More than good grades

Producing good work is important to him, says economist Prof. Andreas Pfingsten with a smile. But he is appreciative of students who, in addition to their studies, enjoy art and music or are engaged in voluntary work. As a liaison professor, Pfingsten mentored many a year scholarship holder from the German Academic Scholarship Foundation. He draws on his experience to take a closer look at individual courses of study. Some students, he says, need to be advised to look further afield and not just at good grades; others need to be warned about taking on too much. Pfingsten, who was principal liaison lecturer at Münster from 2004 to 2023, is especially pleased when he sees that most students are not wonks. He has observed, he says, that “many of them have more than one voluntary job. And I enjoy concentrating on each individual and thinking about whether what this person is planning makes sense.” His work also includes proposing gifted students for a scholarship, supporting various selection procedures as an assessor, and taking an active role heading working groups for the Foundation in its summer academy.

Every semester, Pfingsten takes scholarship holders to concerts at the University or to a museum. The Picasso Museum in Münster is as much one of his favourites as the Sandstone Museum in Havixbeck is, where he lives, because the material is so typical of the region. The groups who accompany him consist of around 15 students; there are currently about 420 scholarship holders at Münster University – and being one of them is a privilege. The Foundation does its best make this privilege also available to students from non-academic backgrounds, as Pfingsten points out.

During his studies of industrial engineering and management at the University of Karlsruhe, he benefited from support from the Foundation. In 1997 he moved from the University of Siegen to Münster, and soon afterwards he took up his work as liaison lecturer. Last year the Foundation showed its appreciation of all his work by awarding him the Daidalos Coin. “All my former scholarship holders were invited to the presentation,” he reports. “And among them were a husband and wife who met in my group and have since pursued two successful careers and raised children. Some current scholarship holders organised a first-class musical programme to accompany the ceremony.”

Andreas Pfingsten has been undertaking teaching and research in Business Administration at Münster University for 30 years now – as a Senior Professor since 2024. Every semester, around 800 students attend his lectures in Lecture Hall H1. “Such a large group will only listen if you’re authentic,” says the popular professor, who has made a habit of inserting light-hearted elements into his lectures, for example with personal anecdotes. Many graduates recognise their former teacher outside the University. Whenever anyone approaches him – as recently happened during a breakfast in Café 1648 – it doesn’t bother him at all. On the contrary: “It even happened once while I was on holiday in Italy, and I’m delighted when it happens. Nevertheless, I chose to live a bit further out, where I’m simply a neighbour or just one of the members of the local sports club.”

Talking of sport: at the Finance Center Münster, students have the opportunity to take part in a seminar outside the University. A typical day in such a seminar which takes place with around 30 people in a self-catering house – consists of meals taken together, skiing and two or three talks followed by discussions in which the students present and defend their seminar papers.

A small metallic figure on Pfingsten’s desk in the Juridicum reveals another, very different, activity which he pursued for many years. The figure represents a DJ at his turntables. From 2006 to 2023 he could be found once a year at the mixing desk in a club. It was no coincidence that Andreas Pfingsten was a DJ from the very first ‘Night of the Profs’: “The guy who started up the series had been one of my students and he asked me if I wanted to join in,” he recalls.

Brigitte Heeke

This article is from the brochure "Twelve months, twelve people", published in February 2025.

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