Dear Faculty,
Well, where do I start? It feels overwhelming, honourable and exciting to be new at work. Right now, it could be summed up by saying that the new office is still quite empty, while the calendar is filled up.
It will be an exciting year and it feels inspiring and fun to now be able to work with a new management team and get to work closely with our departments and heads of department.
The fact that I have had the opportunity to lead our educational organisation in my previous role as vice dean and had a chance to do so through the pandemic has given me many experiences that I will now bring with me going forward. The most important lesson I take with me from my time in the management of the Faculty of Medicine is that this is a team effort and this is also what made me feel confident to now take on the assignment as dean – I am not alone, I am part of a strong team.
During the spring, we will spend time getting to know our broad range of activities and we hope to have the opportunity to visit all our departments. We hope that this will create the foundation for one of the important issues of our term of office – that all employees should feel involved and be proud to be part of our faculty.
There is now a lot of work ahead of us and we will partly work in new ways going forward.
The responsibilities of vice deans have varied over time and to some extent reflect the important issues that lie ahead. That is why responsibilities in this management team are not the same as the previous ones. We are influenced by the world around us and by the surrounding society, and now there is a vice dean with a focus on security and contingency – which are important issues for us to work with.
We, like other parts of the university, are affected by high costs for our premises. At the same time, as we have empty premises, we see that we need to focus on how we best use our premises in the future. This means that we now have a vice dean with responsibility for campus development.
Work environment, sustainability and ethics are prioritised issues and issues that all of us in our various roles at the faculty have a responsibility for, work with and relate to. We have now chosen to handle these issues in a new way and they are not reflected in the vice-deans' individual areas of responsibility.
We in the management team will have different areas of responsibility, but we will work closely together on many issues. Our core purpose, education and research of the highest quality, will be everyone's focus and it will be important work to create a clear research strategy in close interaction with healthcare and our infrastructures. We will begin this work later this spring.
The difficult, important and challenging work of achieving long-term sustainable faculty finances will also have our common focus.
We all know that we are in uncertain and economically challenging times, but in challenging times, it is also possible to find opportunities and new ways forward. I am optimistic about the future.
With best regards
Maria
PS. Right now it's winter, but spring will come! DS
