Education's Corporate Sponsors
October 17, 2006
Up until now the bland, concrete lecture hall at the Würzburg-Schweinfurt University of Applied Sciences in Bavaria, had a purely functional name: "Z-O9." The winter semester has just begun, and the room will soon get a facelift and a new name, courtesy of Aldi Süd, the ubiquitous discount supermarket chain, whose familiar geometric logo in southern Germany is royal blue, turquoise and bright orange.
The door to "Z-09" will be painted orange, and one wall in the lecture hall, which has a seating capacity for 290 engineering and business students, will bear an enlarged corporate logo in blue and white stripes against a silver-grey background. The only other visible sign of the technical university's sponsor will be a small plaque at the entrance that says "Aldi Süd."
"They wanted it to be totally discreet," said Katja Klein, a spokeswoman for the college. Not surprisingly, even Klein has no idea how much Aldi paid for the privilege of having its name branded in the halls of academia. Even the renovation costs remain a closely guarded secret.
The owners of Aldi, brothers Karl and Theo Albrecht, who have carved up the supermarket empire between them along a north/south divide in Germany, are known for being reclusive, publicity shy billionaires. This week the brothers topped Manager Magazin's list of Germany's wealthiest individuals, with a net worth of 16 billion euros ($20 billion) apiece.
Corporate sponsorships new to Germany
"Aldi has been involved with the college for years, and the idea to sponsor the lecture hall was theirs," was all that Klein could say.
The Bavarian state ministry sees no conflict in corporate sponsorships for schools and universities.
"We welcome business involvement in the educational sphere. Companies benefit from academic research, and the colleges gain a practical business perspective," said a press release.
"State financed trade schools and vocational colleges have complete autonomy in seeking private sources of funding. There is no government oversight, as long as private companies don't advertise their wares. But they know their limits," said Markus Gnad, a spokesman for Bavaria's ministry for science, research and the arts.
Although corporate sponsors and private patrons for the arts and education are common practice in the United States, with donations that can run into hundreds of thousands of dollars, the trend is relatively new to Germany, and so far, with few, if any strings attached.
Win-win situation
In March this year, lecture hall D-001 at the Georg Simon Ohm Fachhochschule, a technical university in Nuremberg, was renamed the Staedtler Hall after the locally based Staedtler Mars GmbH, a leading manufacturer of writing instruments.
"They were our first sponsor ever. Now we have two more. There's only a small plaque at the entrance with the company name, nothing more," said Elke Zapf, spokeswoman for the school, who declined to disclose the amount the sponsors paid for the right to hang their shingle at the door.
The school is state supported, with the private funds earmarked for general educational purposes decided on by the college, not the sponsor, said Zapf, who added that the exposure for the company enhances their profile among potential job seekers.
At Würzburg-Schweinfurt, which also has a second sponsor for another lecture hall, the Sparkasse Mainfranken savings bank, the proceeds from the sponsorships will go towards modernizing and upgrading the school's facilities.
"For the companies and the school, it is a win-win situation. With increasing international and domestic competition among companies to recruit the best graduates, it pays for the companies to increase their profile. Our long term goal is to attract even more firms for such lecture hall sponsorships," said Klein.