Welcome to new students of the future
The science graduates will be particularly sought after in the coming years - both in the region's business community and its public institutions
Dear staff
Life has come to life in the corridors again, and it was a wonderful experience to welcome the new students in a full U45 auditorium together with Mayor Peter Rahbæk Juel.
He is at least as happy as SDU for the many new students who have joined. In his speech this year, he placed special emphasis on the need for gratuates in natural sciences for the Funen business community and the public institutions, including the City of Odense.
The City of Odense has, for example, an ambitious plan to become climate neutral by 2030, which requires expert knowledge and qualified labour.
The announcement that Novo Nordisk has bought a large building site also brings joy to the faculty, as it gives an expectation of new workplaces for our graduates.
Some of you may also have followed the debate about the closing of the laboratory technician programme at UCL. Both the Faculty of Science and the business community on Funen – especially within the LifeScience area – are deeply concerned about the closing of the programme as it will make it even more difficult to recruit laboratory trainees and laboratory technicians in the future.
Many of us are calling on UCL to reconsider their decision to close the programme and hope that the announcement that Novo Nordisk is coming to town can change the decision.
At the end of June, the long-awaited proposal for the Master's degree reform came and at the end of August, very detailed terms of reference followed. A committee consisting of the rectors of the eight universities must deliver a report with recommendations in October 2024.
All faculties must restructure a varying part of their Master's programmes. The natural sciences faculty must reallocate 30% of the student places, with 10 % to be reallocated to 75 ECTS Master's programmes, 10 % to Master's programmes for working professionals and 10 % to vocational Master's programmes.
The new Master's degree programmes must be ready in 2028, and this means that any derived changes to the Bachelor's programmes must be in place already from 2025.
Already now, we may suggest proposals for the reform. Last week we gathered in the College of Deans of Technology and Science, and everyone agrees that the Master's programmes for working professionals must be made much more flexible, as the current model does not work. We currently have a Master's programme for working professionals in Computer Science, but there has been very limited search for this.
The deans also agree that it is important that the business community takes responsibility for accepting students. If 30% of our students are to have some form of affiliation with the business community during their studies, this corresponds to approx. 100 students to be sent out. It will be a major task, which must be undertaken jointly by the university, companies and public institutions.
We still have very limited information about the possibilities in the new Master's degree reform, but I hope that all lecturers and teaching committees will contribute ideas for the new programmes.
Marianne Holmer, dean