Katalin Ligeti, Dean of the Faculty of Law, Economics and Finance (FDEF) at the University of Luxembourg, has cancelled the extraordinary meeting of the faculty council scheduled for 11 February.
Ligeti had convened the meeting in late January. In her invitation to council members, she wrote that the previous year had not ended on a good note due to significant press coverage of working conditions within the faculty. Regardless of the origin of the allegations, she stressed the importance of taking them seriously. She added that it was essential for the faculty to question its own functioning and called for collective, transparent, and structured reflections to reach a joint assessment and decide on potential adjustments.
In her 26 January communication, Ligeti wrote:
“The Faculty Council, as the representative body of our community is best placed to serve as the forum for this reflection, to contribute to establishing a diagnosis, and, where needed, to formulate recommendations on measures to be considered.”
That same day, Rector Jens Kreisel reportedly halted a recruitment procedure for an associate professor in international and space law – a process for which Ligeti had been responsible.
However, on the eve of the scheduled Wednesday meeting, the dean reversed course. In a subsequent email, Ligeti stated that she no longer considered the faculty council the most appropriate forum for such discussions. She argued that it was now important to create a format enabling calm and high-quality exchange between colleagues:
“We want to provide everyone with the sufficient space to speak up, share perspectives, and contribute to constructive solutions. For this reason, we propose to follow up with smaller meetings in the coming days and weeks.”
The faculty council is an official body of the University of Luxembourg and takes decisions on matters such as the budget. Its members include the dean, the vice-dean, and department heads, as well as elected representatives of the professors, administration, researchers, and students.
The cancellation of the faculty council meeting signals that Dean Katalin Ligeti is moving discussions on internal faculty problems from an official body into informal, smaller-scale talks.
In recent days, RTL has reported on the circumstances surrounding the halted recruitment procedure. According to information obtained, the decision to cancel the recruitment was not, as Rector Jens Kreisel stated during a meeting of the parliamentary committee on higher education, due to a conflict of interest. Rather, it stemmed from the fact that the dean responsible for the procedure did not adhere to the university’s own regulations.
The procedural failures concerned both the handling of conflicts of interest within the recruitment committee and the criteria applied for the selection of candidates. This assessment was reached by the University of Luxembourg’s Office for Academic Affairs (BAP) following an official complaint filed by one of the candidates for the advertised position.
