University Building Sights

This poster for a party cracked me up. The party started at 10 p.m. (22 Uhr) and cost 3 Euros.


Sparkasse, a local bank, has this large area on the main floor with ATMs. Everyone is quite respectful, staying far back from each machine, in a line, waiting their turns.

The main floor has this area with tables and bars to sit on, embedded into these walls. There are similar areas on the first floor. Many of the business faculty members gather at the Turkish coffe place between classes, frequently having Chai tea. A lot of important business gets done during these social gatherings; I wish we had a similar area in our building at NMU!

Also on the main floor is this little place offering pizza, gyros, and drinks.

This is the entryway of the "West End". This area offers several menu choices, similar to our Wildcat Den. Rainer and I met for lunch here frequently.

Part of the eating area of the West End Cafeteria. There was also a East End cafeteria that had several serving lines with 2 or 3 menus and a separate salad bar. One of the menu sets popped up on trays which were apparently dished up in the basement and sent up to the main floor on a conveyor belt, making me feel like the food was appearing out of the floor. Kind of a strange feeling. The East End was a HUGE eating area. If you didn't know where someone was sitting when you walked in, you probably wouldn't find them.

View of part of the main floor, under the skylight area

The Turkish restaurant, serving Turkish ahd Greek menus. The owners were good friends of Riza's.

There was a HUGE Christmas tree put up in the commons area during December. This billboard talks about wishes.....

This box had all kinds of pamphlets, making things more compact and neat than I have seen on other campuses. This was also on the main floor.

More University Pictures

During my last week at Bielefeld, I discovered this map outside the building, on the left of the main entryway. What a time to find a map, huh?


Each alphabetical letter represents a tower, normally 7-8 stories high. Finding one's way around this building is a huge challenge at the beginning. Eventually, I learned which elevators I needed to take to end up near my classroom, my office, etc. People told me that this notion of having one massive building as basically the entire campus was prevalent in the 70s. A new university will be started in a couple of years, probably taking 10 to complete.

Near every elevator is a set of restrooms. Only pictures are needed! The posted sign below the picture is information about H1N1.

Across from the women's restroom is the men's, consistently near each set of elevators...

One or two computers are also in the main areas near most elevators, for access to university information. Note the sign about which tower you are in, which way, etc.

The mailboxes for the business faculty, near my office. I had my own box with my name on it!

Inside an elevator, listing the areas in each tower near that elevator

My office, taken from my office door. The cabinets behind are assigned to various faculty members and lock. I had my own. There is a computer and printer provided; this office was basically for adjuncts though my name was also listed on the door.

My office, taken from the window. The television could be hooked up to NMU via the Polycom system, which was GREAT! I had conversations with NMU AV people, and I facilitated a meeting between NMU's business law prof, Margo Vroman, and 2 of the Bielefeld lawyers, Carsten Doerfert and Patrick Ostendorf. They found some common interests and discussed how they might serve as guest speakers, via this system, in each other's classes.

This picture was taken looking down from my office. Although my office number was listed as the 7th floor, it was really the 8th because Germans don't count the ground floor as Level 1. This series of skylight-type windows is over the main commons area.

Picture looking straight across from my window, slightly left

Straight across and slightly to the right. Hurray for the smokestack!

To the right from my window, looking at another tower

This is the layout for the first floor, showing the alphabetical arrangement of towers and halls.

This may is inside the main doors of the building.

Description for the map

Pctures from Christine's Visit

It appears that I have misplaced the cord to download pictures from my camera, and I know there are more pictures on my external hard drive that I loaded there during the computer boondoggle. However, for now I will share these! This is part of the Weinachtsmarkt in Jahnplatz. Christine and I each had a cup of hot gluhwein----super! as they say here.

Finally, a picture of Rainer, Riza, and me. Rainer Lenz has been my main contact person and he and I are working together on an article about international education. He is a finance prof and heads up the international team with Riza. Rainer is the one who gave a speech in my org. behavior class last year, at NMU, saying that there is no such thing as international culture, that all culture is individual, right after I'd done a unit on international cultural differences. He told me awhile ago exactly what I had said after that, that our NMU finance profs wouldn't even know the concept of intenational culture but that we had learned this somewhat diffeently, though I could see his point. Evidently he gave the same speech at another partner school on the same trip, and that faculty member, also a woman, got angry!

Riza Osturk and his family came from Turkey when he was about two. He and Wolfgang, another member of the international team, have written a math textbook in use at the fachhochschule. Riza is the Bielefeld delegate now to IBSEN, the group of schools who have an exchange relationship with other business schools. NMU is also a member of IBSEN.

Sparrenburg castle is a significant landmark for Bielefeld. Here it is at night!

Christine and I took Wolfgang Kohn and his wife Coco out for dinner one night. Wolfgang and Christine had an interesting conversation about the various cultural differences in math, such as how 1s, 7s, and 9s are written. Wolfgang and Coco and their children took care of Brandi several times when I visited places where I could not take her, and we wanted to thank them.

Christine chose black noodles for dinner!! Evidently these noodles were colored by the ink from an octopus.

