Lisa Baaske spoke with Dr. Loreen Lesske, the university's family officer, and Dr. Mario Damerow about whether we have reinvented the wheel of family friendliness at OVGU, about the small and large crises in careers with children, and about what is already going really well and what still needs to be improved. He is not only the director of our sports center, but also a dad and is also involved himself, for example with the OVGU Family Bike Day. Together they talked about how well they reconcile family and career at the University of Magdeburg, what support services are available, and why it is so difficult to find a place at a daycare center.

Today's guest

Dr. Loreen Lesske is a lone fighter as a family representative, because the family office at the University of Magdeburg consists of exactly one employee - guess what? That's right, her. For several years now, she has been focusing on the compatibility of work and family at the OVGU, providing advice and implementing new ideas and formats, always with one goal in mind: the university should not only remain a family-friendly place, but become even more so. However, Dr. Lesske not only supports employees and students with children, but also those who are caring for a family member - because there is also support for this at our family office. Detailed information and contact details for the Family Office can be found on the website.

Sport at the university and in the family is clearly on Dr. Mario Damerow's mind. He is the head of the university's sports center and, in addition to this job, a full-time dad of two children. Both jobs require a lot of attention and time and push him to new limits every day. However, he not only uses the services of the family office himself, but also gets involved in making the university more family-friendly, for example with the new project "Family on the Move" and the OVGU Family Bike Day.

*the audio file is only available in German

The Podcast to Read

Intro voice: “Listen in on the University” - The podcast on the world of work at the OVGU.

Lisa Baaske: Welcome to this episode of our podcast from the University for the University! Today it’s all about how family-friendly OVGU really is. Is it possible to balance family life and a career? My name is Lisa Baaske. I’m a trainee with the Press Office. Our guests today are Dr. Loreen Lesske from our Families Office and Dr. Mario Damerow. As well as managing our Sports Center, he is a father and also takes a hands-on role himself by organizing the OVGU Family Bike Day, for example. We’ll be discussing their experiences, the crises large and small as working parents but also what already goes really smoothly and what we could—and perhaps must—still do to become more family-friendly. A warm welcome to you both!

Before we begin, perhaps you could both briefly introduce yourselves. What exactly do you do at the University and, as you are both parents and that is of course today's topic, how many children do you have?

Dr. Loreen Lesske: My name is Loreen Lesske. I’m the University’s Families Officer. So, I ensure that academic and working conditions are family-friendly, and I’m the mother of two children.

Dr. Mario Damerow: My name is Mario Damerow. I manage the Sports Center here at the University and also have two children: My son Max who will start school next year and my daughter Merle who will hopefully get a place at daycare this fall.

Lisa Baaske: For sure, many people are already aware that the University has a Families Office and if not, they are now. Dr. Lesske, could you give us a brief overview of the available support that everyone can make use of theoretically?

Dr. Loreen Lesske: I’d be delighted. So, as I’ve already said, I ensure that all members of OVGU can work and study in a way that’s compatible with family life, i.e., I advise parents-to-be and parents on combining personal and work responsibilities, on career matters, on parental leave. I ensure that there is family-friendly infrastructure on campus. We see that in the parent & child rooms in the various buildings, for example. And I organize events for parents to network with each other like the family brunch, and also the campus vacations. That’s the scope of duties.

Lisa Baaske: So that’s the theory. Perhaps Dr. Damerow can say a bit more about the practical side. As already mentioned, you’re a father who works at OVGU in a managerial position no less. How well does that work?

Dr. Mario Damerow: I’d describe it as a challenge. A challenge insofar as the current situation, even with home working on offer, is certainly a very good way of containing the pandemic. On the other hand, it has of course placed considerably higher demands on those of us at management level in terms of coordinating work tasks and employees, while at the same time reconciling that with the time-intensive care of children who obviously also have their right to our attention accordingly.

Lisa Baaske: Yes, that definitely sounds like a challenge, but what offerings from the Families Office have you already made use of yourself? What has been able to help you combine work and family life?

