The Academic Senate was earlier presented in this blog post, and this week we had a meeting.

This time the meeting was held in the Humanistic Theatre, which is a room made for discussions. The room was indeed impressive, and very nice. It looks a bit like Gustavianum inside.

The first point on the agenda was a discussion related to the role of the academic senate. There were several invited guests who presented their experiences from the senate, and also gave opinions about the possible new role that the senate might play. One problem earlier has been that few attend the senate’s meetings, and one guess what this was due to the senate having no power in the organisations. Others disagreed, and thought that the senates’ role as a discussion partner for the board of the university is important.

The meeting also included a presentation and discussion of the Quality and Renewal (KOF in Swedish) report that was recently made official. One of the things that were mentioned in the presentation was that the university needs to be more inclusive, and there will be a discussion about the language used. This was interesting to hear, I think, and will probably be something that I will work with in the future. Another thing presented was that the university will be looking at implementing some kind of metrics system. We will also need to develop tools for that kind of metrics.

It will be interesting to be a part of the Academic Senate these coming years, and learn more about the university’s strategic work. The next thing that happens in the Senate is a retreat in March. I’ll be back with some more reflections then.