A look back at Vice President Christian Schwarzenegger’s term of office
Japanese art, gyokuro tea, colorful socks and a career encompassing legal precision and university reform projects: after 12 years in the role, Christian Schwarzenegger will step down as Vice President of the University of Zurich on 31 July 2026.
His desk is piled with papers and books, while framed pictures depicting a wide variety of subjects lean against the walls, some even stacked on the floor. Among it all, a ceramic vase provides a calm, almost contemplative touch. Christian Schwarzenegger collects Japanese art. He likes to display some of his pieces when he receives visitors in his office. On the wall hangs a certificate that’s impossible to miss: the Order of the Rising Sun, awarded to Schwarzenegger by the Japanese Ambassador in 2025. It is a tribute to his contributions to academic exchange and understanding between Japan and Switzerland.
Here, tea has its own special place. A separate table displays tea sets from his adopted homeland of Japan, alongside carefully selected varieties of tea such as gyokuro. Preparing it is a ritual that requires concentration.
Schwarzenegger sits down at the visitors’ table and crosses his legs. Colorful socks peek out from under his gray suit. Then he begins to speak. After 12 years as Vice President, he will step down from his position in August. During this period, he helped to shape the university and realigned it in key areas.
Schwarzenegger’s academic career began in Japan. From 1995 to 1999, he taught law at the Universities of Niigata and Nagoya. “Of course, my surname always elicits a reaction,” he says, “even in Japan.” Schwarzenegger is actually distantly related to the actor and former Governor of California who bears the same family name. As an assistant professor, he used his own family tree to illustrate how inheritance law works. He used it to explain the system of succession – all the way down to the branch where Arnold Schwarzenegger appears. “Arnold is in my fourth parentela,” he laughs. He began using specific examples early on in his teaching career. His students would trace their own family backgrounds, which often revealed how incomplete their knowledge was. For Schwarzenegger, this validated his teaching approach: “Law is best taught using case studies.”
The fact that he taught European law in Japan is less unusual than it might seem at first glance: during the Meiji era, Japan adopted key legal principles from Germany and France. Schwarzenegger aimed to highlight these connections. Then in 1999, he returned to Zurich – the city where he was born.
Schwarzenegger says his time in Japan had a great impact on him. His wife, who is Japanese, helped him access the country’s culture and society firsthand. His fascination with this is illustrated by a memory from his time as an instructor in Japan. Back then, Niigata University briefly introduced a rule requiring foreign teaching staff to record their attendance and absences with a personal stamp. The reactions couldn’t have been more different: a French colleague quit immediately, while a Canadian with Italian roots expressed his anger loudly to human resources – behavior considered highly inappropriate in Japan. Meanwhile, Schwarzenegger sought to talk to his Japanese colleagues. He learned that the rule was not rooted in discrimination and wasn’t actually directed against teaching staff from abroad. The advice was to wait and see. One month later, the policy was lifted.
For Schwarzenegger, this episode was a lesson in the kind of composure for which the Japanese have a term, reisei, which means remaining clear-headed and refraining from being guided by emotions. He still has his personal seal, which he had made by a Japanese stamp maker all those years ago. “I use it in my personal books instead of a bookplate.”
Back in Zurich, things moved quickly. In 1999, he became one of the first assistant professors of law to be appointed under a tenure-track model. His areas of specialization were criminal law, criminal procedure law and criminology. In 2010, he was appointed full professor, and in 2012, he was elected Dean of the Faculty of Law. “The position was arranged on a rotating basis,” he says, “but I quickly realized that it offered a lot of leeway to do interesting things.”
This experience would shape the rest of his career. In 2014, the Board of the University elected him Vice President. One of his colleagues from this period is Otfried Jarren, who at the time was Vice President for Arts and Social Sciences and later served as President ad interim. He describes Schwarzenegger as a calm counterpoint at the Executive Board meetings, which could often be hectic: someone who knows how to maintain perspective, organize issues precisely and contribute to resolving them using his legal expertise. “Christian also had a mischievous side,” says Jarren. “And every now and then, we would all sneak a peek at the patterns on his socks, which were always very colorful.”