Dr. Mario Damerow: For one thing, the opportunities that the University offers us—on the one hand, the ability to work from home, on the other hand trusting us to organize our working time flexibly, to get everything done effectively. Then, a very good team, a very good network has formed at the University—consisting of the Families Office, the Families Officer, Health Management, the Office for Sustainability, and the Student Union. And we actually have a powerful team there when it comes to organizing many health offerings as well as lots of family-friendly services. And who, in my opinion, make a great success of getting things off the ground. And I’m personally very excited about the family brunch that we’ll hopefully be able to hold again in some form soon.

Lisa Baaske: I’ll definitely keep my fingers crossed. You’ve already made a slight mention of it: So, you’re also committed yourself to making the University a more family-friendly place. Could you perhaps go into that in more detail? And above all, why is it important to you to get involved yourself?

Dr. Mario Damerow: Now, on the one hand I think it's important that as many people at the University as possible, many employees, get involved. That’s the only way we’ll really get to a point where we can say that the University is very family-friendly, and the University provides lots of family-friendly offerings and opportunities on campus and in the surrounding area. And in this network we organize ourselves in various opportunities—the family bike offerings were already mentioned, which are obviously aimed at the whole family, including children, and we personally have initiated a new project in conjunction with Sports Science and the stakeholders just mentioned: It’s called “Family in Motion” where parents and their children come onto campus to do sport, which is the center of life for many people, do something for their health, maintain social contact with like-minded people, those of a similar age, with employees, with colleagues. And in this respect, we generate various family sport offerings, but also actively shape the campus to that effect, so for example we have a calisthenics facility that has been altered to make it family-friendly, so that children have opportunities to use this facility too.

Lisa Baaske: Dr. Lesske, by having a Families Office at the University we certainly haven’t reinvented the wheel of family-friendliness, but is there a special feature that we have, something which differentiates us from other colleges? Do we do more here together so that the University is a place for families?

Dr. Loreen Lesske: Yes, we certainly haven’t reinvented the wheel. I think advice for parents who are studying or employed is now of a good standard at almost all universities. There’s not always a Families Office or a Families Officer, but the guidance is there most definitely. Flexible working arrangements have also already been established at all universities. Something that certainly has developed very well over the last few years is the network, which Mr. Damerow also touched on. Family-friendliness always only works within a network. If it’s down to that one person, the Families Officer, then the reach is also only very limited. There is only so much time in a working day. But this network of Health Management, Sustainability Office and Sports Center and Families Office has, I think, made the whole topic more mainstream, has also reached a target group that we previously hadn’t addressed at all. And in terms of participation particularly, this year we’re taking part in the third Academical Bicycle Challenge or also with the Family Bike Day, that’s a good contribution for parents to network with each other and also simply to say, hey, you may work here and spend your working time here, but it’s also important to us that you perhaps interact and get together in your leisure time, and that works super well with cycling, for example. That also applies to the other project that Mr. Damerow touched on, “Family in Motion”, that’s also going very well. As such, I think that’s already something that singles us out a little bit at the moment, including from other universities.

Lisa Baaske: This has also been touched upon already: The coronavirus pandemic and juggling work and children is obviously tough. But do you also have the feeling that the coronavirus pandemic has helped us make a little progress in terms of combining personal and work responsibilities, because now flexible working and working from home are no longer a problem after all. What would you say to that?

Dr. Loreen Lesske: I think that when it comes to digitization and flexible working, COVID-19 really has moved us forward well. Perhaps the only positive aspect of this pandemic. (laughs) Especially since we’re now seeing that flexible working hours, flexible working in the workplace, also time spent working from home is also possible for administrative personnel. I think for the academic staff within the faculties that was already normal and possible before, working from home and to work when the time was right. But what we’re now seeing is that suddenly administrative personnel can also work very well from home. I think what’s important in the face of the coronavirus pandemic is that when we’ve eventually overcome it and can get back to a more normal everyday work situation, that we then maintain really important parts of this flexibility and don’t return to a status quo as we had it before.

