Now the first period of this academic year has passed and I hope you all consider the courses and examinations within your responsibility as successful.
When it comes to educational issues – both at an ITM School level as well as a KTH level – several important things are going on:
A new decision (v-2019-0109) clearly states that examinators and course responsible teachers are not allowed to cancel or change dates and times for the written examinations that are in the fixed schedule. So, it’s very important that we all are active in the assessment period of the schedule.
Read more about important dates for the scheduling process here
Also, the work has now begun to ensure that the software needed for the spring semester of 2020 is available in the computer rooms. During summer and winter breaks, maintenance work is carried out in the computer rooms (for instance upgrades or replacing of computers). This has affected the range of installed software in the computer rooms, so we cannot expect that a software available previous semester is still installed.
Read more about ordering of software on this IT support page
On November 9th KTH Giants 2019 is having an event on Campus Valhallavägen with several interesting and motivating speakers and several possibilities to learn more about our educations.
Read more about Giants here
KTH has decided to offer a Degree Program in Engineering Mathematics (CTMAT) starting in autumn 2020, and the ITM program “Civilingenjör & lärare” has a new program director since October 15th: Annica Hofberg.
Finally, I hope you all have read the recent post in Sigbritt Karlssons blog where she shares ideas on new ways of learning and studying in Europe.
Read President Sigbritt Karlsson’s blog here
/ Anna Jerbrant, Director of First and Second Cycle Education at ITM
There is for obvious reasons a lot of focus on sustainability. Within the Postgraduate education committee (Forskarutbildningsutskottet), consisting of the professors responsible for our six doctoral programmes and myself, an idea has emerged: to develop a course in sustainability for doctoral students. The intention is to do the course as collaborative effort between all our departments. I presented the idea at the Faculty Club and have since then been contacted by teachers interested in such a course. Shortly we’ll form a group to discuss how to proceed. If you are interested – please send me an email!
On the same theme – I hope that all supervisor and PhD students are aware of that they need to comment on the coupling between their own research and the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals in each individual study plan – tab 10 under C2.
As many of you already know, all managers at ITM are now taking part in a course – Leadership development from a gender perspective. Maybe you have been asked to go out on “Culture reconnaissance” (kulturspaning) in your own working environment? To work towards, and focus on gender equality, is also part of developing a sustainable future. So, please – go out and “kulturspana”!
/Malin Selleby, Director of Third Cycle Education at the ITM School
Nominera hen till skolchef
Vem vill du se som skolchef för ITM från och med nästa år? Har du tänkt tycka till är det brådis – den 16 oktober ska alla förslag vara inne.
För du vet väl att vi som är anställda på ITM kan nominerar en eller flera personer – eller oss själva – till skolchefsrollen. Givetvis finns det vissa minimkrav för att vara behörig som skolchef, till att börja med bör du exempelvis vara professor eller lektor. Ja, därmed kommer inte jag själv på fråga.
Nomineringskommittén har fler önskemål på sin lista:
- Framgångsrik erfarenhet av ledarskap över större enheter med arbetsmiljö och personalansvar (som skolchef, vice skolchef, prefekt eller motsvarande)
- Professor/lektor på docentnivå med forskningsledarerfarenhet
- Uppvisa formell ledarskapsutbildning av omfattning
- Visad god förmåga att arbeta med visioner och strategier att utveckla skolan och KTH
- Visad god förmåga att genomföra förändring och kunna fatta beslut
- Visad god samarbetsförmåga inom KTH, mellan skolor, med KTH:s ledning och studentkåren
- Legitimitet och integritet, förmåga att representera KTH externt
- Ska kunna presentera en vision för aktuell skolas utveckling inom utbildning, forskning och samverkan med samhället
Nomineringskommittén består av en permanent nomineringsgrupp för skolchefstillsättningar inklusive representanter från ITM-skolans strategiska råd. Kommitténs uppdrag är att ta fram ett förslag på ny skolchef till rektor som sedan är den som väljer ny skolchef för ITM.
Skicka ditt förslag senast den 16 oktober 2019via mail till itm-nominering-skolchef@kth.se. Glöm inte använda den mall som har skickats ut.
Who would you like to see as Head of school for ITM from next year? If you want to have a say, there’s still time – but just. The deadline for your candidate is October 16.
I hope everyone’s aware that all ITM employees can nominate one or more person – or ourselves, for that matter – as the Head of school. Naturally, there are some minimum requirements to be qualified as a school principal. To begin with, for example, you should be a professor or associate professor. No, so I do not qualify.
