Even before the first question, Susanne Gerull makes it clear that her plans for retirement are very different from what most people seem to expect from her. She doesn't want to carry on in the same way as before. She wants to read, cycle and make music. She is not afraid of losing her importance after leaving, but is looking forward to what is to come!
Accordingly, in contrast to her everyday life as a professor, the leisure component is not neglected in this interview, in which questions are asked by colleagues and thus companions.
To kick things off, we look back on an impressive career with Marion Mayer'squestion, she wants to know:
You know ASH Berlin from different roles and functions. You were a student, doctoral candidate, lecturer, advisor and university teacher. In all of these roles, you have always had a strong connection to social work and its issues and developments. What should definitely be retained in the social work curriculum?
I think it's important that the social work degree course continues to pursue a generalist approach and at the same time allows students to specialize or focus on specific topics through elective courses. The project modules should also be retained, as they offer the opportunity to work on a topic in depth over a longer period of time. At the same time, they encourage students to help shape teaching and to develop and try out creative didactic methods.
This is also where Silke Gahleitner comes in:
How did you develop the desire to enter the field of teaching and research from a practical background?
After almost 15 years, I realized that certain questions about the practice of social work could not be answered with our everyday professional knowledge. By chance, at the time of my general desire for change in the year 2000, there was a planned district merger. the planned district merger my social housing support team in the Mitte district office was concerned with a technical question: does our outreach work - unique in Berlin - really achieve the goal of preventing housing losses more effectively than the usual official communal structure? This was later one of the central questions of my dissertation... and the answer, by the way, is YES.
One of the focal points of Gerull's academic work is the topic of poverty. A term that at times experienced an irritating kind of glorification in Berlin, which Esther Lehnert recalls and asks:
There is this stupid saying by Wowereit: "Berlin, poor but sexy!" What does it take to make dealing with poverty more attractive again for the discipline of social work?
Poverty, social inequality and the resulting processes of exclusion and stigmatization are present in almost all fields of social work. In my seminars on the topic of poverty, students have often experienced aha moments when asked what poverty actually means. This goes far beyond income poverty, which is illustrated by the life situation approach, for example. The next "aha" moment came when they realized how political this topic is: the mission of social work often only implies treating the symptoms, i.e. the effects of poverty. The fact that poverty and inequality are also based on social structures that are politically desired, on the other hand, requires more comprehensive strategies from social workers, namely the acceptance of the political mandate. The university must therefore make the topic of poverty, and therefore of course also prosperity and wealth, a cross-cutting issue. I was shocked when I systematically looked through all the module handbooks at ASH Berlin a few years ago for the Berlin State Conference on Poverty - I could count the key terms poverty, inequality and corresponding synonyms on one hand.
Social work is the largest degree program at ASH Berlin. Marion Mayer asks appropriately:
What has been a positive aspect of working at ASH Berlin for you? And: What do you see as a (positive) unique selling point of ASH Berlin?
Even as a lecturer, ASH Berlin enabled me to actually put the freedom of teaching and research enshrined in the constitution into practice. When I started as a professor in April 2008, I wanted to remain connected to practice. I was even able to expand this, now in a different role, and also establish constructive contact on an equal footing with the self-advocacy groups of homeless people.
Compared to other universities of social work, ASH Berlin also has very little schooling and encourages students to share responsibility for a successful course of study, as stated in the Learning and Teaching of ASH Berlin.
Esther Lehnert would like to know more about this:
Name three situations in which you were so completely happy at ASH Berlin?
It's hard to pick just three situations. I can think of a few off the top of my head: My first "multimedia exhibition" as a collective presentation of examination results in a seminar many years ago - wow, my idea worked, everyone was blown away by their own results and those of their fellow students! And so am I.
In the area of research, I would like to develop a participatory research project in cooperation with the Master's in Practice Research and the LIGA Berlin to name one. When I finished the 100-page research report in November 2024 based on, among other things, the interview evaluations of 16 students, scientific monitoring by three homeless people and several discussion rounds with practitioners about our results, the happiness hormone dopamine shot through my body: What great, committed and smart students we have at ASH Berlin!
And as a representative of many wonderful collaborations with members of the university, I remember the final meeting of the so-called Reform Commission in the Social Work degree program, which, after 5 years and 44 meetings, virtually popped the champagne corks on February 10, 2021 in the middle of the pandemic: We did it! The current curriculum has made its way through the other committees.
Being happy and healthy... that's certainly what everyone wants - and not just for retirement. Sport will certainly be a means of choice, which is why Marion Mayer wants to know from the enthusiastic cyclist Gerull:
You must have "favorite routes" in or around Berlin. Which two or three cycling tours can you definitely recommend to balance out your working day?
First of all, of course, my fantastic route from Kreuzberg to ASH Berlin to Hellersdorf: after about 3 km almost car-free along the Wuhlewanderweg. Say hello to my gray heron family and Bambi if you see them. Otherwise, ride your racing bike along the Wall Trail along the Teltow Canal out of Berlin via Waßmannsdorf. In summer, make sure you stop off at the Bel Gelato ice cream parlor in Brusendorf.
Silke Gahleitner's good wish, namely "masses of Alpine crossings", is certainly shared by all companions and questioners.
Gute Reise(n), dear Susanne Gerull!
The questions to Susanne Gerull were asked by Silke Gahleitner, Esther Lehnert and Marion Mayer.
Compiled and edited by Denis Demmerle.
