Staff and students at the Faculty of Arts are feeling blindsided once again by educational reforms that the faculty must implement due to budget cuts. This time, the issue revolves around the elimination of elective courses.
The faculty board sees no other option: to save money and reduce workload for lecturers, the faculty must offer fewer courses. In February, the board proposed merging courses worth 5 ECTS into 10 ECTS courses wherever possible.
According to the faculty council, this reform was not sufficiently substantiated, not adequately discussed within the faculty, and was moving far too quickly. The board acknowledged that it had not sufficiently involved the faculty in its plans and adjusted the timeline so that the changes would not take effect this academic year.
However, something still needs to be done. The board’s solution is to adjust the number of electives in bachelor’s and master’s programmes. The big question: who is responsible for deciding which courses will be eliminated? Is it the faculty board or the individual programmes?
Overstepped
According to the faculty council, the board overstepped when it sent an email to all staff on 15 July, stating that ‘the board had decided’ to implement the reforms in this manner.
Staff believe the responsibility lies with the programmes themselves, as they have the insight to determine whether removing a specific elective would compromise the educational quality of the programme.
The board argues that most programmes will not need to make significant changes. If there are substantive objections to removing an elective, this can be discussed.
Deadline concerns
Whether these changes will be implemented in time remains to be seen. The email was sent when many staff members were on holiday, and until last week, it was unclear who was responsible for what in the adjustment process. The deadline is 7 October.
The board acknowledges that there was confusion about the new process, but points out that some programmes had already completed the task by August.