A word from the dean
Dear staff
This newsletter will be the last before the summer break.
Thus, I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a great summer. The spring did not turn out quite as we had hoped as we did not get to have the students back on campus and most of the teaching and exams had to be conducted online.
Maybe that is why it is especially nice to see the many happy graduates surrounded by friends and family in our hallways. After all, they managed to celebrate the final defense of the theses and PhD projects.
On the other side of the summer, we are ready to welcome the new students who are currently applying for admission. We also get to take extra care of the older students, as we have received special funds to do various academic and social activities for all students. At present, the education committee is looking through proposals from the departments, and funding has been set aside to establish study groups for more students.
Negotiations are currently underway on the regionalization of education in Denmark, where the government wants to relocate study places from the four major education cities. As can be seen from the media, universities are concerned about this development, as it is both difficult to recruit students outside the big cities as well as expensive to run education programmes in several locations.
SDU’s leadership is in dialogue with the politicians about our experiences and not least the economics of relocating study places. As part of the debate, the IT University of Copenhagen announced last week that they want to establish up to 400 student places in Vejle due to a lack of graduates with IT skills in the triangle area of Vejle, Fredericia, and Kolding.
We fully agree that there is a shortage of graduates, but we strongly doubt the possibility of recruiting more IT students in our region, as SDU and not least IMADA have expanded the number of student places considerably due to graduate demand. Unfortunately, the number of applicants has not increased correspondingly, and we have excess capacity. We hope that the politicians listen to our experience and make a good agreement, which ensures highly educated academics to the green transition and the global challenges that our society faces.
Happy summer to all.
Marianne Holmer, dean