Studying Business Plus Art: 15 Years of Business Administration at Alanus University

Since autumn 2006, the Department of Business has been educating the managers of tomorrow – and teaching how business can be rethought and shaped sustainably.

A successful balancing act: 15 years ago, Alanus University in Alfter near Bonn launched the first bachelor’s degree program in business administration at an art university. “It is important to us that, alongside business expertise, students examine questions of sustainable business from different perspectives – sociology, philosophy, economics, and art. In this way, they are encouraged to develop innovative ideas for a viable and ecological economy,” says Professor Eva-Maria Walker, Dean of the Department of Business. How important the topic of sustainability has now become in companies is also shown by a current survey by the Bertelsmann Foundation.

Taking unconventional approaches and thinking outside the box: very few learn this in traditional business administration degree programs. However, more and more companies are looking for employees who take innovative paths. That is why Alanus University relies on art. Artistic practice helps students better recognize what their very own tasks in this society are. Artistic approaches also help them understand complex interrelations, for example between economic activity and human development, in a more holistic way. “With plural perspectives that do not deny complexity but make it visible, we arrive at new paths and solutions in business that we urgently need – the limits of this planet have already been reached,” says business professor Susanne Blazejewski.

Lavinia Muth looks back fondly on her time studying in Alfter: she was part of the pioneering class of 2006 and now works as a sustainability manager at the fashion label ARMEDANGELS in Cologne: “We learned to be courageous and to question everything in order to reveal opportunities for shaping the economy. But we have enough system critics. We need to start doing. And that is exactly what I try to do in my job – to truly change conditions.”

Today, Alanus University cooperates with around 30 practice partners that pursue socially and ecologically oriented corporate management – including Alnatura, VAUDE, Riese & Müller, Weleda, and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). There, students gain up to 60 weeks of professional experience by the time they graduate – from stocking shelves to the executive floor.

For the future, the department hopes for a continued growing response to topics of sustainable and socially transformative business, both among prospective students and among companies that support the department as practice partners.

Rethinking business

The Department of Business offers a bachelor’s and a master’s degree program in business administration. In addition, since the autumn semester of 2016, the bachelor’s degree program “Sustainable Management” has primarily provided skills and business knowledge in management, marketing, and personnel leadership with a focus on sustainability management. Since 2019, the bachelor’s degree program Business, Society, Innovation has completed the department’s range of study programs. Here, the focus of the degree program is primarily on social science questions in the context of digital innovations and transformations in business, society, and the world of work.

Further information on the degree programs can be found at: www.alanus.edu/studium-wirtschaft