support urgently needed

From
Date
Dear Paleonet Subscribers,

this a call for help from the chairman and the council of the
Paläontologische Gesellschaft, the German paleontological society. We are
faced with the complete closure of the paleo program at the University of
Mainz once the current professors, Norbert Schmidt-Kittler and Juergen Boy,
retire in the next few years. Things have progessed rather quickly and
rather far to the level of the university administration. As in many other
countries, paleontology has come under pressure in Germany which has
increased significantly in the last year or so. You can imagine the
reaction this latest blow elicited from the German community.

As some of you may know, the Mainz paleo section concentrates on vertebrate
paleontology, evolutionary biology, and invertebrate paleontology. Mainz
has a tradition of excellence with scholars like the late Heinz Tobin who
was the founder of the program. The current faculty members are
internationally well known and have produced some first-rate work. It is
beyond our comprehension how the closure of the paleo section could cross
any administrator's mind, and extinction of paleontology in Mainz would be
truely desastrous. Mainz University is the only university in the state of
Rheinland-Pfalz with a paleontology program but this state also has one of
the richest paleontological legacies in Germany, the world-famous Hunsrueck
Shale, the Permian of the Saar-Nahe Basin, and the Tertiary of the Mainz
Basin (home of the Deinotherium).

The chairman and council of the society have written a letter to the prime
minister of the state of Rheinland-Pfalz, the Rheinland-Pfalz state
minister of cultural affairs, and the president of the University of Mainz
in an attempt to save the Mainz paleontology program. We also have alerted
the German paleo community and have asked everybody to write a letter of
support. The reason for writing to the government officials is that in
Germany, the goverment has a significant say in curricular matters and the
hiring of professors.

We would like to solicit your support for this cause. Please write a letter
to the Rheinland-Pfalz state minister of cultural affairs at the address
below, either using the text supplied with this message or, even better,
one expressing your particular concerns such as why you think that paleo
and/or e.g. the Hunsrueck Shale and research on it are important.

Many, many thanks. Let's hope we can make a difference.

Wighart von Koenigswald and Martin Sander


The chairman of the Paläontologische Gesellschaft:

Prof. Dr. Wighart v. Koenigswald
Institut fuer Palaeontologie der Universitaet Bonn
Nussallee 8,  D-53115 Bonn

Tel.  xx49 (0)228 733104
FAX   xx49 (0)228 733509
e-mail.	Koenigswald@uni-bonn.de
http://www.uni-bonn.de/Paleontology


For the council of the Paläontologische Gesellschaft:

Priv.-Doz. Dr. P. Martin Sander
Curator of Paleontology
Institut für Paläontologie
Nussallee 8
D-53115 Bonn
Germany
phone ++49-228/73 31 05
fax ++49-228/73 35 09
http://www.uni-bonn.de/Paleontology


Here is the suggested text and address. First the address:

An den
Minister für Wissenschaft, Weiterbildung, Forschung und Kultur
Herrn Prof. Dr. Jürgen ZÖLLNER
Mittlere Bleiche 61
55116 Mainz

Now for the text:

Dear Prof. Zöllner,

As a student/graduate student/professor/curator in the field of
paleontology (respectively, geology), I would like to express my very
serious concern about the planned closure of the paleontology program at
the University of Mainz. I am in strong support of the letter written in
this matter by the chairman and council of the Paläontologische
Gesellschaft to the government of Rheinland-Pfalz and the administration of
the University of Mainz. I fully subscribe to the arguments presented in
this letter in favour of a continuation of the paleontology program at the
University of Mainz.