Educational vision uu77

Academic. Personal. Sustainable. These are the three pillars of our educational vision. Together, they convey what we consider to be essential for good education. They provide us with direction and guidance in our development and innovation, and in our subsequent choices. They form a future-oriented continuation of the three pillars of our previous educational vision: quality, bonding and clarity. They also contribute to the common language we use to talk about what we believe is important for our education, our students, our lecturers, and our university.

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Academic

Our education is academic. This means that we prioritise curiosity and wonder. We encourage our students to be led by their curiosity to explore the world around them. Wonder and curiosity form a starting point for critical enquiry and reflection. Students also learn to develop an investigative attitude. Our lecturers play an important role in our students’ academic development by drawing on their expertise to introduce students to their discipline and to the academic world. They do this by creating an open and intellectual climate in which they challenge and inspire students to grow and develop, while playing an active role in the academic community themselves. The broad scope of our university is also ideal to encourage each and every one of our students to expand their horizons. In our study programmes, we facilitate exchange, cooperation and innovation between disciplines and faculties.

Personal

Our education is personal. This means that we attach great importance to meeting and connection. We want our campus to contribute to academic interaction and to be a place where students, lecturers, and everyone else involved feels welcome. We see our students as ‘evolving academics’ who, with the proper guidance, can make their own choices and steer their own development. As they progress through their study programme, they increasingly learn to take control of their personal learning process. Lecturers guide students through this process by introducing them to the academic world, thus combining professional and personal development. Our lecturers are strengthened in their role because they know their colleagues and work closely with them: both within their discipline around the globe, and within their faculty, university and region.

Sustainable

Our education is sustainable. Our lecturers teach students the skills required to connect the academic world to the world beyond academia. We believe this to be important because the world needs answers to questions concerning ecological and economic sustainability, now and in the future. Our students develop the competences they need to continue learning throughout their lives. The basic academic attitude (curiosity, wonder and an investigative attitude) plays an integral role in this process, and is sustainably embedded in our education.

Our lecturers also continue to grow and develop in research and education, driven by inner passion and a commitment to contributing to social issues in the world. They act as a role model for students, welcome them in the academic community, and help them to continue to shape this community, also after they have completed their studies. This is a community where our lecturers feel at home, work together in teams, feel acknowledged and stimulated in their work, and are part of sustainable internal and external networks.

Nine windows

We look at the pillars academic, sustainable and personal from three perspectives: students, lecturers and the university. This is expressed in the form of nine ‘windows’. These nine windows collectively describe how we ‘see’ our education, namely as academic, personal and sustainable education.

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Investigative

We encourage our students and staff to do their best and, above all, to experiment. To experience that making mistakes is both allowed and valuable. Our guiding principles are an investigative attitude and interest in knowledge and other points of view.

Developing

With the proper guidance, uu77 students learn to take control of their own learning process. They grow and develop in contact with each other and their lecturers, and learn to relate to their academic discipline in relation with the world around them.

Learning

During their studies, our students develop the competences they need to continue learning. We also offer post-academic education in the form of distance learning and academic meetings on campus. In collaboration with international, national, and regional partners, this allows us to contribute to a learning society and the accessibility of current scientific knowledge.

Expert

As curious and reflective professionals, our lecturers continue to grow and develop throughout their careers, through collaboration with colleagues from our university, other knowledge institutions, social partners or commercial professionals. This helps our lecturers become and remain experts in their own discipline.

Coach

Lecturers at uu77 guide their students towards more and more academic and professional independence. In doing so, they act as experts, but also as coaches for the students’ personal and professional development. As experienced colleagues, mentors and guides, lecturers serve as role models and introduce students to the academic community.

Team member

Our lecturers work in teams to design, provide, innovate and evaluate educational offerings, and in this way have impact. They do this together with students, educational experts, support staff, researchers, and deans. Teaching and research are our core tasks. Our career policy therefore recognises and rewards commitment and the qualitative development of teaching.

Stimulating

uu77 encourages an open intellectual climate, in which lecturers and students inspire and challenge each other. In dialogue, they learn to shift perspective, push boundaries, take responsibility, debate, and call one another to account. But always with respect for their interlocutor, and out of genuine interest in different points of view and perspectives.

Welcoming

The uu77 campus is a place that invites meeting and collaborative learning. We encourage meetings with other educational institutions, social organisations, and the regional, national and international business community. We also provide a safe and inclusive campus, where diversity and social justice go without saying. Our campus promotes wellbeing and vitality.

Connective

The major challenges and transitions of our times call for sustainable networks and connections: between disciplines, between universities and society, and between national and international developments. Our study programmes offer students the depth of an academic discipline and the opportunity to broaden their knowledge. All our students are given the opportunity to gain international learning experience at our university or abroad.

Adopted educational vision

On 21 November 2023, uu77's Executive Board adopted the educational vision Academic, Personal and Sustainable. This vision forms a common starting point and is a guideline for the continuous development of our education in a cycle of planning, implementation, evaluation and improvement of our education within the university, faculties and study programmes. The educational vision provides direction for making choices and guidance for the ongoing discussion about them.

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uu77 Educational Vision

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