Gabriele Siegert, Deputy President, also emphasizes his calm, analytical nature. She says he taught her that legal proceedings take time because fairness requires thoroughness. “And he brings a good dose of humor to the table,” she adds. “Not only did we make decisions and have lively discussions, there was also plenty of laughter.”
Former President Michael Hengartner recalls a retreat for members of the Executive Board, which involved activities including a personality test using a color scale. “I was red – which didn't come as a surprise. I have a tendency to be impulsive,” he says. “And then there was Christian: the only one who was green. It’s a color that represents calm, empathy and supportiveness. That represents him extremely well.” Schwarzenegger was something of a quiet counterpoint among the other, more dominant voices. “Christian was always an outstanding team player – and someone who also knew exactly what was important from a legal standpoint.”
Current President Michael Schaepman sees Christian Schwarzenegger as a sparring partner with an unusually broad range of knowledge – someone who pushes him to sharpen his thinking, asks probing questions, and who quickly gets to grips with new topics. One of Schaepman’s most unforgettable memories is a trip they took together to a remote wasabi-growing region in Japan. “I was impressed by how Christian connected with the farmers,” says Schaepman. He didn't simply translate – he also delved into the ecological dynamics of an agricultural system deeply rooted in tradition and local conditions.
Schwarzenegger took over the Office of the Vice President for Law and Economics, which was later restructured and is now known as the Office of the Vice President Faculty Affairs and Scientific Information. This makes him responsible for one of the most delicate areas of university self-governance: professorial appointments. Anyone seeking a professorship at the University of Zurich will meet with him eventually. Schwarzenegger strengthened the emphasis on strategy in the university’s appointments policy, placing focus on future-oriented topics and interdisciplinarity.
In addition to professorial appointments, Schwarzenegger’s office is also in charge of academic information. Because of this, Schwarzenegger found himself at the center of one of the university’s most ambitious projects: reorganizing the library system. Over the course of several decades, each faculty had built up their own collection, often with a high degree of autonomy. Initially, the idea of a centralized structure was met with resistance. Schwarzenegger held discussions with skeptical professors, moderated contentious meetings, and made it clear that universities require a shared, digitally oriented infrastructure to be competitive in the arena of international research. “We had to be persuasive – and sometimes apply a bit of pressure, too,” he says as he remembers the project. Today, the formerly decentralized collections have been consolidated under one roof, and terms such as Open Science and Open Access have become common parlance at UZH. Researchers and students benefit from significantly more accessible infrastructure.
Schwarzenegger also played a key role in implementing UZH’s internationalization strategy. “International visibility is not an end in itself, but a prerequisite for attracting excellent researchers from around the world to UZH and for ensuring that Zurich remains competitive as a location for research,” he says.
Schwarzenegger enthusiastically promoted the development of strategic partnerships with universities in Europe, Australia and Asia, and he played a key role in UZH joining the Universitas 21 (U21) university network. Joint research projects, visiting professors, double degree programs and long-term collaborations were systematically expanded. He also played a role in establishing summer schools as part of the internationalization strategy. A collaboration with Kyoto University in Japan, which was particularly close to Schwarzenegger’s heart, is now considered a prime example of the benefits of strategic international partnerships.
Looking back, Schwarzenegger says: “Anyone involved in running a university today quickly realizes how little relevance the old ideal of the Republic of Letters now has.” This nineteenth-century model worked as long as the demands were manageable and a university could, to a certain extent, be run as a secondary occupation.
Today, however, universities are complex organizations. Budgets in the billions, major projects, international activity and issues such as sustainability and diversity all need to be managed strategically. Centralized services – from IT to human resources – have also long been highly specialized areas. “Professional leadership of a modern university means providing direction in a multifaceted environment, establishing priorities, dissolving tensions and settling conflicts,” says Schwarzenegger. A great deal depends on how different temperaments and skills complement one another. Over time, this creates an energy that goes beyond the purely functional.
And what does Schwarzenegger have planned for the future? Following his resignation as Vice President in the summer of 2026, he will assume the role of provost with Universitas 21 (U21). Schwarzenegger will be responsible for the operational management and strategic development of this alliance of 31 leading, research-focused universities from around the world. “I look forward to tackling this role,” he says. “U21 brings internationalization to life – through joint projects, shared knowledge and genuine partnerships across continents.”