Dr. Mario Damerow: Yes, I also think that we’ve made clear progress in terms of digitization, Ms. Lesske is completely right about that. I do keep on observing, though, both based on my own experience and from conversations with other employees, that the workload has significantly increased because of digitization. You no longer have the changeover times between individual meetings. The web meetings follow on one after another and that has made the strain considerably higher to process individual items and really get them moving in a targeted way.

Lisa Baaske: I also have the feeling that it’s harder to finish work for the day when you’re working from home, than simply to say: OK, it’s six o’clock now, that’s enough. I believe that’s simply harder to do. What, in your opinion, really needs to improve still so that it’s easier to combine a career and a family at the University? So, what are you personally missing as a mum and dad?

Dr. Mario Damerow: Yes, before I mentioned that I will hopefully have a daycare place for my daughter from November. I haven’t yet had confirmation due to various factors that are just unclear still. I would like the University, which is committed to family-friendliness and is driving forth many support services, to get more involved with childcare, in securing childcare for employees. And there I would also draw the line not just to the employees, but also to the students, because I know from our facility that there are also lots of students there who have childcare who, however, also find the whole thing extremely complicated due to the general conditions, due to the limited daycare hours which then sometimes mean that childcare isn’t available at all on some days. Yes, flexible working hours and working from home are a super story and very practical to fight the pandemic and also open up lots of opportunities; they also have the side effect that lots of work cannot happen at the same time as childcare, so it must then be postponed until late in the evening, so there is no end to the day on some days. And then making the cut, that my working day now ends here and my time for leisure and to relax starts now, that’s often very, very difficult.

Dr. Loreen Lesske: Yes, from my perspective childcare has been a long-burning issue since I’ve been here. I understand that too. It’s the most important thing. To combine a family with a career, family and work, childcare is absolutely vital. What from my perspective as Families Officer still needs to be improved or could be expanded upon are things like the structural embedding of family-friendly measures, that this is thought about as part of all decisions that are being made here. The Families Office consists of one person and that’s me, obviously with assistance in phases of course, but they are there to provide support, and I simply cannot physically sit in on every Senate meeting, committee and board meeting, faculty council to just always keep an eye on this aspect and to say, is that really always in the interests of parents, of families—whether that’s now for students or employees—but that’s important, that someone always thinks about that, because then a whole lot of decisions will be made to ensure that parents are not disadvantaged within the University. That would be hugely important from my perspective, that this is much more embedded within our university than is presently the case.

Lisa Baaske: That certainly sounds reasonable. It’s interesting, too, that the issue of looking for a daycare place was mentioned. That’s a suggestion that we received before this, that there should be support when looking for daycare. And there was also the question of why that hasn’t been the case before, Dr. Lesske?

Dr. Loreen Lesske: Well, it’s not true that there’s nothing at all. I’ve been happy to help with looking for a daycare place here in Magdeburg. The first thing we need to say is that OVGU doesn’t have its own daycare facility. That has been a university decision to date. We have a very good cooperation partner. That’s the Student Union, Mr. Damerow also already spoke about the daycare center, where we work very closely including on daycare places. However, like all daycare centers in the city, this daycare center is just super full, the waiting lists are super long. The daycare centers simply have a shortage of places rather than a need to fill daycare places so that it’s very hard to get in there. However, time and again it emerges that from contact with the daycare centers, parents do typically find a daycare place in Magdeburg—unfortunately not always in their desired daycare center and unfortunately not always at the starting point in time that they need. And especially for, I’d say for employees who start here, who work semesters, it’s important that a daycare place, including settling in, is there when the semester starts. There’s no scope there to be flexible. And on the other side, I see the daycare centers are in difficulty in that they cannot always expand or work in the way they would like. So, I know of daycare facilities that would like to be bigger, who would make more places available, but on the one side we have the city’s requirements planning and on the other side we clearly have a shortage of specialist staff, always looking for childcare workers and without appropriately trained personnel the daycare center doesn’t function either.

Lisa Baaske: OK, so looking for a daycare place—a difficult issue. Have you ever had a point where you thought what the hell am I actually doing here? Nothing ever works! You can only have a career or a child! And if so, how did you manage anyway?

