HoD News - 28 August 2018
Dear colleagues,
During the coming week, we will be welcoming hundreds of new students to join our Bachelor’s degree programmes. Also, we will be welcoming numerous new students to our Master’s oecon. and merc. programmes.
Enrolments to the cand.merc. specializations offered by our department have been extraordinarily large this year. We are not yet certain about the exact figures - experience shows that some students never show up - but I will not be surprised if it turns out that our merc. programmes in total will see an increase in student enrolments by more than 35%. We are already under pressure in terms of our physical capacity, and the recent developments do not improve this state. Considering these challenges, I hope that we can all contribute to welcoming our new students in the best possible way and to making the coming years an insightful and memorable experience for them, and I am certain that we will succeed in maintaining the quality and good reputation of our education programmes.
The process for employee involvement in connection with the plans for Campus 2.0 and the move to the University City 2022-2024 has now been initiated. The involvement process will take place in different phases over the coming years. Together with the departmental forum members representing the sections, the section heads have been asked to provide their input regarding the frame for the initial employee involvement that will take place 2-12 October 2018. The section heads will determine how this should be organized within the sections.
In the first stage of this process, employees will be asked about their general wishes and thoughts about the future Aarhus University and Aarhus BSS. The input at this early stage of the process should be of a very general nature: What are the physical facilities that we want to continue/expand, and what other needs do we expect to have for the coming 5-10 years. The facilities considered include the working conditions of employees (offices, meeting rooms, interactions amongst students and faculty, labs, service points, library, catering facilities, parking and so on). The physical facilities also include the environment for students (facilities for studies, professional and social events, lab innovation hubs, bookstore, catering facilities, gym- and sports facilities, etc.). What do we expect from future ways of learning, Edu-IT, auditoriums and other teaching facilities, as well as the interplay with the society and corporate and other external relations. Do we want a new S-building? These are all very general questions. Departmental Forum will be heard before our input will be submitted to Aarhus BSS.
Once the input has been gathered amongst students and faculty, Aarhus BSS will report back to rector by 1 November, and a general overview of wishes will be provided for the further plans and decisions. At a (much) later stage, we will move forward to questions related to the actual facilities we will face and more specific wishes within the frames that will be decided.
It is our hope that Aarhus University Building Services and the architects behind the University City will participate in the departmental residential meeting at Hotel Opus in Horsens on 20-21 November.
Niels Haldrup