A
professorial career in Germany is a matter of significant distinction, and in
principle it is or was reserved only for the very best performers in a given
class of students. The first step usually would be for a professor to select
from among the students one or two as his personal assistant. These would
assist in the teaching program, conducting of labs as well as in the personal
research program of the professor. Eventually they would have to go through the
process of “habilitation” which involved documentation of excellence in
teaching and research. The final step of this process usually was a public,
scientific lecture where the entire professorial membership attended, in addition
to anyone else in the faculty, and where the candidate was mercilessly grilled
and questioned in the end.
There is no
such equivalent process in Canada: I was astonished to find that basically
every graduate student in Canada expected to not only obtain his PhD degree but
also find a position as an Assistant Professor in an academic department and
from the beginning start his very own research program: no habilitation
process, no special tests of teaching ability or related qualities. In Canada,
of course there was or is no strong pharmaceutical industry where chemists,
pharmacists and pharmacologists would find employment – while in Germany the
majority of such graduates would happily end up in these types of industrial
positions. And the professors mostly would have some lucrative consultant
appointments with industry, thus assuring a healthy and productive interaction
between academic teaching and research and the needs of the country's industry.
Now, it
became evident to most of us students in Germany that individual ability and
excellence were not the only factors that determined whether or not a given
student would be picked by a professor and channelled into the process of
“habilitation”. It appeared that many of those privileged to end up in such a
distinguished career had a familial link: their father or other close relative
already was a professor! During one of our lab parties, amply fuelled by lab
alcohol, we mulled over this apparent fact, and then one of us asked the
question “how did our own professor then become one of that elite” - and it was
revealed that actually his wife was the daughter of a well known Heidelberg
professor!
Bingo:
something clicked in my mind! Quite honestly, I always thought that it would be
the height of professionally development for me to enter a professorial career
– but I neither felt that I was a top student in among my class peers, and of
course I had zero familial linkage to anyone in this line of work. It was also
not thinkable to actually tell anyone that one wanted to become a professor:
that would sound like saying “I want to become an important person”, an act of
immodesty. My realistic expectations were clearly to end up in the
chemical/pharmaceutical industry in Germany, and preferably actually in
Switzerland in closer proximity to my beloved mountains. My eventual choices
and opportunities developed through my postdoctoral time in Canada, and my
previous one-year stint, while still a student, at Gettysburg College in
Pennsylvania. It kind of all fell into place.
But at or
after the above mentioned lab party I had this idea of playing a little joke: I
discussed it with my friend Juergen: I would place an ad in the Frankfurter
Allgemeine, the largest German newspaper. The ad read something like
“Seeking marriage with a professor's
daughter for the purpose of habilitation”.
(Suche Heirat
mit Professorentochter zwecks Habiliation)
That summed
up our feelings perfectly! It took about a week and I got the first of three
responses:
Response 1:
A blond,
athletic, good looking professor's daughter from Wuerzburg answered and voiced
interest in meeting. She loved tennis, skiing etc.etc. She did not mention rock
climbing – but you can't really expect everything, right? I got excited – how much better could it get!
I answered and openly stated my reservations: everything sounding just too good
and exciting so that I suspected treason. Sure enough, she sent another letter
(remember: no email or cheap telephone in those days) and admitted that it was
a fingered reply, initiated by a friend of Juergen's. However she was supposed
to visit in the area and come to a party, and it would be nice to meet anyway
etc etc – but the party was on a weekend where I had to go to a competition
with the university gymnastics team – and I had my priorities. Juergen told me
later that she was blond but chubby and certainly not an athlete. So, that was
the end of it.
Response 2:
A medical
student from Marburg, while on night duty in the hospital, had run across my ad
and responded to it. She said that she had a good laugh because this ad summed
up the general feelings about the issue and she appreciated the courage of
someone putting it so bluntly. She was not a professor's daughter but was very
curious whether this ad was a joke or serious: We met and spent a carnival
night at the University of Marbug student club and she later visited me once in
Goettingen – that was about it. I mean, if she had been a professor’s daughter
– who knows!
Response 3:
That one
arrived within a week of the ad appearing in the paper: I came home very late
from evening work in the lab on a Thursday night and found a letter in my
mailbox. A lady stated bluntly that she felt that this ad was either extremely
poignant or cunning. She had no interest in looking for a relationship, but she
was extremely curious who would write such an ad, AND she actually happened to
be the daughter of a professor right here in Darmstadt – although, as she
pointed out, that was beside the point. So, if the author of the ad was in any
way serious about this she would want to find out what type of a person would
do this and she was interested in meeting – but requested that as a
confirmation she would be looking for an ad under musical instruments saying
“Steinway for sale” in the Friday edition of the paper. Then she would write
back and “reveal” herself!
Man, I
started trembling all over and then realized that it probably was too late to
place that ad: I ran to a telephone booth outside and called the newspaper –
and indeed it was too late (at 11 pm at night) for placing ads in next day's
paper. I did place an ad for Saturday – but nothing happened and I never was
able, of course, to establish any contact with that woman. And I was so close!
Eventually I stopped trembling.
Postscript: At the end of each year “Angewandte Chemie”, Germany's most important
chemical journal, always published a number of bloopers, funny stories and the
like in a special column. This of course always made for good reading – and one
of my student colleagues mentioned during a coffee break that my ad was quoted
there: I was both stunned and pleased – and we all had a good laugh when I then
revealed to my colleagues who the author of that ad was.
To this
date I regret not having met the professor's daughter from Darmstadt! Let's
assume she was ugly, vicious and had stained teeth and a big piple smack on her
nose!
HPB
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