MT: As academic director, you have designed numerous programmes, such as the master's degree course in Archival Science or Archives in the Information Age. What was the most formative moment or the biggest challenge for you in developing these programmes?

SF: The biggest challenge was certainly the transfer of the originally postgraduate distance learning programme for university graduates, who were able to obtain an archival diploma in two years while working, into the continuing education master's programme in Archival Science. As part of the implementation of the Bologna Process, we were able to develop a six-semester programme that explicitly addresses this clientele as a target group. The course started with 24 students in the 2007/08 winter semester. We open a new course every two years and demand has risen steadily, which is why some of the academic years are filled with 35 students. In 2015 and 2023, the programme was successfully re-accredited and its content was further developed accordingly.

MT: What makes your continuing education programmes so special and how do they stand out from other offers on the market?

SF: The University of Applied Sciences Potsdam is the only university in Germany to offer a degree programme in archives. This applies to both the Bachelor's degree programme in direct study, the distance learning archive course for media and information services specialists and the continuing education master's in archival science. The latter is a particularly attractive alternative for applicants who have already completed a university degree, in some cases a doctorate and already work in archives, to the internal administrative career path at the Marburg School of Archives. We therefore have a monopoly position in part-time archive qualification, which is vital for this target group. Only by obtaining a master's degree do students have a chance of obtaining permanent management positions. Upon successful completion, the labour market is open to graduates. This is because the relevant qualifications in the field of digital archives and digital long-term archiving at the Department of Information Science in particular are highly recognised in the specialist community.

MT: Are there any particular experiences or success stories of participants in your programmes that have inspired you?

SF: Yes, there certainly are. Many of our graduates have made a career for themselves, such as Dr Stefan Schr?der, who has been a consultant for municipal archive consulting and private archive preservation at the LWL Archive Office for Westphalia in M¨¹nster since 2017 and works for us as a lecturer. The women were also able to get off to a flying start after completing their master's degree. In 2019, for example, Rebecca Hernandez Garcia succeeded the long-standing director of the Robert Havemann Society Archive in Berlin. She recently became the society's managing director. Another of our graduates, Christoph Stamm, is now head of the archive. These are just a few examples of the many success stories that would not have been possible without the master's degree.

MT: In a constantly changing world of work and with changing learning behaviour - how do you ensure that the programmes you develop meet current and future requirements?

SF: As I said, the continuing education master's programme is regularly re-accredited and this ensures that the content is constantly adapted to current requirements. However, this is a matter of course for the Department of Information Sciences anyway. After all, we always have our finger on the pulse of digitisation, which means that the "Archives in the Information Age" programme, which has been run in cooperation with the FU Berlin's Centre for Continuing Education since 2008, is of course structured and structured differently today. The use of artificial intelligence in archives will be a major topic in the future; we will also develop formats for this and implement them in our continuing education programmes.

MT: What goals do you have for the programmes you are running in the coming years? Will there be new courses and what topics can we look forward to?

SF: The transfer between theory and practice takes place at a high level in all of our continuing education programmes, as the participants contribute their practical experience to the discussion. On the other hand, all lecturers are always up to date with the latest research due to the constant exchange in the archive community, so that there is a win-win situation for students, participants and lecturers. I am particularly pleased that we have succeeded in launching a new continuing education programme together with ZEW and the Vereinigung der Wirtschaftsarchivare und Wirtschaftsarchivarinnen e.V., which starts on 10 December. The programme is an important building block of further archival training for business archives, which are often staffed by career changers. This will add an important element to our portfolio and will please the professional world, as qualified staff are urgently needed! In terms of content, digital archives and digital long-term archiving, but also interdisciplinary networking and finally, as already mentioned, AI will shape new further education programmes. There are still many challenges ahead of us, but that is also the attraction of a dynamic university with a professional continuing education programme!

The interview was conducted by Mustafa Turna.

Photo: Contract ceremony for the continuing education project Introduction to Business Archiving with Prof. Dr Susanne Freund, ZEW and the Association of Business Archivists.