Students shouldn’t just sit at a table together – they should be involved in building that table. In the thirteenth episode of our podcast, Dr Stephanie Rottmeier talks to Ira Helten about student participation at universities. In the conversation, they talk about how students can help to shape life at university and how they can get involved. They also discuss what universities should take into account to facilitate student participation.
Ira Helten was the first student member of the European University Viadrina Presidential Board. She represented the student perspective at the highest level, took part in the Board meetings and brought in the students’ point of view regarding key decisions made by the university management, thereby improving the communication between students and the management.
Ira Helten is studying Digital Entrepreneurship at the European New School of Digital Studies.
Time stamps
| 01:07 | While you were in office, you helped shape a number of developments at your university. What surprised you most when you took up office? |
| 03:54 | What does student participation look like to you? And where do you see the greatest potential for that participation? |
| 08:37 | What stops students from getting involved and contributing? And how can we reach those who haven’t got involved yet? |
| 16:25 | What would you like to see in terms of cooperation between the university management, student councils and the group of students who aren’t yet established on a committee in any way and aren’t on a student council either? |
| 19:06 | If there were one thing at the university you could change tomorrow right away, what would it be, and why? |
Transparency note
- Recorded using riverside.fm
- Post-production: Audacity, Adobe Audition, Claude Opus 4.7
- Transcript: Claude Opus 5 (author’s post-processing)
- Cover foto: costello77,123rf.com
- Translation Transcript: DEEPL Free Version (edited by our editorial team)
- Translation intro text: Fa Nowak, Regensburg
Suggestion for citation of this blog post
Rottmeier, S. (2026, August 13). Student participation – Shaping higher education together. Lehrblick – ZHW Uni Regensburg. https://doi.org/10.5283/ZHW.20260813.EN