Christine took this picture of the front door of this house. I was surprised how well the picture turned out, and isn't it pretty?

Down the street from the house we saw this little truck parked. It has one wheel in front and basically functions as a super-small pickup truck!

My Roommate and Travel Companion---Brandi Bicardi Bananas

Brandi and I went downstairs today (Sunday) to surprise Henrich and Ulla. They absolutely loved Brandi in her outfit and took pictures. Ulla worked with the hat so that the ball would come forward, so I am including anothe picture even though many of you have already seen the Santa suit in pictures I emailed, which are also below.


I adopted Brandi through the Midwest region of the national Chihuahua Rescue and Transport group. She was three at the time, so she is about 10 now. One of the foster mom volunteers makes these little vest harnesses which fasten with velcro and a buckle at the neck, and velcro around the tummy. They are far more secure than just having a leash around the neck, and don't pull on the dog's neck. I hadn't thought about the fact that Brandi certainly advertises the fact that she is from the United States, but her harness vest certainly says it!

Brandi under her blanket on the couch, with one ear evidently testing room temperature!

The full Santa suit effect

Jaunty, aren't I

So, you say you've been nice? Don't think so!!

What a surprise! Just look at what I have to put up with!

I always tell my friend Margo that her dog blends so nicely with her couch color. Brandi also blends with the blanket on the couch here! No matter what, her tail is always tucked under her, safe out of harm's way.

We are warm but we are watching.....

This is typical. I have never figured out whether her nose or head gets cold, or whether she figures I can't see her if she can't see me, or what!

Warm nose and alert ears

Rotterdam University---International Business Week

During November, Patrick Ostendorf and I participated, on behalf of the fachhochschule faculty, in the "International Business Week" hosted by Rotterdam University for its business students. I was quite impressed with their gracious hosting and the manner in which the programs were run. The speakers were outstanding, including people from all around the world. If I had known how good the presentations were going to be, I would have done something different with classes so that I could have attended more of the week. Patrick and I went by train to Rotterdam on Sunday afternoon. The conference started at 10 on Monday morning, and we each gave 2 presentations on Monday afternoon. There was a wonderful dinner at a soccer club for speakers on Monday evening. All expenses were paid for in that the Rotterdam University paid for our lodging and meals, and Bielefeld paid for our train tickets. We came home again on Tuesday afternoon.


This is the business school dean, Dr. Michael Molier, opening the conference. He was a wonderful host and made arrangements for me to talk with the people in the international students' office, which I'd given up on because I had not made prior arrangements, between my presentations on Monday afternoon. Furthermore, he evidently told one of his professors that I had expressed interest in her presentation topic during lunch because she came directly to me during the evening and asked if I was the American who had asked about her topic.



We found 2 boxes of materials, the tote bag in the upper left hand corner, and the blue book, wrapped as a present and about an inch thick, in our hotel rooms on Sunday evening. Quite an impressive start!


This is a view of one of the main student areas on the first floor of the university building, taken from the second floor.

Another view of the student computer/lounge area

Not knowing Dutch, I'm not quite sure what these boxes are about but they looked impressive!

The business department is apparently supported by many prominent companies who are in the university's business club, and various rooms were named for different companies.

First floor students area. There were plugins for computers nicely situationed between the tables.

The room was full, with almost 50 seats, for my first Monday afternoon presentation. The second presentation, at 4 p.m., only had 4 people. Most of the students were from countries which had little or no snow, so I think the title of my presentation mentioning skiing and sled dogs made have done more to entice student attendance than anything else. I spoke on how I teach management skills via the academic service learning methodology by having students help manage the ski marathon and the sled dog races in Marquette.

Patrick's presentation on international law issues, in the auditorium

Another picture of Patrick presenting. He and I were presenting at the same time so we couldn't hear each other's presentations, but my presentation ended shortly before his so I took pictures. This was his first professional presentation. Patrick is a lawyer, has been involved in international legal business, attended school in London for a year, and speaks English quite well but with a British accent, as you would expect. It is his first year teaching here. We had fun traveling together.

These two people are in charge of international students. I have just misplaced the woman's business card...her first name is Tinike and she was very helpful. The man is Leo Klienbannink, the course director of international studies. Tinike had come to my presentation; you can see her toward the front and the middle of the picture of the class.

Patrick and I laughed about this. Our hotel had this sign right by the front door....Brainpark??

The hotel room was luxurious, in my opinion. I was impressed with the reading lights built into the headboard!

The other side of the room. I had trouble getting the TV on and found out later that I needed to touch any number after turning on the power in order for the TV to come on. The same thing happened later when Christine and I were in a hotel in Flensburg.

The bathroom was nice, and this was the first or second time I encountered a glass door covering just half the bathtub to act essentially as a shower curtain. Every shower I saw in Europe had a mobile shower head that you could detach from the wall.

The part of the room across from the desk. This couch looked so lovely that I had hopes of watching TV and cross-stitching, but our dinner Monday evening was so late that I never did get to do it!

A duplicate if I don't get this removed!

The Dutch trains are yellow and blue rather than red or silver as they are in Germany.