Seite - 51 - in Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918 - A Social History of a Multilingual Space

Chapter 2 ♦  51 universities but retained the paramount role of the Ministry of Religion and Education. Conservative politicians preferred, however, tighter control than the 1849 law provided. The Kremsier Constitution, prepared in 1849 but never implemented, intended to place the universities under the strict control of regional governors.7 Andreas Baumgartner, an influential conservative politician and respected physicist, proposed that the church should have direct control over the universities.8 Yet another project was discussed in 1853, when the minister of the interior, Alexander Bach, and the minister of finance, Phillip Krauß, pleaded for the reinstallment of Studiendirektoren.9 Faced with the tensions between liberal university proposals and conservative desires to tighten the political supervision of universities, Thun- Hohenstein chose a middle way, awarding autonomy to the universities, with the provincial governments and church authorities retaining the right to comment on nominations and with the ministry having the final say.10 He strengthened the faculties by giving them the exclusive right to propose deans and rectors, and he emphasized that he wanted distinguished active professors to be chosen as rectors.11 Thun-Hohenstein, however, opposed the corporate idea of a university as a community of professors, colleges of doctors (Doktoren-Collegien), and students, which the faculties preferred; this was the main discrepancy between the reforms and the faculties’ wishes. Students’ status as a corporation was swiftly removed, and they were subor- dinated primarily to the civil code, with only a few matters remaining under academic jurisdiction.12 University teachers were threatened with sanctions if they did not inform the police of abnormal student absences or of their meetings and associations. From 1849 on, such meetings and associations were usually illegal.13 Similarly, the ministry limited the influence of the Doktoren-Collegien, fiercely criticized as radical organizations trying to “dominate [the universi- ties] anew.”14 After Exner, in his outline of the new legislation, proposed their complete abolition, first Ernst von Feuchtersleben and then Thun-Hohenstein pleaded for some of their functions to be retained. Ultimately, Doktoren- Collegien remained only at the universities in Prague and Vienna, playing a central role in graduating students and proposing rectors but losing the privilege of accrediting graduates for practice.15 In these two cities, the deans of the Doktoren-Collegien remained members of the academic senate, al- though full professors outnumbered them two to one.16 This strengthened autonomy made Habsburg universities into Ordinarienuniversitäten, in other words, universities controlled by full pro- fessors. The new organizational reforms gave full professors the majority