Future visions Faculty of Humanities
Future visions Faculty of Humanities
Over the past year, the College of Humanities (CoH, Bachelor's) and the Graduate School of Humanities (GSH, Master's) have developed a broadly supported future vision to ensure that future decisions are primarily based on substantive considerations, thereby preventing financial considerations alone from determining the future of the faculty's bachelor's and master's education. The central question is: how do we retain space for innovation in research and education during an extended period of contraction?
Preserving expertise through collaboration
Within our Bachelor’s and Master’s degree programmes, there is a wide variety of programmes. At times, these programmes operate as a collection of separate islands. In some cases, for example, elective courses can only be chosen within a specific programme or cluster. By improving collaboration between programmes and, for instance, making more shared teaching possible, courses will become accessible to a broader group of students and space will be created for new learning pathways. When different areas of expertise share education, this opens up more possibilities for substantive innovation and interdisciplinary collaboration around thematic focal points. After all, research and societal challenges increasingly require an interdisciplinary approach. On top of this, it also brings financial benefits. A significant number of courses are currently taken by very small groups of students and some programmes see very few students graduate: these are both financial and didactic challenges. By sharing more teaching, we can retain and fund our existing areas of expertise. This sometimes means that not every area of expertise necessarily has its own dedicated degree programme.
Creating room for innovation
To stimulate forward-looking innovation in terms of content, CoH and GSH aim to use educational focal points to create a number of broadly accessible testing grounds in which innovative research and teaching themes and profiles are brought together, for example in the areas of sustainability, multilingualism, postcolonialism and AI. These will provide spaces where students and lecturers from different programmes can collaborate, allowing us to ensure that teaching responds more effectively to new developments and to strengthen the connection with the job market. In the future, teaching will be even more research and environment-oriented by involving students in research projects and teaching projects with societal partners and by encouraging exchanges and internships. In this way, students gain relevant experience for their future careers, whether their next step is further education, the job market or a career in research. In addition, in the coming years, together with teachers and researchers, the faculty wishes to critically examine the implications of GenAI for education and for students' future professions. Extra attention will also be devoted to academic citizenship, diversity and inclusion, including the international classroom, which contributes to a global and diverse learning environment.
What will this look like, and what does it mean for students?
In the future, programmes will continue to offer a solid disciplinary foundation through compulsory courses, but there will be more room for shared and interdisciplinary courses. At Master’s level, the elective space will be used for cross-programme education initiatives. Students will develop expertise within their own programme, while also having the opportunity to take courses in other disciplines or areas of expertise.
Elective course packages
In Bachelor's and Master's programmes, elective course packages will be designed. In the Bachelor's programmes, this will take the form of an appealing range of minors. The current range of minors will be reviewed and minors with low enrolment will be replaced by new minors. The capacity of popular minors could be increased. As for the Master's programmes, elective course packages will be offered around thematic focal points, making them accessible to more students from different programmes. This will offer a larger group of students the opportunity to broaden their perspectives by taking courses in other disciplines and thereby widening their view of their own programme. At the same time, there will also be opportunities for further specialisation, for example in courses on art and cultural theories that students have already encountered in their own programme and in which they can further specialise through another programme.
Larger course units
In Bachelor's and Master's programmes, a number of courses will be increased in terms of ECTS credits so that there is less fragmentation and students start out with a solid foundational level. Assessment moments will remain spread out over time. In addition, more courses will be shared within study programme clusters. Thanks to the financial advantages this offers, smaller teaching formats such as seminars and practical trainings can still be offered and smaller areas of expertise can be preserved.
Elective courses with broader access
Although the total amount of courses will decrease, students' options will increase because courses will become more widely accessible. Students will retain the freedom to combine courses according to their own interests within their elective space. In the curriculum redesign, attention will also be paid to clear planning and information provision: there will be a clear overview of all elective options and choice moments, and elective packages will be offered at logical points within the programme.