Author
With the first half of the blog I would like to take the opportunity to thank all my colleagues at the ITM School for many years of collaborative efforts. The role of GA at the school is both rewarding and challenging for sure. It has been thrilling, frustrating, fun but always very meaningful. There is a unique tradition at the ITM School to strive for world class education in our program and I really have to thank all teachers and our educational administration for your efforts and everlasting ambition even when we struggled with external reviews, new programs, tight deadlines, loads of papers to sign and thousands of ambitious but impatient students. This year campus Vallahallvägen becomes 100 years old. In 2019 IVA becomes 100 years old. One new project is therefore to highlight the role of engineers in our society over 100 years but also how the engineering profession and education has changed. Since I have been GA at ITM for a substantial part of the 100 y period I have now volunteered for this project. All input is therefore welcome!
Since Anna Jerbrant is now taking over as GA I leave it to her to finish this blog post off. Take it away, Anna!
Thanks Pelle, but since you’re staying as vice GA we will be able to benefit from your extensive experience and knowledge a while longer. So who am I? I’m an associate professor at Indek and I’ve spent my days at campus KTH ever since the 90ties, when I became a student within the mechanical engineering program. For the major during the final one and a half year I choose Industrial economics and management, and by the time I graduated I realized that this was a subject area that I wanted to learn even more about. So I stayed at KTH as a Ph.D student and after that I’ve earned both a licentiate degree and a Ph.D degree within Industrial economics and management.
I have been teaching and developing courses here at KTH for a long time. This has resulted in the fact that I have taught on many different levels (basic, individual, advanced and executive level), as well as in various contexts (national and international, in academia and in industry), and in many different ways (giving supervision, coaching, guest lectures, seminars and being the course responsible teacher). Besides being a researcher and a teacher I have also been the program director (PA) for the I-programme (2010-2016) an exciting and sometimes grueling task. In 2014, KTH launched the pedagogical developers initiative, appointing part-time pedagogical developers among teachers from all schools of KTH. During the first year I had the pleasure of being one of five PDs at the ITM-school. Being part of the work to set up a community of practice with all involved teachers that was form during this period was enthralling.
So from march 1st I will have the opportunity to engage in all educational issues that are ongoing at the ITM-school, for the moment with some particular interest in the areas of quality assurance through course and program evaluations, changes in education due to digitalization (f.i. flipped classroom pedagogics), design of program integrated courses and pedagogical faculty development.
/ Per Lundqvist & Anna Jerbrant, GA
Author
The KTH Schools are rather different in size and also in balance between education and research. It might also be that some schools could benefit from more integration between subject areas. With this as a background, our rector Sigbritt Karlsson, took yesterday some important decisions about the future organisation of KTH. The dean of the BIO School will coordinate an investigation towards integration of the three schools BIO, CHE and STH. Similarly, the dean of the ICT School will coordinate an investigation towards integration of the three schools ICT, CSC and EES. The dean of the ECE School will investigate/propose how the ECE School should be organized in the future.
The three Schools ITM, SCI and ABE will not be directly affected, a fact which should be interpreted such that these schools are of reasonable size and with a good balance between education and research. The time plan is such that a new KTH organization should be effective from January 1, 2018, which also means that the period of mandate for the current school deans, vice deans and strategic councils are extended to December 31, 2017. In line with making the KTH schools more similar in size and structure, and with focusing on quality, the rector has also decided to investigate and propose new role descriptions for the posts as GA, FA and PA. For more information about the organisation changes please refer to:
Jan Wikander, Dean of School
Author
Starting this year the PhD students are represented in the Research Education Committee (Forskarutbildningsutskottet, FU) and during the meeting in January all PADs were invited and we discussed the forms of their representation. It was decided that one PAD at a time participates. Last Monday we had the first FU-meeting with this setup.
We have for some time now had the idea to send out a survey to all PhD students at ITM and with the help of the PADs we are now getting closer to actually realizing it. We would like to know how the situation is for the PhD students at our five different doctoral programs. We want to know about working environment, courses, supervision etc to be able to learn from programs where it works well and to help correct things where there are problems. So look out for the survey that we hope will be sent out during March. It is important that as many as possible participate.
We have also started to plan the annual PhD students’ conference, also this with input from the PADs which is very valuable. The conference will be a lunch to lunch meeting May 9-10.
/ Malin Selleby, FA
Author
As you all know, the leadership at ITM and at the departments strive to make the working environment at ITM’s offices and laboratories of highest standard to create a safe and inspiring working environment as well as to meet the requirements from the Swedish laws. As a part of these efforts, it is time for our yearly safety inspections at each department. More specifically, they will take place at the following occasions:
- Department of Industrial Production: March 9
- Deans office education office: March 16
- Deans office Sing Sing: March 16
- Department of Materials Science and Engineering March 17
- Department of Applied Mechanical Engineering: March 20
- Department of Machine Design March 21
- Department of Industrial Economy and Management: March 22
- Department of Energy: March 22
After each inspection, a document will be made that summarizes the findings. Possible corrections will be pointed out. Thereafter, each Department Head will make a plan to specify how and when these corrections should be completed in order to meet our standards as well as to meet the regulations. Please contact your nearest manager if you need more information regarding the safety inspection at your department.
ITM organizes several activities to stimulate the health of the personnel. Many of you already take part in activities such as badminton, floor hockey, body pump etc at the KTH hall. However, the most attended event has been the annual step competition. Initially, it focused on a competition within and between the departments at ITM. Later, it was expanded to also include the central university administration (UF) and the CSC school. The 2017, step competition will include all Schools at KTH. We believe that personnel at other schools have heard about this fun event and said to their leaders that they also wish to take part in this activity.
From the evaluation of our previous step competitions we know that many of you have said that this step competition inspired you to carry out more exercises. Of course, we think it is valuable that you make sure that your health is kept or improved by doing exercise on a regular basis. So, if you do not already have a comfortable pair of shoes in your wardrobe it is time to look for a suitable sale. Get ready for the 2017 step competition!
/Pär Jönsson, Vice Dean
Author
Phase 1 of the project service@itm.kth.se is now complete. Together, we have:
- identified individual tasks
- produced interface documents
- concluded project work linked to
- Infrastructure
- Training
- Third-cycle education
- Purchasing
- Web
- Working in an open environment
- Events, conferences, public defences of doctoral theses, etc.
- HR
- Finances
- Working in an open environment
We are now entering phase 2. Work commencing in this phase:
- Project Coordinator Annika Lilja is doing the rounds, informing the management group of each respective department about the new service centre.
- Identifying which tasks are to be performed at the service centre.
- Who will do what?
- Recruitment of employees, interviews are ongoing.
- Discussion no. 2 with concerned administrative personnel.
- Building an information page on the intranet.
- Creating an entry point.
- Supplementing the risk analysis conducted at the start of the project.
- Premises are available in the M block and in Sing Sing (both for service desk and office spaces for back office work).
- Two electric cars are being acquired (for the school’s porters).
Set schedule starting 1 April 2017 is on track.
Continued dissemination of information on the project
The school’s intranet is being used to disseminate information. Work materials are being shared on “social” for the reference group and concerned personnel. The school’s management group has a permanent point on the agenda for these issues; we will receive feedback via the school’s intranet and, naturally, direct to our e-mail inboxes.
Annika Lilja – anlil@kth.se
Christina Carlsson – christina.carlsson@itm.kth.se
Anna Thöresson Bergh – atb@kth.se
We hope in this way to keep as many people as possible up-to-date, as we will all be affected by this change in one way or another. We need your feedback in order to know whether we are on the right track.
Best
Christina, Head of Administration
