Nyhetsbrev – Institutt for biovitenskap

Dear All,

I am grateful to Ørjan for the possibility to write a short note in BioNews this week! As Head of Education at the department I have many tasks on my responsibility list. The most important one is to always make sure we have focus on and work with developing the quality of our teaching and that we are aiming to develop what we offer to our students. And you are doing this – all the time! This autumn we have two issues that are very important – one is the possibility for all to make changes to the courses they are involved in through the changes in the study plans (studieplanendringer), and we have to submit program evaluations to the Faculty. The bachelor and master program in biology, the master program in molecular biology, and the master program in aquamedicine must do this. As always, I will encourage course responsible to go through the course description and its content and activities and submit changes if necessary. The work with the program evaluation is a larger task. Some of you will be in the committee for these, but I hope you all will be contributing to it if approached!

Now as the semester has finally started, we will find time slots to continue the teachers’ meetings, both online and in-person, where we will share experiences and discuss teaching, courses, cooperation and development!

If any of you have questions or suggestions for topics either I or we should work with at BIO or questions/cases I should bring forward to the Heads of Education at the other departments please take contact – send me an email, call me on Teams, or come to my office (3B11) on the third floor of the A-building (BIOLOGEN).

I hope you all will have a nice weekend!

Anne

Earlier this week, I helped welcome our new bachelor’s and master’s students, as well as the students at Aquamedicine and Aquaculture. It was very nice. They seemed motivated, alert and expectant and they are looking forward to starting their studies in a completely new everyday life than they are used to. All of us who are involved in our study programmes know the importantance of molecular biology and biology. Now it will be our task to transfer our knowledge and enthusiasm about all our fields to our students. I’m sure we can do that. Many thanks to everyone in the study section and to those of you who are heading the respective study programmes, and to everyone else who has been involved in the start of the semester this week. My impression is that it has gone very well and next week classes will begin in full.

We are now in the process of publishing BIOnytt every Friday. That’s very good. And what’s even better is that every other Friday someone other than me will write the week’s leader. There will then be a round-up between “faggruppelederne” and the head of education. It will be good for everyone to hear about our activity from someone other than myself. I look forward to it.

There are many things which will mark this autumn and we have big tasks ahead of us. In addition to cost savings, area reduction, etc., we will also be evaluated by the Norwegian Reserach Council in their national evaluation of research in the Biological Sciences. I am concerned that we should of course achieve the top score where we deserve it. But we should not be afraid of not ending up in the top tier in all our subject areas. Regardless of the outcome, I want us to use this evaluation as a useful learning process where talented colleagues give us constructive input on how we can become even better. Remember that it is the department that is evaluated, not each of us. See https://www.forskningsradet.no/siteassets/tall-og-statistikk-seksjonen/evalueringer/innmeldete-enheter-til-evalbiovit-per-4.1.2022.pdf for more information. We will return soon with information on how we run the process at BIO.

I wish you all a very good weekend.

Hilsen Ørjan