History of the Cologne Vocational and Economics Education Studies
In the middle of the twenties of the twentieth century, as the vocational school system became increasingly important, the Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences set out to upgrading the commercial education part of university teaching by establishing the chair for "commercial teacher education". After years of efforts by the faculty and in particular by Dr. Ing. Friedrich Schlieper the "Extraordinariat for Vocational and Economic Education" at the University of Cologne was founded on April 1, 1941. This manifested the recognition of the Vocational and Economic Education as a "decent" chair discipline. Prof. Dr. Friedrich Schlieper became the first holder of this chair in 1941 and held this position until his retirement on April 1, 1965.
On 26.02.1960 the name 'Chair of Business Education' was changed to 'Chair of Economic and Social Education'. In addition, in 1960 an 'Institute for Vocational and Business Education' was founded in Cologne as a faculty institute. In 1962, in view of the steadily increasing number of students, a second department of economics education was set up, which was called 'Chair for Occupational and Business Education' and was founded in 1964 by Prof. Dr. Alfons Dörschel was occupied.
On May 1, 1966, Prof. Dr. med. Martin Schmiel took over the "Chair for Occupational and Business Education" from Prof. Dr. Alfons Dörschel who had followed Prof. Dr. Friedrich Schlieper on October 1, 1965 as the holder of the 'Chair of Economic and Social Education'.
In 1964 the 'Institute for Vocational and Business Education' was dissolved and re-opened as "Institute for vocational, economics and business education", including a second chair. On March 31, 1978, Prof. Dr. med. Alfons Dörschel received emeritus professur status, followed one year later, on April 1, 1979 by Prof. Dr. Martin Schmiel.
Prof. Dr. Martin Twardy became Professor of Economic and Business Education on 9 April 1979. On January 1, 1981, Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Stratenwerth took over the chair of Business and Vocational Education and held it until his retirement in 1995. After a short vacancy, the chair was transformed into a professorship for vocational and business education, which Prof. Dr. Josef Aff took over on 1 March 1997. Due to an appointment to the University of Nuremberg-Erlangen accepted on April 1, 2002, the professorship was vacant again after seven years, and the teaching was substituted by Prof. Dr. Dietmar Frommberger for one year.
The reoccupation was realized on April 1, 2003 by appointing Prof. Dr. Detlef Buschfeld. Prof. Dr. Martin Twardy became emeritus professor on 30. September 2008. Prof. Bernadette Dilger inititally represented the chair before Prof. Dr. Matthias Pilz accepted his appointment to the Chair of Economics and Business Education. In 2009, the Professorship for Business Education and Curriclum Research was created by converting and increasing a previous academic council position. As of April 1, 2010 Prof. Dr. Bernadette Dilger became the first holder of this professorship. Prof. Dilger accepted the call of the University of St. Gallen on April 1, 2015. During the reappointment process, the professorship was represented by Dr. Jane Porath in the winter semester 2015/2016. Since March 1, 2017 Prof. Dr. Nicole Naeve-Stoß holds the professorship under the title Professorship for business education.
In addition to the full professors, Prof. Dr. Hermann Hansis (on December 11, 2000) and Prof. Dr. Friedrich Hubert Esser (on 18. März 2005) were appointed honorary professors.