At German art academies, a student who completes the regular course with above-average results can stay on as a Meisterschüler, a master student, usually for one or two more years. At the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, students work from their third semester in the class of one professor, and the professor can put a student forward for the title of master student. Joseph Beuys entered the class of the sculptor Ewald Mataré in the winter semester of 1947/48. In 1951 Mataré named him his master student. In 1961 Beuys was appointed to the academy’s chair of monumental sculpture.