Dr. Loreen Lesske: (laughs) Yes, that is certainly the situation from time to time, even if luckily only briefly, optimism then prevails after all. The whole commitment to family-friendly measures always ultimately comes to an end at the point where superiors, managers, i.e., direct superiors, don’t back this way of life and are not understanding of this life model of balancing personal and work responsibilities, of “I’d now like to do my doctorate, for example, and at the same time be a mother or father.” In that respect, I can provide as much advice, support, and information as I want, if the supervisor is of the opinion that the experiments or the lab work or the academic work is now more important than caring for the child, then I’m simply slamming against walls. The solution, typically, is that I look for niches with the relevant parents, for alternatives of how it can work, but it’s then mostly still tough.

Dr. Mario Damerow: Yes, I would also draw a line in the other direction, that the most depressing thing for me was to be set the example that only one can or should work, namely just the family. Which then somehow has a negative impact and also blocks work processes and motivation. Yes, I already mentioned it once before, that there’s always a minor downside, the powerlessness of having to give into limited times for childcare or closing times and having and wanting to find solutions that create balance between having a career and a family life.

Lisa Baaske: OK, so those are the things that aren’t so great. On the flip side, is there perhaps also a particular “Aha moment” where it somehow became clear that “Yes, combining a career with having a child can work really well”?

Dr. Mario Damerow: Yes, I’d say so, I mentioned it before. The possibility to arrange flexible working times and also the trust that the University’s management places in me, particularly in my area, that I not only keep the Sports Center working, but also innovate to move it forward in the interests of the employees, in the interests of the students, also in the interests of combining family and work. That already makes a lot possible. Not having rigid confines in which to operate, which would then perhaps block innovative “forward thinking” and “working your way up”. There I’m very thankful to the University's management.

Dr. Loreen Lesske: Yes, so I also think there are many more successful experiences, at least in my everyday professional life, when it comes to support for parents than there are phases where you think: “Oh god, what am I actually doing here? And what have I worked for here all these years?” But… well, of course successful experiences occur when a request comes in, including from the University’s management, for example, yes, we’re appointing a new professor. They want to move to Magdeburg, but they need support for the family and one thing that’s obviously nice is that the Families Office is involved in this process simply as a matter of course these days. It’s then also nice however… it’s then obviously much nicer if everything works out in the end, yes. If you can say: “Hey, a daycare place will be… available here sometime”—I’m phrasing that carefully. School places are easier, we often have that with international academics who come here, that they need support beforehand and that they also ask: “Where can I live? Where can my children attend a sports club?” Things like that, put simply. When we can give that assurance… that the moment you start at OVGU, when you arrive in Magdeburg, if it then all works out or at any rate as well as possible. Yes, because for a daycare place in particular it sometimes takes another couple of months but so it works out to the extent that you can say: “Yes, we’ve taken care of it, you can come here, and we’ll continue to support you when you’re here.” Those are the successful experiences where you then think: “Yes, the effort was worth it. For that reason, the work in the networks within the city and the University has been worthwhile to enable people to settle in well here and to say, yes, OVGU is family-friendly and we’re not just saying that; instead, if you have a specific request, we’ll also take care of it.”

Lisa Baaske: It’s certainly good that the positive experiences predominate. That again also affirms that the University really is family-friendly. Academic work, research and, of course, work in general require a lot of dedication and time—what tips and tricks do you have so that you still have enough time for the family even so?

Dr. Mario Damerow: To self-regulate and to consciously make the cut more often and leave the computer off when it’s the end of the working day and then to no longer access emails on your cellphone, but to really attend to the family.

Dr. Loreen Lesske: Yes, I also think that clear time management is definitely helpful: When is my working time? When is it family time? As long as you can allot that, there are always areas where you can wish all you want, that it’s then simply not flexible, but good time management makes it easier with a certain skill in managing chaos simply because: I can have good time management, as Mr. Damerow with his even smaller children will be able to understand, good time management and suddenly the daycare center calls, the child is sick, or they get up in the morning and the child has a high fever—so you have a great plan but obviously it no longer works and so it needs something like… I always call it chaos competence, it takes something where you say: OK, what’s now more important? What do I have to do first?” That can also mean that now you simply take time out from the office. I cannot attend to that; the child has priority. That can also mean, OK, certain things can wait, I’ll just have to work on them later. But that’s this responding with flexibility. That’s simply what it takes as a parent and I think the mix makes the whole difference, coming through it well by adopting this two-pronged approach.

