(Original Swedish post published 25 September, English version posted 10 November.)
Just over three years have now passed since the merger with Gotland University College and the establishment of Campus Gotland. Last autumn the process was evaluated by Lars Haikola and we received 17 proposals and recommendations, most of which have already been acted on. Our appropriation directions instruct us to create an environment for full university-standard research and education and our own strategy documents set the goal of 1500 full-time equivalent students on Campus Gotland.
We have made good progress but more remains to be done. When the Academic Senate held its conference in Visby last week, the areas discussed were: Sustainable tourism, Game design, Cultural heritage node, and e-learning. The senators outlined many ideas in their report to Olle Jansson, Advisor to the Vice-Chancellor. During the Vice-Chancellor’s dialogue with the senators, I took up the meeting with the Minister on the day before the Budget Bill, summarised here in the previous blog post.
During the week, a delegation from Hallym University in South Korea visited the Faculty of Medicine for an eighth joint symposium, this time on the theme of antibiotic resistance. Previous symposiums have concerned a range of areas, such as: “Current Issues in Medicine and Surgery”, “Tissue Engineering & Regenerative Medicine”, “Biomarkers: From Bench to Clinic”, “Advances in Imaging” and “Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine”. Further symposiums are planned, hopefully including participants from other faculties as well.
More housing is needed – we’ve all heard about it often enough. So I’m happy to be able to say that 264 rooms/flats for international students were opened last week at Kungsgatan 27. And at the same time, a building project to provide 37 flats for visiting researchers/teachers began at Villavägen 9.
The week concluded with the Martin H:son Holmdahl lecture, delivered by the winner of the 2015 Martin H:son Holmdahl Scholarship, Associate Professor Helene Lööw. Her lecture was entitled: “The language of hate and the practice of hate: On the symbiosis between language and crime”. The Martin H:son Holmdahl Scholarship for promotion of human rights and liberties was established in 2003. You are welcome to nominate a deserving person or group for the 2016 scholarship. Nominations should be sent to the scholarship committe with an explanatory statement by 13 October, via nominera@uadm.uu.se.