Welcome to four new directors of studies

Rune Stubager
Professor at the Department of Political Science
Director of Studies - Public Policy

What experiences and competences will you make use of as director of studies?

For the past four years, I’ve been acting as the degree programme’s so-called “shadow” director of studies with Lars Skipper from the Department of Economics and Business Economics as director of studies. In that capacity, I was continuously involved in the form and content of the programme and collaborated closely with Lars. I’ve also taught classes on the programme, so I know it well.

As you know, the programme is shared between the Department of Political Science and the Department of Economics and Business Economics. The director of studies comes from the opposite department than the board of studies, which means that now that the Study Board for Economics and Management is responsible for the programme, I’ve taken over the role as director of studies. I really look forward to getting started.

What projects and tasks do you look forward to embarking on?

The most important task right now is to reduce the programme’s dropout rates. Among other things, this requires that we become better at telling the students what the degree programme actually entails. Public Policy is one of the toughest programmes at Aarhus BSS because not only do students need to master complex mathematical subjects, they also have to be good at theorising and developing written arguments. This is definitely very challenging for students and we need to communicate this in the student counselling, on our website, etc.

We must also work to ensure that the programme continues to be of a high quality and that the two academic fields cohere and are well balanced. Public Policy is a rather new degree programme, so it’s still being developed. Among other things, we’ve just thoroughly revised the Bachelor’s academic regulations and we’ll also be looking into the Master’s programme. This programme is so new that the first class only started this summer. It’ll be exciting to follow the new Master’s students as well as the new Bachelor’s students who’ll start under the new academic regulations.  

Malene Kerzel
Associate professor at the Department of Law 
Director of studies - Law

What experiences and competences will you make use of as director of studies?

During my many years at the Department of Law, I’ve been working in the department’s engine room. Within my academic area, I’ve been responsible for teaching and holding exams - and preparing the exam assignments. All this has given me a good idea of the different challenges in terms of the teaching, but also of what the students expect from the teaching.

Administratively, I’ve been a member of the department’s PhD committee for a few years. I’ve also been employed as general secretary of the Nordic Tax Research Council, which has involved a lot of administrative tasks such as coordinating, planning and holding events, etc.

What projects and tasks do you look forward to embarking on?

I look forward to contributing to ensuring the academic content of the degree programme in law so that it continues to reflect the needs of our stakeholders. One of the first tasks will be to implement a new four-year part-time Master’s degree programme for working professionals into our academic regulations.

I also look forward to contributing to maintaining the high academic standards that already characterise our programme. Finally, I look forward to collaborating with internal and external lecturers on the programme and also with the students. I hope that I can contribute to creating the framework of a good study environment.

Sune Dueholm-Müller
Associate professor at the Department of Management
Director of studies - MSc in Information Technology and the Master in IT

What experiences and competences will you make use of as director of studies?

As director of studies, I’ll be heading two degree programmes that are actually perfect reflections of my own academic background and work experience from the private sector. Back in 2001, I was a student on the first year of the MSc in Information Technology and this has given me an in-depth knowledge of the programme.

I’ve also worked at the company Terma for many years. Here I held several IT management positions before returning to the university.  For this reason, I feel well prepared for understanding the various challenges and demands that both our full-time students and our executive Master’s students are facing. And I’m very honoured that I now get to be in charge of and represent the degree programmes to the outside world.

What projects and tasks do you look forward to embarking on?

I look forward to the process of rethinking the MSc in Information Technology. We need to make sure that the programme is up-to-date both now and in the future. The programme has existed for 16 years and has been a great success thanks to my excellent predecessors. However, things are moving at a faster pace than ever in the field of IT, and we must ensure that the programme continues to be of a high quality in the future. We need to integrate IT into the programme’s various subjects, and we need to continuously incorporate new and relevant trends into the programme. This also applies to our Master in IT.

In short, we have to modernise our programmes so that they always meet the demands of the business community. For this reason, we’ll be collaborating much more closely with our employer panel in future. They’re able to offer specific input on the skills and competences that companies are looking for. I’m really looking forward to this collaboration.

Franziska Günzel-Jensen
Associate professor at the Department of Management
Director of studies - The MBA programme

What experiences and competences will you make use of as director of studies?

I’ve been involved with the MBA programme since 2012 - both as a teacher and as a supervisor. In 2016, I developed and started teaching a course on Corporate Entrepreneurship, and in 2017, I became the internal coordinator of the MBA at the Department of Management. This meant that I’ve been responsible for integrating the MBA into the department’s processes and ensuring the quality of the teaching. In this time, I’ve also become a contact person for the lecturers on the programme.

What projects and tasks do you look forward to embarking on?

I really look forward to developing the MBA programme further. We have a very strong foundation and a well-received programme that has just been accredited for five years by AMBA. The AMBA review panel gave us some very useful feedback on how to develop the programme. Among other things, we need to incorporate the many possibilities of the broad business school into the MBA programme.

In the time to come, we’ll be looking at the panel’s recommendations carefully and use the input to develop the MBA together with the faculty, the management team and not least companies. This process is very important to ensure that the MBA continues to be a high-quality programme that is relevant for our stakeholders now and in the future.

I also look forward to meeting the new MBA students and following their growth and progress. I look forward to further supervising MBA students and hope that I’ll be able to continue teaching my Corporate Entrepreneurship course on the programme if time permits.