The Nominating Committee has more requests on its list:
- Successful experience of leadership across major units with work environment and personnel responsibilities (such as Head of school, Vice head of school, Prefect or equivalent)
- Professor/Associate Professor at docent level with research leader experience
- Demonstrate formal leadership training of scope
- Demonstrated good ability to work with visions and strategies to develop the school and KTH
- Demonstrated good ability to implement change and be able to make decisions
- Demonstrated good collaboration skills in KTH, between schools, with KTH’s management and the student union
- Legitimacy and integrity, ability to represent KTH externally
The nomination committee consists of the permanent nomination group and representatives from the ITM School’s strategic council. The committee’s mission is to produce a proposal for a new Head of school to presented for the President, Sigbritt Karlsson, who makes the final decision.
Nominate your candidate no later than 16 October 2019 via email to itm-nominering-skolchef@kth.se. Don’t forget to use se the template with motivation for your proposal/nomination that was sent out earlier.
/Christina Carlsson, Head of Administration at ITM
Dear colleagues,
During spring 2019 I was contacted by the ITM management group, asking if I was interested in taking on the role as acting deputy head of the ITM School during the fall 2019.
The role involved a new ingredient. Added to the duties, there was a need for an explicit management role for coordinating research. Finding this a very interesting opportunity I accepted.
Under the leadership of Jan Wikander, the ITM management paved the way for a new overarching Research Initiative on Sustainable industry and society, raising funding in the order of 20 MSEK/year up to and including 2022. This initiative has as a main goal to create strong research environments at the ITM school, focused on achieving the mission stated in the ITM development plan. A key aspect of that is to stimulate and create new cross-department collaborations. The main goals, and the four areas part of this initiative, were set out in the ITM development plan.
One of the first things I did was to give the initiative a name – we now call it IRIS – the ITM school overarching Research Initiative on Sustainable industry and society.
IRIS represents a unique and probably unprecedented opportunity to proactively establish the ITM school at the forefront in addressing research on sustainable industry and society.
At the same time it’s important to coordinate and interact with other initiatives, for example the new KTH Industrial transformation platform led by Monica Bellgran. How can we leverage and create synergies between these multiple efforts.
Communication and involvement regarding IRIS is extremely important, and shortly we will create a web page that describes the IRIS initiative and how you can engage.
In the short term, do not hesitate to contact me, or one of the area coordinators as follows:
– Area 1: Industrial transformation through digitalization, renewable energy and circular economy; Antonio Maffei, IIP/Elena Fersman, MMK
– Area 2: Integrated mechanics, components and materials design, including additive manufacturing; Greta Lindwall, MSE/Raquel Lizarraga, MSE
– Area 3: Sustainable energy systems, infrastructure and business; Andrew Martin, EGI/Frauke Urban, Indek,
– Area 4: Innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystems and infrastructure; Jennie Björk, MMK/Anders Broström, Indek
And I very much encourage you to read the ITM development plan. You find it here:
https://intra.kth.se/en/itm/om-itm-skolan/itm-utvecklingsplan-1.916587
Martin Törngren, acting deputy head of school
It’s a joy that the autumn term of 2019 has started, that our P1 courses is up and running and the welcome reception of newly admitted students have enriched our views on campus.
There are several new and important educational issues affecting the coming semester that is worth emphasizing. For instance, there are several courses in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education available for the academic year 2019-2020 (both in English and Swedish). One example is the Basic course LH231V (7,5 credits) but there are also continuation courses (see examples at the end of the post).
Since these continuation courses cover several important strategic aspects I highly recommend that as many of us as possible attend them. You can find an overview of all courses in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education through the link.
Focus on special needs
I also hope you all have gotten information on the President’s decision about a new procedure for support to students with special needs during examination? I have discussed this new guideline with all the Head of studies at all ITM departments and based on that we concluded a recommendation for all ITM examinators on how to manage the changes specified in the new regulations in the best way possible. I hope you all have gotten that information from your departments Head of Studies, otherwise let me know so that we can increase the communication. J
Examples of continuation courses
LH215V Learning for Sustainable Development, 4,5 credits
LH216V Att utveckla lärandet med betygskriterier, 1,5 hp
LH216V Develop the Learning by Using Grading Criteria, 1,5 credits
LH217V Att leda utbildningsutveckling, 3 credits
LH219V Supervision and Assessment of Degree Project Work in First and Second Cycle, 3 credits
LH225V Genus och jämställdhet I högre teknisk utbildning, 4,5 hp
LH233V Teaching and Learning for Challenge Driven Education in a Global Context, 3 credits
LH235V Global competence for teachers in higher education, 3 credits
LH238V Digital Learning in Higher Education, 4,5 credits (information will be published in February 2020)
/ Anna Jerbrant, Director of First and Second Cycle Education
