and shouldn't be.
anovikov 14y ago
Any formal system like that is bad because it's too easy to hack - and that's what they got. Good for America that you don't care much about degrees. After all, a day's long test task is enough to separate good candidates from bad for everything except maybe senior management positions.

99 points by clbrook 14y ago

Yes, the Germans value degrees. But Ms Shavan having to step back has nothing to do with that. This is not about her degree, this is about her having cheated. The Germans are very sensitive in this regard. A few years ago, a minister got into serious trouble because he used the frequent flier miles obtained as a minister for a private flight.

doktrin 14y ago

> Many Germans believe the scandals are rooted in their abiding respect, and even lust, for academic accolades, including the use of Prof. before Dr. and occasionally Dr. DR. for those with two doctoral degrees. > Prof. Dr. Wanka got her doctorate in 1980, the same year as Dr. Schavan. While the title-compounding effect did strike me as comical, this did force me to reflect a bit on our own worship of pedigree. Anyone who's spent any time on Angel List has undoubtedly been treated to "founders from stanford & MIT", "started by Berkeley students", "MBA from Chicago", etc. These are, of course, almost apples and oranges (double-doctorates vs undergrad / masters), but credentialing is certainly alive and well here in the US. Scott Thompson @ yahoo is a particularly recent public example.

cmarschner 14y ago
Good point. For decades the education system in Germany tried to eradicate differences between universities. For the longest time there was also no separate bachelors degree. Getting a doctorate was therefore the only way to distinguish yourself from the student masses. This has changed in the past years after the "Bologna reforms" have replaced the German diploma by the international bachelors/masters system and since the "excellence initiative" has given "elite" predicated to some of the German universities. Ironically this initiative was governed by the education department, headed by Mrs. Dr. mult. Annette Schavan.
- konstruktor 14y ago
  Let me delve into the speculation about culture a bit more: Back in the day of the emperors/kings, titles and medals were were an extremely cheap way of rewarding somebody without actually paying them. What this incentive system needed to work was a society that respected those titles, so you were and and even today are allowed to use those titles (examples: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nichtakademischer_Titel http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nichtakademischer_Titel). This attitude was probably transferred to academic titles at some point. In Austria, which has even more artifacts of its imperial time, this title-mania was followed so diligently that even the wife of the doctor was called Frau Doctor until a few decades ago. Also, every academic title at least equivalent to a master's degree is still used with your name in any formal dealings (they will call somebody up as Frau Magister Maier in a waiting room etc.). In Germany, they do this only with PhDs, so there is Herr Doktor but not Herr Diplom Psychologe. Judging from the mini-bios of authors on books, though, the Germans seem as title-crazy as Austrians. The guy who cannot call himself "Diplom Psychologe Hans Maier" on the title page of the book will almost certainly start his bio with "Hans Maier is Diplom Psychologe ..." because this way, he is only describing academic achievement (OK) and not using it as a title (not OK). So people who worry about status love titles but can only actually use anything from a PhD upwards with their names. Go figure...
  - fhars 14y ago
    Strictly speaking, in Germany you don't use the PhD (Dr.) with your name, you just use your full name. Getting a "Dr." is a name change, while getting a diploma or masters degree is not.
    - netrus 14y ago
      Strictly speaking, it's not. You can write your PhD in your passport (only in the long form, like "Dr. med.") in a separate field, but you don't have to, and it won't be part of your name anyway. Source: http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/pa_g_1986/__4.html http://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/pa_g_1986/__4.html [Law in German]
beambot 14y ago
Reminds me of the MIT Dean of Admissions scandal (she faked a degree on her resume): http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2007/4/26/mit-admissions-dean-resigns-after-fake/ http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2007/4/26/mit-admissions-d...
fauigerzigerk 14y ago
Not to speak of the incredible levels of debt people are ready to incur for that degree. It can't be that bit of additional support a university setting will provide compared to self study.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

aaron695 14y ago

Ummmm Education Minister who (allegedly) cheated at university forced to step down. Don't really see that as a "Fascination With Degrees" Might have been a interesting topic, but it's a hopeless segue.

