At the joint staff meeting at 2.30 pm on 9 March, the university's senior management group will present its visions for the university and the plan for its new administrative and academic structure. The meeting will take place in the Main Hall in Aarhus and will be streamed live on the net to allow all members of the AU community to participate. Light refreshments will be served after the meeting.
At AU locations outside of Aarhus, the meeting will be shown on wide-screen televisions and refreshments will be served. Details will be announced at a later date on the following webpage:
A similar meeting will be organised for AU students.
The first nine out of a total of fourteen new vice-deans have been selected. The new vice-deans will help establish and develop the new academic and administrative structure after 9 March. The appointments are the result of the first round of applications to these new positions.
The nine vice-deans will officially assume their duties on 1 March, after which they will participate in the daily management of their respective faculties and in the development of new interfaculty forums for study programmes, knowledge transfer, research and talent development.
The five remaining vice-dean positions will be advertised this week.
The nine vice-deans are:
Aarhus Faculty of Arts
Aarhus Faculty of Science and Technology
Aarhus Faculty of Health Sciences
Aarhus School of Business and Social Sciences
Read more about the new vice-deans on the staff portal Atrium (in Danish only)
The consultation process is over, and many employees, students and organisations contributed to the process. Over 70 responses to the Task Force proposal for the faculty academic organisation were submitted.
Dean Mette Thunø has been engaging with these responses as part of the work of preparing the faculty's final recommendation on academic structure.
To celebrate the four new main academic areas and the university's new structure, AU invites all staff and students to a concert event on Friday 17 June 2011. The programme for the event has not yet been determined yet - but please mark the date on your calendar! More information will be forthcoming.
Aarhus University and the leading Brazilian university Universidade de Sao Paolo have just reached a collaboration agreement.
The agreement will enable student exchange and ultimately other forms of collaboration, including staff exchanges. The Section for Brazilian Studies is responsible for taking the initiative for the agreement, which is valid for the entire university.
Rector Holm-Nielsen signed the agreement in Sao Paolo on 17 February. He was in Brazil as part of Minister of Science Charlotte Sahl-Madsen's university delegation. The purpose of the delegation was to conclude a range of agreements to strengthen collaboration between Danish and Brazilian institutions of research and higher education.
On Wednesday 2 March, DI (the Confederation of Danish Industry) and AU will host talks and political debate in the Lakeside Lecture Theatres on how education can contribute to ensuring Danish economic growth.
Rector Holm-Nielsen will make a welcome speech, after which DI's head of research policy Charlotte Rønhof will make a presentation. The presentation will be followed by debates on how to create and finance the best possible study programmes in Denmark.
Aarhus University has just signed Operation Kædereaktion (' operation chain reaction').
Along with numerous businesses and organisations, AU has signed the document "Anbefalinger for flere kvinder i bestyrelser" (Recommendations for more women on boards of directors). Minister for Gender Equality Lykke Friis developed the recommendations in collaboration with representatives from Danish industry, owners of institutions, equity funds, headhunters and researchers.
By signing these recommendations, Aarhus University has pledged to make a concerted effort to cultivate and recruit more female leaders to boards of directors.
New key figures from Universities Denmark confirm that AU's Master's degree programmes continue to be extremely popular. 4,790 young people chose to apply for admission to a Master's degree programme at AU, which makes AU the most popular choice among all Danish universities. Forty-eight per cent of the students at AU are post-Bachelor's students, which makes AU the Danish university with the highest proportion of graduate students.
Aarhus University also benefitted from the general increase in interest in higher education among Danish young people this year. The university enrolled 6,172 new students, an increase of 10 % over last year in terms of admissions to Bachelor's degree programmes.
Kind regards
The University Management Group, February 2011
The Senior Management Group publishes a newsletter every week. This newsletter includes a brief description of current activities and discussions. You can sign up for the Danish version of the newsletter at http://info.au.dk/medarbbreve, after which you will receive an e-mail whenever the newsletter is issued.
If you would like to subscribe to the English version of News from the Senior Management Group, please go to http://info.au.dk/medarbbreve/index.asp?sprog=en. The English version of News from the Senior Management Group is available at http://www.au.dk/en/about/uni/seniormanagement/newsletter/. You can read previous editions of News from the Senior Management Group at http://www.au.dk/en/about/uni/seniormanagement/newsletter/2011.