There are three interfaculty bachelor’s programmes at Maastricht. The newest one, Brain Science, a collaboration between FPN, FHML and FSE, started last academic year. In the case of the oldest one, Global Studies, all six of UM’s faculties have been working together since 2020. And Business Engineering, the union between SBE and FSE, also started in 2020. It was recently reported that a fourth one is on the way, governance, law and society (Bestuur, Recht en Samenleving). The Faculty of Law will be taking the lead, although SBE and FASoS are also involved.
The programmes aim to teach students to examine problems from different perspectives, across disciplines. But how does that work behind the scenes? Do the faculties also step out of their comfort zones to ensure the programme runs smoothly?
Yes, but not without effort, conversations with the three programme coordinators have shown. They are faced with all sorts of practical issues. According to the ‘quartermaster’ for Business Engineering (and former SBE dean) Philip Vergauwen, these are mostly the result of “the different faculty administrations not being aligned with each other”.
"Recruiting tutors is an issue. All participating faculties do that differently"
Michaella Vanore (Global Studies) and Gunter Kenis (Brain Science) agree. Planning timetables, student administration, assigning classrooms, scheduling lecturers – it’s all the responsibility of one of the participating faculties. But that doesn’t mean it’s all plain sailing. “Every faculty is its own little fiefdom,” says Vanore. “For example, even for something as simple as scheduling lecturers, each one has a different system”, and it is not always clear what is happening at the other faculties. The predictable results are double bookings – lecturers who are expected to teach at both Global Studies and their own faculty at the same time. “Or take my own position: I have been seconded from SBE to coordinate a team of five people here. But officially, they are part of FASoS, so as far as HR is concerned, I have no say over them.”
Or take recruiting tutors. For Kenis, that is “still an issue, because all three of the participating faculties do that differently”. They recruit at different times of year, for example. Kenis is working on “concrete agreements between the three faculties. Next academic year will be a lot smoother”.
"We are dependent on any good will we manage to cultivate. It's a hell of a job"
Another serious problem is the number of working hours, the time a staff member of a particular faculty can spend doing certain tasks. Those may differ per faculty, which might cause a problem if you set up a course with people from different faculties. For both Global Studies and Brain Science, the solution was to determine their own specific number of hours. A workable compromise, says Kenis. However, adds Vanore, it has the unintended consequence of creating competition between the programme and the participating faculties. “One particular faculty has told us that their people would rather not work for us, because there aren’t enough hours. Whereas staff at another faculty are eager, because they get double the time here.”
All three are keen not to point fingers. “This isn’t a question of willing on the side of the people at the different faculties, they’re just used to working a certain way,” says Vanore. “And when we do come to them with a problem, they try their best to help solve it. But that does mean that there is a problem to start with, and that we are dependent on any good will we manage to cultivate. It’s a hell of a job.”
"The current structure more or less forces people to consider their own faculty's needs first"
A job that takes time – too much time, if you ask Vergauwen. “I’m supposed to make sure we set up a master’s programme, too, and start working together more with the Brightlands campuses. But that keeps being put on the back burner because I have to put out all these little fires here. Yes, you can sense the frustration. And not just mine. The current structure more or less forces people to consider their own faculty’s needs first.”
How could that be improved? The former dean hopes to start a discussion about the structure of Maastricht’s interfaculty programmes. “It’s high time, if we want to have more of these sorts of programmes in the future. Why not turn Business Engineering into a sort of college, with its own budget, its own people, its own dean? Just like UCM, which is also dependent on a faculty, but has its own clear structure.”
Vanore would love such a discussion. “There is much still to learn. I would love to see an interdisciplinary, interfaculty institute, that would be the best solution. But setting something like that up is hard, especially considering the budget cuts in higher education.”