100 years of Ilse Wallentin‘s Dissertation (Agronomy)
In 1924, Ilse Wallentin was the first doctoral student at the BOKU. The Title of her dissertation was „Standweitenversuche mit Coriandrum sativum, Pimpinelle anisum und Digitalis lanata“. In the preface, she thanks Dr. phil. Hermann Kaserer, full professor and head of the Chair of Agricultural Crop Production, for his support.
In 2024, the Institute of Agronomy, as it is now known, is part of the Department of Crop Sciences (DNW). In the eight years between 2016 and 2023, for which all names are available, a total of 45 people completed their doctorate. Of these, 17 were women (37.8 %) and 28 men (62.2 %).
However, Ilse Wallentin would not only be in the best female company among the doctoral students today. The department head (Siegrid Steinkellner) is also female, as are three of the six institute heads (Siegrid Steinkellner, Astrid Forneck and Anna J. Keutgen). Of the 4.5 full-time equivalents (FTEs) in university professorships, there are twice as many female professors (3.0 FTEs) as male professors. A comparison of the FTEs of all DNW employees in 2014 and 2022 shows an increasing proportion of women among both academics and general staff.
Full-time equivalents DNW 2014 | Full-time equivalents DNW 2022 |
66.7 total | 85.9 total |
32.5 female and male scientists (globally and third-party funded), thereof 13.9 women | 51.5 female and male scientists (globally and third-party funded), thereof 24.0 women |
33.2 Admin/Tech, thereof 15.5 women | 33.2 Admin/Tech, thereof 18.6 women |
And who knows, nowadays Ilse Wallentin might even have considered taking a further step and habilitating at the Institute of Agronomy or the Department of Crop Sciences. While 13 scientists were habilitated at the DNW in 2014 (4 of them women), in 2022 there were 15 scientists (5 of them women). Only „Frl. Ing.“ (Fräulein Ingenieur, obsolete German term for Miss), as can be read on the title page of her dissertation, is something she would almost certainly no longer call herself today.
Authors: Klaudia Kremser & Tania Baharyan-Pfeffer