Lisa Baaske: OK, so to summarize: It’s all in the mix.

Dr. Loreen Lesske: (laughs)

Lisa Baaske: That most certainly is a good tip. We’ve already mentioned colleagues and also superiors. What have been your experiences? How much understanding is there? Perhaps especially from those who don’t have children of their own?

Dr. Loreen Lesske: So, I think in the majority of cases it works well, collaboration within the direct teams, whether it’s institutes, departments, that works very well. And I think agreement and understanding between employees with or without children or with children of different ages works quite well. Obviously, there are always individual cases where things don’t work, where you then also think: “Hm, there could be some more tolerance or consideration.” But I think, by and large, at the University we can say that we’re definitely aware of the issue of family-friendliness, consideration of family needs.

Dr. Mario Damerow: I can only concur with that.

Lisa Baaske: OK, so if we now summarize everything, you obviously have the best overview, Dr. Lesske, what work is being done together within the University to achieve a family-friendly university?

Dr. Loreen Lesske: Yes, I’ve already summed it up: Family-friendliness, family-friendly measures only work within the network, if everyone joins in. We have the Families Office and lots of ideas come from there, from me, but implementation obviously doesn’t happen alone. On the one hand, in the faculties and central services we have decentralized family officers who work on the ground, who advise, who share information quickly, who are also simply on-site and can be contacted directly by employees and students. And we have what we were discussing at the beginning, it simply takes a good network within the University, whether that’s collaboration with Health Management, or with the Sports Center, or with the Department of Human Resources. Basically, you can’t leave any department out. There must be an understanding of family-friendliness there, so to speak, and it’s simply extremely important to have contact people on the ground in order to be able to implement certain measures, certain ideas. Because… yes, if an idea comes from the Family Officer, then it may be the case that it’s not at all practical for certain institutes or departments. After all I’m not there and then it’s good if you can ask around a little bit in advance, can test: “What do you think of it? Who could implement that in your department? Who deals with that?” That’s how cooperation on campus actually works.

Lisa Baaske: Yes, and if we now get to the heart of everything we’ve just been talking about, what would you both say? How family-friendly is OVGU actually?

Dr. Mario Damerow: So, from my own domestic sensibility I sense a clear family-friendliness. A positive attitude to balancing the aspects of work and family. We obviously get set an example by other colleges that it keeps getting better and better, that things progress further. On the other side, we also see that much less is being done for families at various universities nationwide. So, I would say that we’re in a good middle of the range with a tendency to drive the whole thing forward through our efforts and, yes, I think it’s also very important, as I keep finding or getting feedback that lots of students with children have the University at the center of their life and obviously also like offerings there which in terms of… from the sports sector, consist of equipment and facilities. But also in terms of offerings from the Families Office, from the Sports Center, which can then have a positive impact on shared activities.

Dr. Loreen Lesske: Yes, so I would support that. We really are in a good middle of the range, I think… anything else after 10 years of having a Families Office and a Families Officer would be strange for the Families Officer to say otherwise. There wouldn’t be a good success story now, I believe. But I actually also see room for improvement. So, what I said before in terms of structural embedding, with regard to thinking about these things on the same page, there we definitely have room for improvement. Other colleges are also showing us how to do it better. We certainly need to look at what is still feasible in future, but in terms of a basic understanding and also the foundation, there I think we’re headed in the right direction.

Lisa Baaske: So, you just touched upon it: Room for improvement, middle of the range at present. So, if you both had free rein—you can go a bit Utopian here—and could redesign OVGU’s families strategy: What would your ideas be?

