Transition Plan update, number 3 (24 January 2025) |
Dear colleague,
In the previous mail to all, we informed you about the 2025 budget and gave a look ahead to the 2025-2027 period.
In this newsletter, we give an update on the new undergraduate portfolio and short-term measures. We start with news on the composition of the board.
Kind regards,
The Faculty Board |
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In recent months, the Faculty Board has gratefully used Karin Visser's expertise as an external advisor on the financial and staff aspects of the Transition Plan. Now that the elaboration of the Transition Plan is underway and the contours are becoming increasingly clear, we therefore bid Karin farewell, with many thanks for the work she has done in a short time.
The board is also pleased to announce that Miranda Jansen will restart from next month. To give her the space to rebuild in peace, the Faculty Board is very pleased that an interim Faculty Director has been found, and this in the person of Frank Jan van Dijk. Frank Jan is Faculty Director at the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences. He took on the role of acting Director at Humanities for some months in 2019.
Frank Jan starts on Monday 27 January and will work in Humanities for four days a week until the summer.
Read the news item 'Update: Filling absence of Miranda Jansen'
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The new undergraduate portfolio
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In the first Transition Plan Update, we described the assignment to the BA portfolio project group, and the explicit request to look at three options to formulate scenarios with the degree programmes to be closed. The assignment to the BA portfolio and Staff and Finance project groups has now been finalised by the Faculty Board.
The newly-developed BA portfolio to be introduced in academic year 2027-2028 covers the entire BA offering, apart from the existing degree programmes we offer jointly with other faculties. This requires a faculty-wide approach, rather than an approach/assignments to individual degree programmes or departments. We are working towards a model in which a broad range of disciplines is guaranteed. The new model:
- Increases portfolio efficiency (financial objective);
- Provides students with recognisable and attractive degree programmes (content/quality objective);
- Prepares students through a broad orientation within the humanities for a future in which demand-driven, interdisciplinary work will be the norm (substantive/qualitative objective).
The project covers three phases:
- Draft faculty scenario(s) for structure revamped BA.
- Complete chosen scenario in outline.
- Preparation of curriculum programming for academic year 2027-2028.
In each phase, the Staff and Finance project group will model and assess the scenarios and/or proposals of the BA portfolio project group and provide advice on them to the project group. The sounding board group consists of members from the GW UP and students and provides the BA portfolio project group with solicited and unsolicited advice in the interim. Decision-making on all phases lies with the Faculty Board.
The full assignment, incl. composition of the project and sounding board groups, can be found on the Transition Plan Intranet page (under the header New Undergraduate portfolio).
Part of the project assignment is also to develop scenarios for degree programmes to be closed. These assignments will be carried out by subcommittees set up by the BA portfolio project group. These subcommittees will think about the possible scenarios and submit them to the project group. Since our last reporting on the BA portfolio, it has been decided that the RIO label (the hallmark for recognised Dutch degree programmes, formerly CROHO) Religious Studies will remain. |
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There were information meetings on 16 and 23 January 2025 in which faculty finances were explained. The background to the deficit and the need for action were presented there. Also the need to be maximally creative in reducing the workload was discussed. You can find the powerpoint of the information meeting on the Transition Plan Intranet page (the ‘Addendum budget’ drop-down under The Humanities finances explained).
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Elaboration of short-term measures
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At faculty level, we know what austerity targets we have. We are now working out what that means concretely for departments and support, and what the short-term measures (vacancy freeze, abolishing straw time, buying out teaching) will bring.
In the coming period, departments and chains and the Faculty Board will discuss the austerity mission and how to implement it together. The final assignment will be decided in the Faculty Board on 6 March. We will tell you more about it in a subsequent update. |
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Friday, February 14 (10 am-12 pm)
Faculty Council meeting
It is agreed with the FC that an update on the implementation of the Transition Plan will be given at each meeting.
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