raphman 14y ago
Yes, the title is quite misleading. While there are a few people who pursue a PhD purely for its status, this was probably not the case for Annette Schavan.
- adulau 14y ago
  I don't know if my experiment is valid but looking at the collected business cards (~1200) from the past years. 90% of the business cards with Ing, Prof titles and alike are mainly from Germany. Looking at the German wikipedia page about Academic degrees http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akademischer_Grad http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akademischer_Grad compared to the other languages. I don't know if they run for its status but at least they showed those titles on their business cards. It might be interresting for Ken Robinson to make some seminar in Germany about his point regarding academicism.
  - michaelt 14y ago
    I once read an opinion piece in a British engineering journal that suggested one of the reasons Germany is such an engineering powerhouse is in Germany 'engineer' is roughly equivalent in status to 'doctor' while in the UK it's conflated with 'mechanic/repair man' or at best 'office worker'.
arrrg 14y ago
Yeah, this wasn’t really about her title. I’m not even aware of her ever using it in public, the media certainly didn’t. That said, the German system is broken and needs to be fixed. I think that part of the discussion is probably the most useful one - but I don’t see it going anywhere.
drpgq 14y ago

pilooch 14y ago

The German hierarchy in academia is unbelievable. Few years back I moved from a federal lab in California to a state lab in Germany. I felt abashed at the extravagant praise of the head professor there. Also, the Prof. Dr. thing on business cards used to make me laugh, until I could grasp the whole system, and how detrimental it was for students (high pressure, never ending hierarchy, blind worship, ...).

raphman 14y ago
This hugely depends on the field of research and the individual research groups. Medicine is traditionally very hierarchical - mathematics or computer science not so. Could you elaborate on the detrimental effects?
- pilooch 14y ago
  sure, I refer to computer science btw. Detrimental effects that I could witness: - Prof. are secured in their large offices, hard to get in touch with. This leads to useless work or idle students, waiting for feedback, or picking up the wrong problem, solution or conference. - Full dependency on the Prof (e.g. for funding, to get a position, ...) - Students don't voice their concern much, as they need Prof. support. Don't get me wrong, overall, the system works, and the same observations could be made elsewhere as well (e.g. France, US, ...). Although I'd say the magnitude differs. With colleagues, we used to make this joke that a 'deadline' in the US would always be slowly pushed back until the project can be stamped as a success (best for everyone, motivates teams, etc...) whereas in Germany the deadline is so deadly that the team hits the wall and leaves blood strains on it, until the next deadline comes up :)
  - PeterisP 14y ago
    Well, the current funding systems in many countries naturally result in Prof's being unaccessible, and it has nothing to do with the offices. A well respected researcher (at the time working in Germany IIRC) told me "Professor's here don't have time to write research papers, they write grant proposals".

roel_v 14y ago

"“I just think that many Germans have a police gene in their genetic makeup,”" Lol, discussion Godwin'ed by the OP itself - the NYT, no less.

kybernetyk 14y ago
Well, I'm living in Germany and I'm inclined to side with the NYT on this.
- roel_v 14y ago
  Oh I realize all too well - I lived and worked in Germany some time ago too, and only a few weeks into the job I was scolded for not putting dr and prof into the field on the signup page where people could enter how they wanted to be addressed. To be fair, the marketing guys were right on that one, me leaving it out was my youthful arrogance - the same disdain for honorifics that is being displayed in the article, actually. Anyway, I wasn't so much saying that the article is wrong as that the snide tone of the remark came across as somewhat unbecoming of a purportedly 'serious' publication as the NYT.

opminion 14y ago

“title arousal.” If the Germans had a fascination with degrees, they wouldn't have Mercedes engineers without a university degree http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16159943 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16159943

kayoone 14y ago
Thats a different thing. The Apprenticeship programs in germany are very popular in the whole range of sectors. You basically train on the job in a company for 3 years earning a minimum wage and have to go to school for about 1/3rd of that time. At the end your company might offer you a full time job. However this kind of education is very practical, not too much theory, so the guys at mercedes for example are more like mechanics that assemble the cars. Its still a very good and highly regarded education, but the real engineers at mercedes have studied Engineering and have university degree. Same goes for IT, you can do basic apprenticeships for programming or system administration, but its far less theoretical than studying computer science at the university. Still many people do it, because for being a programmer its mostly enough basic knowledge and you learn the rest on the job and with experience anyway. But these people will probably not tacke the hardest problems of computer science.
- opminion 14y ago
  the real engineers Ok, if the definition of a real engineer is someone with a degree, then there's no argument to have.

