Page - 91 - in Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918 - A Social History of a Multilingual Space

Chapter 3 ♦  91 the nature of the contacts between Cisleithanian universities with different languages of instruction changed, such contacts were maintained. For exam- ple, Cisleithanian universities prepared joint legislative initiatives and joint petitions. Here, shared interests played a larger role than cultural differences, and the faculties spoke mostly with one voice. Further, I look at the implementation of university autonomy and the effect it had on the structure of academic space. The Ministry of Education, as I will show, still meddled with nominations but mostly served as a reg- ulative body that had to take the whole empire into consideration. This pertained in the first place to disciplines that were awarded their own chairs and to habilitations, where ministerial decrees influenced disciplinary spe- cialization. The ministry often criticized specialization and requested that Privatdozenten cover a broader area of teaching. Similarly, appointments, es- pecially for full professorships, had to take into account their effects on other universities: organizational, financial, and symbolic. Since the universities, which were well informed about ministerial decisions, used developments in other parts of the empire to support their own demands, the ministry had to be cautious about its every step. Not unlike in cultural politics, this strengthened conservative policies. The Ministerial Interregnum: The Unterrichtsrath and the Realization of Autonomy With Thun-Hohenstein’s resignation from the position of minister of re- ligion and education, universities were for a short time administered by Joseph Alexander Helfert. In 1863 Helfert was dismissed, and the govern- ment founded the Unterrichtsrath, based on French models and composed of selected Cisleithanian academics. This now became the key body in uni- versity affairs, tasked with preparing expert reports on academic matters, and was an important intermediary for the minister of state, who signed all papers before they reached Franz Joseph.4 The idea that professors would oversee appointment procedures not only led to the replacement of the Ministry of Education by the Unterrichtsrath in the short term but also re- sulted in a considerable symbolic enhancement of universities’ position in the decision-making process in the long run. The Unterrichtsrath was not an authoritative institution, as Thun-Hohenstein envisioned the ministry to be, but rather a consultative body offering expertise on university proposals.