Heidelberg University Prize to Commemorate Student Killed in Shooting
Joint Press Release
23 June 2022
Joint initiative by University, Constituted Student Body and Doctoral Convention
The memory of the student killed in a gun attack at Heidelberg University on 24 January 2022 is to be upheld with a prize established by the University together with the Constituted Student Body and the Doctoral Convention. In coordination with her family, the Dean of the Faculty of Biosciences and the bodies representing the students and doctoral candidates, the Rectorate has decided to organise an annual community day for first-year students of biosciences, to conclude with the academic awarding of the Marie Luise Jung Prize. It will be presented to an outstanding female Master’s graduate who aspires to earn a doctorate and remain in research. According to her family, the 23-year-old student who was killed had expressed the wish to embark on such an academic career.
Prof. Dr Bernhard Eitel, Rector of Heidelberg University, states: “With great commiseration and sympathy for the family of the deceased student we have agreed on a format with which we can establish the memory of Marie Luise Jung at the University for a long time to come. As a strong sign of our University community I welcome the organising and financing of the prize together with students and doctoral candidates from the University.”
The University, on the one hand, and the Constituted Student Body and Doctoral Convention, on the other, will each finance half of the prize. Decisions to this effect have now been taken in the Rectorate of Ruperto Carola as well as in the governing bodies of the Constituted Student Body and the Doctoral Convention. To this end, the University will set up a fund to be endowed – initially for ten years – with a total of 15,000 euros. The Student Council and Doctoral Convention have decided to establish a fund of the same amount, so that the prize worth 1,500 euros can be awarded annually over a period of initially 20 years.
The Marie Luise Jung Prize is to be awarded for the first time at the end of April 2023. An artistic form of commemoration for all the members of the University affected by the shooting will be found in the course of reconstructing and refurbishing the lecture hall and building in which the gun attack took place.