lutusp 14y ago

The Germans may lust after advanced degrees, but we Americans might not want to call the kettle black -- it's well-established that we struggle to acquire Ph.D. degrees even though, on average, this choice produces a decline in income and employment compared to a "professional" degree: http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm

msvan 14y ago

If someone chooses to spend several years of her life only in order to get a few letters in front of her name, that's her problem. Meanwhile, the rest of us can get out there and do something productive. Degree obsession is a choice.

rbanffy 14y ago
Many PhD's I know didn't work on their research for the extra letters on their business cards, but out of a genuine devotion to further our knowledge on their research subjects.
- coldarchon 14y ago
  Exactly this devotion makes us Germans think people become a better politician when getting an academic title, having the devotion to make this world a better place by science might include devotion to make a better society by good politics.

jk4930 14y ago

1. Once Germany was a leading intellectual, scientific, and engineering powerhouse. Academic titles still have some cultural significance. It might be a kind of a relict. 2. It's worse in Austria.

killerpopiller 14y ago
they even adress you as Herr Magister, not only Dr. :D
- spdy 14y ago
  Magister is Austria not Germany
  - wolfgke 14y ago
    "Magister" is also a German academic title (that was not uncommon in Germany before the Bologna reform to graduate in especially in humane disciplines). But it's only common to adress someone as "Herr Magister" in Austria.
  - sek 14y ago
    No it does exist in Germany too, my mum has one.
    - zura 14y ago
      It exists in Georgia as well, and it is equivalent of Masters degree. Although, it is not used as title - maybe because it would sound much cooler than Dr. :)
markokocic 14y ago
> 1. Once Germany was a leading intellectual, scientific, and engineering powerhouse. Academic titles still have some cultural significance. It might be a kind of a relict. Why past tense? It still is a powerhouse, especially in engineering.

floppyspinner 14y ago

This whole discussion reminds me of Kurt Vonnegut's Player Piano. Sadly no such reference has been made yet. Maybe that's because not a lot of Germans have read it. Anyway, it sheds the whole discussion in a new light. The person in charge of education and research should not plagiarize, no doubt, but in general, if a person proves consistently that they can do their job, isn't the degree system that's supposed to determine who is able to do a particular job a little too rigid and deserves to be undermined? On the other hand there's the real hard work of those who don't cheat, and they'll demand justice. A difficult problem.

ableal 14y ago
[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_Piano_%28novel%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_Piano_%28novel%29 , not part of the half dozen KV books I've read either ] I'd also guess it's not the ability to the the job that's in question, it's the will to do it ethically. Would you trust the work of someone who's known to cut corners in order to declare the job done?
- xyzzy123 14y ago
  Sure. Sometimes it beats the alternative.
raphman 14y ago
The issue here is not primarily that the minister for education and science should have a PhD. The scandal here is that Annette Schavan claims that she did not plagiarize when it is obvious that she did. When the university rescinded her doctorate, she announced to sue it. A minister who is unable to accept a university's (rightful) decision undermines their independence. For me, the most egregious part of this affair was that several officials of big research organizations - who get a majority of their budget from the federal ministry - defended Schavan and attacked the university.
PavlovsCat 14y ago
if a person proves consistently that they can do their job What if the opposite is the case? Humboldt said education is so important, the whole nation has to support it by paying taxes. Now? Elite universities, university fees. Not her fault alone, but also not something she resisted a whole lot, right? Hence I claim a shitty job, and how she can be called a "victim" is beyond me; good riddance I say, pity the next one will likely be just as bad and in the pockets of her handlers.

o1iver 14y ago

How is it that such dishonest people become leaders in our countries? I would expect those leading my country to at least have some integrity!

