“The university as a whole has taken an irreversible path, the urgency is great”

UM going all out with ideas for a ‘smarter academic year’

13-06-2023 · Background

MAASTRICHT. Maastricht University wants to have a shorter academic year. But is an idealized image, a single model for all study programmes to stop teaching at the beginning of June, actually feasible? This is being investigated at the moment. In addition, three faculties are experimenting, with funding from the government. “The most important thing is to reduce the workload,” says rector Pamela Habibović.

“In comparison to Belgium or the United States, we have a very long academic year,” stated Thomas Cleij, dean of the Faculty of Science and Engineering. His faculty is participating (just like the Faculties of Arts and Social Sciences and Health, Medicine and Life Sciences) in a national pilot, funded by the Ministry of Education. A total of fourteen universities and one university of applied sciences are taking part. How they will shorten the academic year, so where they will make adaptations, is up to them. Condition: it may not be at the expense of the content of the programme. The projects will run until 2026.

A number of continuous weeks

At the time when the ministry introduced the funds for the pilots, UM had already been zooming in on the theme for a while, says rector Habibović. Two internal working groups presented their ideas at the end of 2022, after which the deans and the Executive Board gave the go-ahead for further elaboration. At the moment, a feasibility study is taking place to find out what the consequences of such an operation would be for academic staff, for students, and for administrative and support staff. Habibović is not saying much about the ‘model’ that they are aiming for, but does say that “research has shown that lecturers benefit most from a number of continuous weeks ‘off’, for example four weeks at the end of the year,” so in June. She also says that the ideal situation would be for the whole of UM to have the same set-up of their year. It is important for the interdisciplinary aspect, she outlines, for (even more) co-operation in the field of research and education. That won’t work if a lecturer or researcher from faculty A has a different academic agenda to a colleague at Faculty B.
Cleij is convinced that change is unavoidable: “The university as a whole has taken an irreversible path, the urgency is great.” The pilot projects in the three faculties constitute a separate track, and no, “it is not certain whether this can be (fully) integrated in the overall plan for UM,” the rector said. They may, however, be part of the solution.

Internships

There are certainly advocates of a shorter academic year; who wouldn’t want a more relaxed pace and room to do things? Finally time to attend congresses, for education innovation, research or time off. Students may also benefit, says Cleij, because they will have more time for internships. But here was criticism too, because the number of credits must remain the same. Will more lessons be given in fewer weeks? Will members of staff be busier at a different time? Cleij: “We have become convinced that a smarter academic year is certainly not worse. It is possible that the absolute workload will not (immediately) be reduced, but hopefully the stress that is felt will be, that there will be more moments to rest.”

The pilots: from a longer summer holiday to a week off every now and again

Within the bachelor’s of European Public Health, FHML wants to shorten the eight-week blocks to seven weeks, stated Mirjam Oude Egbrink, scientific director of the Education Institute. Lecturers and students are yearning for breathers. Reason enough to experiment with one week of no classes resulting in lecturers being ‘free from teaching’. Students can prepare, for example, for the following block. Oude Egbrink: “The academic year would in fact be four weeks shorter, but summer holidays would not be longer.”

The Faculties of Science and Engineering (FSE) and Arts and Social Sciences (FASoS) are striving for the latter in their pilots. “We want a cut at the end,” says Cleij. This would be possible by removing a short block of four weeks, after Christmas for example (that prefers Cleij). This would shift everything. “In principle, the year should end for everybody at the beginning of June. Of course, some extension can’t be prevented, a diploma ceremony for example, or some other minor duties, but no lectures, thesis supervision or exams.”
According to Cleij, it is a great opportunity “to modernise and improve” the study programmes. At the same time, it is a complex process: “You can’t remove four weeks ‘just like that’. You have a considerable number of themes to deal with, for example how the ECTS are divided up in the programmes.” The task at hand is now to go and identify the bottlenecks, he says. FSE and FHML actually want to change the academic year (implementation phase) in academic year 2024-2025.

At FASoS, there are no regular blocks in the last period of the academic year, Patrick Bijsmans, vice dean of education e-mailed, but there are deadlines for theses and resits. “Ideally the whole period will become free of any teaching-related work. So our pilot would be concerned with how to best organize this.” For example, this will require that period 5 is at least partly teaching free to enable students in their final year to focus on their thesis. They ask themselves how they can make this work, without increasing work pressure elsewhere and without losing education quality.