Author:
Akhnaten Nketia is studying Political Science and German Studies at the University of Freiburg. Ever since acing his German and nearly failing his Physics classes in school, the Stuttgart native has given up his dream of becoming an inventor and is now trying his hand at journalism. He is particularly interested in German foreign policy, the regions of West and East Africa and contemporary German literature. His most important article to date deals with the background to the war in Tigray and was published in the Hamburg monthly “Analyse & Kritik”. He is currently in his last semester of studies in Freiburg. After a few quiet years in the idyllic South Baden region, he plans to move to a larger city for his Master’s degree.
On the serenity of not jumping over every hurdle
At the Institute for Sports and Sports Science, the world still seems to be in order. The sun is shining. Here on the banks of the Dreisam River, a truly picturesque Black Forest idyll unfolds. Jana Strahler, Professor of Sport Psychology, is pleased about this. Fortunately, her campus is not a “big gray box”. No, here “the sports fields, the beach volleyball courts, the green lawn” reign. She goes into raptures. “Freiburg is always sunny anyway,” she says and smiles. Strahler is ready to talk and open but makes an orderly impression at the same time. She has taken notes in preparation for the interview. Her office is on the third floor, with a sweeping view of the magnificent natural scenery. As if to underline her closeness to nature, a picture of the Zugspitze graces her office wall.
This fits in with the sporting activities Strahler currently pursues most intensively in her free time. After 20 years as a handball player, her focus is now on “sports in nature, at whatever speed” to balance out her daily work routine. Such balance is invaluable. “I am a supervisor, mentor, doctoral mother, colleague, cooperation partner and, last but not least, lecturer and teacher. Squeezing all of that into eight hours a day is definitely a challenge,” she describes her life as a professor of sports psychology. Strahler has held this position in Freiburg since 2021. Prior to this, she spent five years as a postdoc in Giessen in the field of psychotherapy and systems neuroscience; the five years before that she dedicated to clinical biopsychology in Marburg.
Strahler’s academic ambition were somewhat predestined – she is the daughter of two medical doctors after all. Through an aunt who worked at a university, Jana knew early on that a successful research career also involves teaching. That is why the Görlitz native already had some certainties when she started studying psychology at the TU Dresden. “I like research, I like to discover, I like to create knowledge,” Strahler said of herself as a budding scientist. She soon had a clear goal: “I want to become a professor or at least find a permanent position as a postdoc.” Most of her fellow students didn’t have that much ambition. The ones who thought, ‘We want to stay in science!” were rather outnumbered. Strahler, on the other hand, quickly realized she was more interested in prevention than treatment of mental illness. Due to her preoccupation with the topic of stress, sports became the focus of her scientific work – not entirely uninfluenced by her own sports biography, of course. In terms of discipline, time management and teamwork, she has also carried over a lot from sports into her profession. Despite her leadership position, Strahler stands firmly behind the motto: “We win and lose together”.
But did she ever doubt her path? “Let’s put it this way, I never had any doubts that would have made me interested in plan B. Actually, there was only ever Plan A, and if I was missing something to achieve Plan A, then I acquired that”. This strong affinity for problem solving also characterizes Strahler’s research questions: “What makes a person strong or stronger? What makes them more resilient?”. She takes obvious pleasure in explaining her work. Education, knowledge transfer, eliminating taboos – these goals also drive her in her research on menstrual cycle-based training. Of course, she didn’t choose this area of research at random, but she refuses to view her science primarily from the perspective of being a woman. Yet she admits: “It does play a part in what I’m interested in, just as your own areas of strength do. That’s of course your own experience that you can bring to the table.” Strahler researches the influence of the menstrual cycle on athletic performance, “Because we’ve found that we have an absolute blind spot there”. Even women, she says, hardly know anything concrete about how their periods affect athletic performance. When she brings up the topic in public, the response is accordingly positive. “Thank you for bringing this up. I didn’t even know about it. I’ll keep an eye on it now,” is how users on social media praise her work. That’s a little unusual, because even when it comes to topics specific to women, men are often still the ones winning high praise. Strahler explains, “Of course, you have to realize that there are many more men active in science, especially in permanent positions, who then naturally also represent these topics in the media.”
Another part of her everyday life is her involvement in internal university committees. Even during her time in Marburg and Giessen, issues of equality and the advancement of women were dealt with “extremely prominently”, albeit mostly thanks to the initiative of committed women. “At this point, I wouldn’t see the university as a whole as the driving force,” Strahler says of her experience in these processes. She sees herself as an “intermediator” when it comes to the issue of equality. “This is my approach: putting energy into where you can actually make a difference.” This may sometimes seem strange from the outside and occasionally even earns her critical inquiries as to why she doesn’t speak out loudly more often. Yes, why not actually? “Because I consider myself to be very solution-oriented and prefer to act rather than talk.” However, the professor also proves herself to be self-critical: “I don’t know if that’s always the right way. Sometimes you probably do have to be loud to shake things up, but I think the other option is more my way.”
How do the male colleagues perceive the equality work? If they occasionally talk without thinking, Strahler doesn’t care much. “You’re allowed to be a little deaf,” she says calmly. An exemplary statement, isn’t it? Is she? A role model? Here, the professor becomes more serious. A role model function practically comes with the job and is therefore a fundamental part of her work. Her own role models were mostly people in her immediate environment, such as colleagues and superiors of all genders. Nevertheless, Strahler is convinced: “Girls need female role models because you have to see the goal.” For those who are already pursuing a career in science, she therefore recommends talking to other women about problems in science and seeking mentoring. Strahler herself was part of ‘ProProfessur’, a mentoring program run by the state of Hessen to support women in science. Why did she decide to join? “Simply to see and hear what being a female professor is like. This again raised the question for me: Okay, do I even want this? How am I going to deal with this? And then to have the opportunity to try it out a little bit in a protected setting”. Those following her lead may also be let in on a secret of working at the university: “You don’t have to go over every hurdle. Sometimes going around it is great, too.”
