Sechs Festschriften in elf Jahren. Zur Selbstvergewisserung einer kirchlichen Fachhochschule nach dem Boom

: The implementation of Universities of Applied Sciences (Fachhoch-schulen) was one aspect of the reforms in West German higher education in the 1970s. But outside of anniversary publications, there is little research about this new type of university. The article focuses on how anniversary publications were used as a policy instrument at the still young Protestant University of Applied Sciences in Darmstadt. Using the example of the church-based university, which was freed from its familiar structures and hierarchies by the university reform, it can be shown how the commemorative publications served as self-assurance as well as legitimization towards the responsible regional church. In the process, the celebrated anniversaries demonstrated the long tradition of the young university in the field of social work but were also used to overplay unwelcome aspects; especially the conflicts arising from the new form of governance between the students, the professors as well as the regional church. Against this background, the anniversary publications served to consolidate the sovereignty of individual disciplines within the university, but nevertheless offered a positive historical identity for university members.