Heinz Mon­nartz in the News

Trans­lat­ed Version

60-years old FH spon­sor awards schol­ar­ship to students

Aachen. In prin­ci­ple Mr. Heinz Mon­nartz was a „Stu­dent de Luxe“, and this was not for­got­ten by the Man­ag­ing Direc­tor of the com­pa­ny „Qual­i­ty Automa­tion“ in Stol­berg. Where­as many of his fel­low stu­dents at the FH Aachen have to work as serv­er in night­shifts or dur­ing the day as tem­po­rary staff at com­pa­nies of the region to finance their stud­ies he is lucky in hav­ing an employed wife aside.

On the occa­sion of his 60 years birth­day not so long ago he com­mem­o­rates the time more than 30 years ago and his fel­low stu­dents who need one or two semes­ters more due to their side­line jobs. That cre­ates an as much pret­ty as mean­ing­ful gift idea, a lucky stu­dent and a posi­tion in the chron­i­cle of the FH Aachen as first pri­vate spon­sor of a schol­ar­ship holder.

Once a year stu­dents of the FH can apply for one of the most trea­sured Ger­man schol­ar­ships in the inter­net. Start­ing in 2009 the FH award­ed 30 schol­ar­ships, last year they assigned already 70. „The ten­den­cy is increas­ing,“ says Car­oli­na Get­to, Fundrais­ing-agent of the head­mas­ter of the FH. One can trans­late her func­tion as: „fund-rais­er“, but that does not sound as elegant.

The appli­ca­tions – approx­i­mate­ly 400 in 2013 – end up at a selec­tion com­mit­tee that besides the course achieve­ment also eval­u­ates the social engage­ment of the can­di­dates in and out­side of the university.

For one year the stu­dent who achieves one of the front posi­tions does not have as much finan­cial wor­ries as before. The spon­sor pays 1800 Euro to an account of the FH, the con­fed­er­a­cy again con­tributes the same amount with­in the scope of its schol­ar­ship pro­gram. From these 3600 Euro 300 Euro will be trans­ferred to the account of the schol­ar­ship hold­er month­ly for one year.

Nor­mal­ly com­pa­nies come to the aid of the young aca­d­e­mics. The com­pa­ny „Qual­i­ty Automa­tion“ in Stol­berg, which prod­ucts among oth­er things are used when pro­duc­ing mobile dis­plays or OLED-tele­vi­sion sets has already spon­sored two schol­ar­ship holders.

That is not entire­ly unselfish. „We pre­pare sev­er­al projects togeth­er with the FH“, says Heinz Mon­nartz, „above all in the scope of Bach­e­lor- and Mas­ter exams,“ Maybe the schol­ar­ship hold­er of today will become the qual­i­fied employ­ee of tomor­row. 40 % of his staff are for­mer FH-students.

Regard­ing the mat­ter of self-inter­est the biggest part of the com­pa­ny dona­tions goes to study cours­es like infor­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy, mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing, con­struc­tion engi­neer­ing that means cours­es, where the demand for good grad­u­ates exceeds the offer by far, says FH ‑assis­tant Car­oli­na Getto.

The schol­ar­ship lasts one year, there is no wait­ing list. The stu­dent not get­ting a schol­ar­ship has to apply again just like already act­ing schol­ar­ship hold­ers who have to qual­i­fy again at the end of the spon­sored year. 

Once a year – usu­al­ly in Novem­ber – the spon­sor and the schol­ar­ship hold­er meet each oth­er on the occa­sion of a cer­e­mo­ny in the coro­na­tion hall of the town-hall in Aachen. After friends, col­leagues and rel­a­tives had already come up to the expec­ta­tions of the per­son cel­e­brat­ing a jubilee in quite pleas­ant dimen­sion Wilma and Heinz Mon­nartz met “their” schol­ar­ship hold­er in Novem­ber 2013 per­son­al­ly for the first time.

The schol­ar­ship hold­er John Küsters comes from Vre­den in the Mün­ster­land, stud­ies elec­tri­cal engi­neer­ing at the FH Aachen and at present writes his bach­e­lor exam in the field of auto­mat­ic con­trol engi­neer­ing. As his per­for­mances are good and as he gets besides that involved with the duty as sub­ject tutor it is not his first scholarship. 

What needs a stu­dent not liv­ing at home month­ly? The basic costs go from 650 to 700 Euro, esti­mates Mr. Küsters. „But with that you haven´t either drunk a cof­fee nor go to the cin­e­ma.” Not talk­ing about tech­ni­cal books. 

Thus a schol­ar­ship is a very pleas­ant mat­ter. „One can con­cen­trate on the stud­ies more.“ 

„Many peo­ple in Aachen live on the stu­dents“, says Heinz Mon­nartz, who hopes for imi­ta­tors just as Car­oli­na Get­to of the FH. „It is high time to return something.“ 

The pure finan­cial con­tact at first now mean­while becomes friend­ship. „We are on first-name terms by now“, reveal Wilma and Heinz Mon­nartz not with­out proud. For deep­en­ing the rela­tion­ship with “their” schol­ar­ship hold­er a bar­be­cue is planned next.