Dr. Loreen Lesske: Yes, there too I certainly wouldn’t reinvent the wheel. You learn a lot from other colleges by being part of the network and seeing the bigger picture, but… so if I were totally free from the constraints that we always talk about: lack of finance and so on, then I’d say that in future our Families Office should simply have more personnel, should be bigger. Simply because in today’s discussion we’ve also completely ignored one target group of family-friendliness as an issue, and that’s employees and students with caring responsibilities. Of course, there are statutory requirements that OVGU also adheres to and must adhere to and that all works very well, but in terms of advice and support options for this target group, then we haven’t really gotten started yet, I would say, simply because the resources are limited and it would be incredibly important to look after this target group in the sense of family-friendliness too simply because we live in an aging society, and I also think we have any number of employees and students on campus who are looking after family members and could use our support too. That would be my plan for the future.

Dr. Mario Damerow: Yes, I already touched on it earlier: I’d want, or rather if I had free rein, had the resources, the funding for it, the statutory regulations in place, certainly I’d want the University to be somewhat more involved in care issues. What that could look like is that the University opens its own daycare center again, until then that the University gets actively involved in the care situation and, here I’d also say, brings in the ratio of caregivers, personnel situation, the daycare centers providing the care. I think that would be a huge step that would benefit family-friendliness.

Lisa Baaske: Yes, and that actually brings us to the last question. Perhaps you’d give us a little insight into the future? What is planned next?

Dr. Loreen Lesske: Yes, the plan for the near future obviously depends very much on the coronavirus, but we hope, I’m quite optimistic here, that this year in the summer vacation, for example, that we can once again offer the campus vacations for elementary schoolchildren, i.e., offer that on campus, not analogue, I mean not digital but rather analogue. That had to be completely canceled last year, there I think we can very well take the load off parents for a week or two. By the children being able to research and discover the faculties here. We hope, as Mr. Damerow has already said, to hold a family brunch once again for all parents in the fall. Something that’s very fresh and also not even… so not yet implemented but which will be implemented in the next few weeks… in future, OVGU will be cooperating with a company in order to be able to offer virtual childcare. That means that for everyone who is working from home and is dealing with daycare centers being shut, school closures, to say to them: “Hey, why shouldn’t the child take part via web cam in a sports course, a dance class, painting, doing arts and crafts, gluing, all these things. The University’s management has decided that very recently and, yes, the coronavirus will hopefully come to an end soon and perhaps it’s already a little late for this project, but it’s certainly not too late to try it out and I’m really excited about how this will be received and also, yes, what the feedback from parents is, how the children also respond to that. The smaller the children, the more difficult it could be, of course. Those are the plans for the rest of the year, I would say.

Lisa Baaske: OK. Before our conversation draws to a close, we still have our section “Long story short.” I’ll give you the start of three sentences and I’d like you to complete them please. Dr. Damerow: Having a career and children works at the University because…

Dr. Mario Damerow: … the University's management trusts me to manage the Sports Center relatively independently.

Lisa Baaske: Dr. Lesske, colleagues and students should make use of the Families Office’s offerings because…

Dr. Loreen Lesske: … because they then get a tip or two, or a suggestion here and there, of how to better balance a career and a family.

Lisa Baaske: The dumbest suggestion I ever heard about having a career and children was…

Dr. Mario Damerow: The dumbest suggestion, which well and truly shocked me, was the statement: “At the University, everyone’s working from home, then the parents can look after their children at home too.”

Dr. Loreen Lesske: For me, it goes more in the direction: “When the children are a bit older and we’re then sometimes talking about three or four-year-olds, then they no longer need so much care. They can then occupy themselves and you can then attend more to your career.”

Lisa Baaske: OK, so that closes the round. So that’s it for today, many thanks for being here and above all for taking the time! And to all of you listening on your mobile devices or wherever you may be: thanks for listening. And if you have suggestions of topics for our podcast series, would like to give feedback, whether it’s critical or positive, simply write an email to In the meantime, take care and above all stay healthy!

Dr. Loreen Lesske: Thank you!

Dr. Mario Damerow: Thank you very much!

Intro voice: “Listen in on the University” - The podcast on the world of work at the OVGU.