Ten Year Anniversary of TANDEM Mentoring Programs

 

Anniversary Symposium on the Subject of the Gender Gap

TANDEM Mentoring Programs at RWTH Aachen Celebrate Ten Year Anniversary

On the occasion of the festivities marking the ten year anniversary of TANDEM Mentoring Programs in Medicine, the RWTH Aachen Faculty of Medicine hosted a symposium on the subject “A Gender Gap in Medical School!?” on November 18, 2016, in order to discuss the fact that women tend to be underrepresented in positions of leadership at university. Daniela Jansen, chairwomen of the committee for women, gender equality and emancipation at the legislative assembly of North Rhine-Westphalia, also came to greet and address the audience.

Promoting the careers and development of junior talent is one of the central tasks of the Faculty of Medicine at RWTH Aachen. In order to increase the percentage of women in leading positions at medical school for the long term, the Faculty of Medicine ten years ago established TANDEMplusMED – the mentoring program to support female academics in planning and developing their scientific careers on the path to a professorship.

Over the years, two further programs have been added as well: TANDEMmed for female students who have completed the Basic Medical Examination and TANDEMpeerMED, which also supports men during the first years of their scientific careers.

 

Important Contribution to Promoting Female Talent in the Sciences and Academia

The results of empirical studies were at the basis of the lectures given by scholars from all around Germany. These findings provided valuable input and ideas for action with regard to existing or new measures of promoting the careers of women at the Faculty of Women.

Daniela Jansen, chairwoman of the committee for women, gender equality, and emancipation at the NRW legislative assembly, remarked on the importance of the mentoring programs in her welcome address: “Mentoring programs that are specifically tailored to promote female young academic talent work to counteract the phenomenon that the percentage of women in academic leadership positions still keeps decreasing with every step in the hierarchy, despite their being highly qualified. RWTH Aachen's Tandem Mentoring Programs and specifically the mentoring programs at the Faculty of Medicine, offer key contributions and I very much applaude them for that.”

Professor Stefan Uhlig, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and member of the board at Uniklinik RWTH Aachen, emphasized: “Even though we have initiated and expanded a multitude of gender equalitiy measures over the last years – from the TANDEM Mentoring programs to doctoral scholarships and grants, from KidsBox, the mobile parent-child-room to emergency childcare – there still is much to do. Our objective is to prepare many of our female students and scientific staff to take on responsibiltiy in leadership positions in the future.

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