Seite - 114 - in Universities in Imperial Austria, 1848–1918 - A Social History of a Multilingual Space

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;