Both the Works and the Student Council have called in lawyers to investigate their legal right to influence decisions taken by the TU’s Executive Board.
The councils are entitled to advise the board on certain issues and an explanation is obligatory when their advice is disregarded. The board often disregards the councils’ advice. Both councils, however, are demanding participation now and they are compiling lists of issues they want to be involved with. Their lists will be compared to the boards’ list. The student council is especially angry about the board’s decision to introduce a mandatory study points system. Over a year ago, the council and board agreed to indefinitely postpone the introduction of such a system, provided that the council agreed on an alternative. Last week, however, the board decided that students who do not compile 21 study points in two years will be forced to leave the TU. Food for judicial thoughts, the student council decided.
TU’s new strategy to reach the top
To become one of the five best technical universities in the world, the TU’s research impact factor should increase from 1.25 to 1.60, the TU’s Executive Board declared in their new strategy memorandum. A high scientific impact factor is measured by the number of quotations in authoritative scientific journals. The TU should also admit more students to their Ph.D. programs and the TU should play an important role in society. Things must change in education as well. A severer selection process must be applied to foundation courses (propaedeutics) and high-grade scientific research should have a more significant role in these courses. And small faculties, which attract fewer students, would be merged with larger faculties. The essence of the strategy, however, lies in staffing policy. By recruiting professors who can contribute to the high research impact factor and by downsizing the supporting staff, the TU’s aim of being a ‘top university’ should come within reach.
Both the Works and the Student Council have called in lawyers to investigate their legal right to influence decisions taken by the TU’s Executive Board. The councils are entitled to advise the board on certain issues and an explanation is obligatory when their advice is disregarded. The board often disregards the councils’ advice. Both councils, however, are demanding participation now and they are compiling lists of issues they want to be involved with. Their lists will be compared to the boards’ list. The student council is especially angry about the board’s decision to introduce a mandatory study points system. Over a year ago, the council and board agreed to indefinitely postpone the introduction of such a system, provided that the council agreed on an alternative. Last week, however, the board decided that students who do not compile 21 study points in two years will be forced to leave the TU. Food for judicial thoughts, the student council decided.
TU’s new strategy to reach the top
To become one of the five best technical universities in the world, the TU’s research impact factor should increase from 1.25 to 1.60, the TU’s Executive Board declared in their new strategy memorandum. A high scientific impact factor is measured by the number of quotations in authoritative scientific journals. The TU should also admit more students to their Ph.D. programs and the TU should play an important role in society. Things must change in education as well. A severer selection process must be applied to foundation courses (propaedeutics) and high-grade scientific research should have a more significant role in these courses. And small faculties, which attract fewer students, would be merged with larger faculties. The essence of the strategy, however, lies in staffing policy. By recruiting professors who can contribute to the high research impact factor and by downsizing the supporting staff, the TU’s aim of being a ‘top university’ should come within reach.
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