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114 ♦ Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918
who pulled the strings in the ministry but was not visible in the official
documents, although this would seem rather improbable.
University Autonomy and Its Enemies:
The Road of the Terna
With the abandonment of the Vormärz practice of standardized open con-
tests (Conkursverfahren), appointment procedures usually took several
months, with several steps between the formation of the proposal commis-
sion and Franz Joseph’s signature. Still, for several years after 1848 faculties
turned to open contests in order to prepare proposals, which suggests that
lesser-known scholars would also have had the opportunity to be included in
the proposal; reliance on the faculties’ own information would have reduced
such scholars’ chances.106 In later years, however, this practice was aban-
doned, and in 1875 Stremayr finally explicitly forbade holding contests for
the chair of geography in L’viv and requested that the regulations on faculty
proposals be followed, emphasizing faculty autonomy regarding the way in
which they chose scholars for the terna.107
The procedures for nominations were strictly regulated, leading to dis-
sent not only within commissions but also among intermediaries between
the commission and the ministry. In the first place, the faculty (in which full
professors were always in the absolute majority, while the Privatdozenten
were represented by only two scholars) chose representatives to form a
commission, which then prepared the proposal. A commission typically
consisted of three full professors in the discipline in question and/or neigh-
boring disciplines, and this directed the process in a particular disciplinary
direction from the beginning. Although this method confined the choice to
scholars known to the commission members, the faculties strove to ensure
variety by advertising new positions in the press and through their own
personal networks. In many cases, as soon as a position was made public, or
even as soon as the death of the holder of a chair was announced, scholars
directed letters to the faculty proposing themselves or their students for the
position.108 While many letters found their way to the commissions, it is
imaginable that most of this correspondence did not, making it impossible
to trace any patterns.109
Once the commission had prepared a proposal, the faculty voted on its
content. In crucial cases, experts in the field were asked for their opinions;
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book Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918 - A Social History of a Multilingual Space"
Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918
A Social History of a Multilingual Space
- Title
- Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918
- Subtitle
- A Social History of a Multilingual Space
- Author
- Jan Surman
- Publisher
- Purdue University Press
- Location
- West Lafayette
- Date
- 2019
- Language
- English
- License
- PD
- ISBN
- 978-1-55753-861-1
- Size
- 16.5 x 25.0 cm
- Pages
- 474
- Keywords
- History, Austria, Eduction System, Learning
- Categories
- Geschichte Vor 1918
Table of contents
- List of Illustrations vi
- List of Tables vii
- Acknowledgments ix
- Note on Language Use, Terminology, and Geography xi
- Abbreviations xiii
- Introduction A Biography of the Academic Space 1
- Chapter 1 Centralizing Science for the Empire 19
- Chapter 2 The Neoabsolutist Search for a Unified Space 49
- Chapterr 3 Living Out Academic Autonomy 89
- Chapter 4 German-Language Universities between Austrian and German Space 139
- Chapter 5 Habsburg Slavs and Their Spaces 175
- Chapter 6 Imperial Space and Its Identities 217
- Chapter 7 Habsburg Legacies 243
- Conclusion Paradoxes of the Central European Academic Space 267
- Appendix 1 Disciplines of Habilitation at Austrian Universities 281
- Appendix 2 Databases of Scholars at Cisleithanian Universities 285
- Notes 287
- Bibliography 383
- Index 445