Christmas greeting from the Executive Team
The Executive Team in building 1327 at Bartholins Allé would like to thank all employees at the school for their efforts in the year gone by. It has been an eventful year, which culminated with the extension of the existing taximeter increase for the humanities and social science degree programmes.
Dear employees,
Christmas is just around the corner and we are fast approaching 2020. In the Executive Team, we would like to thank everyone for the year gone by, and also take the opportunity to reflect on 2019 and look ahead to the year to come.
In many ways, 2019 has been devoted to strategy and this work will continue in 2020. In the autumn, AU’s 2025 strategy was submitted for a broad consultation at the university, and this gave us all a chance to contribute. The strategy has just been approved by the AU Board, and the next step will be to carry out the strategy in practice.
We all have a responsibility for doing so, which means that Aarhus BSS’ strategy must support AU’s overall direction. This is the point of departure for our work next year to develop the school’s strategy, which will apply from 2021. We have already laid the initial foundation for this work during 2019 together with the faculty management team.
At Aarhus BSS, our strategy work is based on the fact that our research and degree programmes rest on three pillars; social sciences, business and the interface between them. This is what sets us apart from others. A good example is the school’s new Centre for Integrative Business Psychology, which opens on 1 January 2020 and allows us to promote research and degree programmes within this specific field.
At Aarhus BSS, our many initiatives are only possible because we have a professional, responsive and service-minded administration. For that reason, 2019 has also seen reorganisations in the Centre for Teaching and Learning (CUL) and in the administrative centre. To strengthen the school’s future digital transformation efforts, we have gathered IT and digitisation in one department, which will develop digital solutions for the school and the departments. We have also gathered Aarhus BSS Communication, External Relations and International (from Aarhus BSS Studies Administration) in one department to further strengthen the coherence of our efforts within communication, marketing/recruitment, external relations, career counselling and student mobility.
2019 also saw the Government’s decision to carry over the existing taximeter increase for the humanities and social science degree programmes into the new Finance Act. Naturally, we are very pleased with this great vote of confidence in our degree programmes. As a school, our core task is to educate talented students who are in demand, who succeed in landing good jobs and who contribute to solving some of the major challenges of society. We do so by offering high-quality research-based degree programmes. And we must continue to do so. For that reason, we are obliged by the taximeter increase to continuously assure the quality of the portfolio and content of our degree programmes so that our graduates will always meet the demands of the labour market.
However, before we embark on next year’s many interesting tasks, it is time for a well-deserved Christmas holiday. We wish you all a merry Christmas and a happy New Year!
Best regards,
Thomas Pallesen, Anne Bækby Johansen, Per Baltzer Overgaard and Per Andersen