Dear colleagues!
We are near the end of the spring semester, and many of us are busy with preparation of exams or assessing exam papers. Many have also been occupied with writing applications and finishing manuscripts, so these are work-intensive times. Fortunately, summer soon will come with a break in teaching, we will have both some weeks with better possibilities to administer our own time, and vacation to collect our minds and gather strength before the autumn semester starts!
As you all know, Norwegian universities are in a challenging financial situation, which also is reflected in our faculty and in our department. This will cause challenges with staffing and with covering our teaching. Fortunately, it seems that we don’t immediately face serious problems with covering our teaching, although we need some adjustments as colleagues retire. On the bright side, we are currently in the process of evaluating applicants for two «Vestlandslege»-positions, covered financially through extra funding following an increase in number of students.
On the longer term, it is likely that the staff at the department is reduced. The faculty and the departments still have obligations to teach the courses that are parts of our programmes. We shall have to share the teaching tasks in a fair way, as rationally and as wisely as possible.
I always recommend to follow the seminars from the faculty’s Enhet for læring (Center for Medical Education), «Pedagogisk påfyll»! In addition, I remind you of the podcast on teaching in higher education from NOKUT, «NOKUT-podden». They have made one podcast on doing research on your own teaching practice, which is worth listening to: Den om å forske på egen undervisning
Good luck to all our master students with your final exams, and good luck to you all with the last weeks before summer! Keep your spirits up, and let us all contribute to our good work environment!
All the best,
Arne.
