Hello everyone,
As many may already know, I have stepped into the role of head of education for BIO. This is a temporary position for Anne Bjune, who has a well-deserved year off from research. The mandate for head of education is wide-ranging, but must, among other things, overlook quality in courses and study programs and act as an intermediary between department and faculty level. Another important task is the staffing of courses, a matter that is constantly in motion as the course portfolio and staffing ends.
It is very important that we maintain good course portfolios and study programs that are able to attract students. The money follows students and implementation to an even greater extent than before. The competition for students can be tough, but it is pleasing that this autumn we have come out of it well, with very good recruitment for all study programmes. We can be happy about this, all the while many study centers in other parts of the country are struggling to attract students. And it could be worse. In the years to come, recruitment may become even harder as smaller cohorts are distributed across study sites across the country. However, I am absolutely certain that BIO has much of what is needed to attract students in the future as well, as we offer exciting courses with field, lab, boat and other forms of active learning.
That is not to say that it will be easy. We must do what we can to use our most important resource – our teachers’ competence, courage, and not least time – in the best possible way. This will involve priorities, cooperation and the ability to adapt. An important and current matter in this context is the work to abolish the fields of study, a move that will primarily affect the degrees in biology, as the other study programs do not operate with fields of study. The motivation for this move is to make it easier to utilize all allocated master’s study places. Without fields of study, there is no need to reserve places in each field that may end up not being filled.
When the faculty has now made the decision to abolish the study areas, it is up to us to implement this in practice. This requires discussion and participation from all affected; fortunately, we have a good arena for this in the form of our teachers’ gathering. This runs from Monday 2 December to Tuesday 3 December. As of now, 45 are registered, and we have room for 50 people with accommodation, so everything indicates that we will have a great lunch-to-lunch learning session this time as well. I look forward to meeting as many people as possible at Scandic Flesland!
Kind regards
Øyvind Halskau, Head of Education BIO (product)