lutusp 14y ago
> I would expect those leading my country to at least have some integrity! You want people with integrity to run for public office? Isn't that a contradiction in terms? I'm not speaking of the appearance of personal integrity, something that can be manufactured, I'm speaking of real integrity. "It's not what you are, but what people think you are that is important." -- Joe Kennedy
- o1iver 14y ago
  Me too. And I would wish that those people had real integrity.
joopa 14y ago
That is perhaps a little naive. People attracted by power (i.e., power over other people's lives) are by definition not saints. Expect most of them to be sociopaths, and your expectations would be closer to reality.
- o1iver 14y ago
  I guess it's the old saying of absolute power corrupts absolutely. It is very sad though!

cnvogel 14y ago

I don't think that Germans have a "Title-fetish", in general they couldn't care less. I'm working in engineering, having a Physics PhD myself, but titles are never mentioned in daily work. Politicians on the other hand had always tried to give themselves some additinal credibility by bragging about their alleged academic merits, but searching for plagiatism was not something anyone would seriously had thought to endanger politicians careers. I mean, it was fun to try and hunt down politicians theses but hardly would have anyone expected that a politician could loose his mandate over them. Furthermore these theses most often had been written in "the old days", and were available only on special request from a few libraries where they were collecting dust for years in some non-publicly-accessible storage room for books no one ever borrows. But then came Karl Theodor zu Guttenberg, whose thesis (written just 2007) started the whole debate about misgotten degrees in 2011. He had dismissed all charges about having cheated with unprecedented arrogance. Even though claiming to live up to higher standards, himself being a whealthy aristocrat, he had wholesale-copy-pasted the whole work from undisclosed sources, some even produced by the parliament's research service for him. By additionally handling the resulting public-relations disaster pretty inapt, he gave a unbelieveably strong boost to the plagiatism-finders, who normally would have been ridiculed as nickpicking footnote and quotation-mark-counters. Now they were the judges for the integrity of a large number of public persons. Anette Schavan is only one of many persons accused of copying a relatively few paragraphs in her thesis, not even on the same scale as Karl-Theodor, this theses would never have created the current public outcry if not preceeded by Karl-Theodor's. And she's even defended by a lot of academics that claim that this amount of un-disclosed copying, 30 years ago, would be on a level that's would not warrant the whole process that has now started and led to her demissal. I mean, she probably has written that manuscript on a mechanical typewriter, with drafts written by hand, not assisted by a software marking handling quotations automatically! But universities are under a high pressure to show a merciless approach in re-evaluating these theses, and unfortunately there isn't even a limitation-period after which given titles would be incontestable, and hence what appears to be the current obsession with titles in Germany. -- References :-) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl-Theodor_zu_Guttenberg#Doctorate_plagiarism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl-Theodor_zu_Guttenberg#Doct... - The "Guttenplag" wiki has a graph (and statistics): 94% of pages, 64% of lines have copies of foreign text without attribution: http://de.guttenplag.wikia.com/wiki/GuttenPlag_Wiki http://de.guttenplag.wikia.com/wiki/GuttenPlag_Wiki - This side shows pages in red that contain foreign material without attribution: http://schavanplag.wordpress.com/ http://schavanplag.wordpress.com/

stesch 14y ago

The real scandal is that somebody studying catholic theology can become education minister.

simonh 14y ago
A real scandal would be if someone was hounded out of office or blocked from attaining it due to their religious beliefs.
raphman 14y ago
Excuse me, why?

