News

Heinz Mon­nartz in the News

An article worth reading about Heinz Monnartz, Managing director of Quality Automation GmbH, and the scholarship programme of the FH Aachen has been published in the Aachener Nachrichten.

An arti­cle worth read­ing about Heinz Mon­nartz, Man­ag­ing direc­tor of Qual­i­ty Automa­tion GmbH, and the schol­ar­ship pro­gramme of the FH Aachen has been pub­lished in the Aach­en­er Nachricht­en. You can find the arti­cel here.

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.