woodpanel 14y ago

Germans place a greater premium on doctorates than Americans do as marks of distinction and erudition. [...] According to the Web site Research in Germany, about 25,000 Germans earn doctorates each year, the most in Europe and about twice the per capita rate of the United States. Visiting a university in Germany is almost free. More people having a "Diplom" degree means that if you want to stand out you have to aim for a "Doktor". (I use "Diplom" and "Doktor" here since the mentioned fraud-cases stem from a time without bachelors and masters) - that's the easy explanation. Here in the homeland of schadenfreude, the zeal for unmasking academic frauds also reflects certain Teutonic traits, including a rigid adherence to principle and a know-it-all streak. I wouldn't subscribe to the word "fetish" but there is a certain "Teutonic Trait" here and the acadmic fraud cases are just one symptom of something deeper. People in this society, contrary to what many of them claim, feel a deep need for an authority to follow. [...] It's in them to worship authority and to totally rely on it.[...] It makes sense to me that a strong and faithful believer [...], can in his disappointment become so venomous when, as he feels, that authority has failed him. It's this huge disappointment that turns blind obedience into an uncontrolled need for slaughter. - http://www.amazon.com/Sleep-Hitlers-Room-American-ebook/dp/B005WZYWA2 http://www.amazon.com/Sleep-Hitlers-Room-American-ebook/dp/B... (a funny but often stupid book, nonetheless I think here the author has a point on us Germans) A society, keen for authority, provides a reliable way for elite offspring to fill the upper ranks of politics or public service. Our fraternities are almost always tied to one of the two major political parties (SPD or CDU). While beeing a great asset for students after graduation (Alumni-Network) their main service for that offspring is to use all the dirty tricks to get you your (law) diploma. Since these student bodies are very old and established, they often fill the ranks of the personnel in the universities. They might be the ones doing the evaluation of your thesis. They can provide you with the tests beforehand and even if they can't they usually keep log of every test written by a professor, so they can provide you at least with a good approximation of future tests. It doesn't wonder that there's an established market for ghostwriters providing you those titles, since you have so many people using that "reliable path to power" that don't seek the academic or professional acceptance at all. Most of Germany's politicians are lawyers and most of them never seen a court from the inside. For me, this Title-Thing is a teutonic trait but it's not tied to genes but tied to culture. And culture can change. This German Title-Mania is getting less. For instance, you don't have to own a "Meister"-Title to open up certain businesses anymore since recently. How this disposal of the "Meisterpflicht" (allowance to open a business is tied to having a Meister-Title, by law) came upon, though, tells about the difference between Germany and the US: It wasn't a succesful grassroot kind of story, demanding personal/economic freedom, but an order from the EU. And the sentence "an order from above" sums up pretty much every German right or freedom we were entitled to during our history. That makes us prone to dislinkg "game-changers" because, if you spent time obeying the rules, you won't loose on that investment by letting others take shortcuts. This translates to less career changers than in the US, and a higher stigma if you do. It translates to total absence of entrepreneurs or acclaimed business people from entering a political race, because social envy gives them no cance there. This translates to parts of our Acadamia being a thought free market of status. We don't have an american culture of self-education. And the term "Populärwissenschaft", scientists releasing books for the masses, is considered an insult in German Acadamia.

16s 14y ago

They are academic royalty, however, God did not give them royal divinity, Universities did. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_right_of_kings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_right_of_kings

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

rmk2 14y ago

This article seems to not mention another important fact for Schavan: If she loses the Doctorate, she will not have any degree whatsoever. The Doctorate is the only degree she ever did, she does not hold a Magister. (→ Grundständige Promotion) The English wikipedia entry has that added by now, however, it doesn't list any sources...so in that sense: http://www.heise.de/tp/blogs/8/153683 http://www.heise.de/tp/blogs/8/153683 & http://www.wiwo.de/politik/deutschland/plagiatsaffaere-ohne-doktor-haette-schavan-nur-noch-abitur/7255390.html http://www.wiwo.de/politik/deutschland/plagiatsaffaere-ohne-... edit: Also, leave it to a right-wing Prof. Dr. from Munich to call all Germans crypto-fascist because of their degree fixation. Oh, the irony... → https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corps_Rhenania_Freiburg https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corps_Rhenania_Freiburg

cmarschner 14y ago
She will still have a honorary doctorate of 4 universities, so technically she is still Dr.h.c.mult.
- rmk2 14y ago
  Yes, but for any other purpose, she will not have a degree that proves her own qualifications.

rbanffy 14y ago

I think our discussion focused on the degrees themselves misses the point. What we see here is plain dishonest conduct. Not having a PhD is acceptable. Plagiarism is not - and shouldn't be.

anovikov 14y ago

Any formal system like that is bad because it's too easy to hack - and that's what they got. Good for America that you don't care much about degrees. After all, a day's long test task is enough to separate good candidates from bad for everything except maybe senior management positions.