Minutes from the meeting at the Board of Studies for International Affairs Friday the 29th of April 2011

10/05/2011

Minutes from the meeting at the Board of Studies for International Affairs Friday the 29th of April 2011
Participants: Wolfgang Zank, Henrik Plaschke, Jesper Holm, Troels Rye-Andersen, David Allington (DIRES), Malene Gram og Jytte Kongstad (ref). From Ballerup: Vibeke Andersson and Rasmus Ludvigsen
Not attending: Johannes Schmidt, Li Xing (with notice) and Lasse Frimand Jensen

Proposal for the agenda:

1) Agenda
2) Protocol of last meeting (see attachment)
3) Election of a deputy chairman
4) Feedback on lectures and simulation game (see attachment). In general positive, simulation game very positive.
5) Feedback on examination/Gorm's input.
6) Tuition fee waivers
   a) LAS as prioritised into the guidelines under point 3 (see attachment), guidelines approved by the board in april and finally in june 2010. http://www.internationalaffairs.aau.dk/digitalAssets/14/14861_june-29-2010.pdf
    b) Proposal to distribution: ES 1-2, DIR 4, GRS 4, CAS 3, LAS 1-2 (unclear whether partner universities for LAS and ES can actually use them. If not, they go to DIR and GRS).
7) Misc.


Acceptance of the agenda
An extra item for the agenda: The last feedback from the Advisory Board meeting in March.

Protocol of the last meeting
Henrik Plaschke proposed that the discussion about the differences among the staff members should be incorporated into the protocol.

Wolfgang will write a supplement to the protocol on this topic and circulate among the board members [done]..

Election of a deputy chairman
Jesper is still waiting for the security clearance for his internship for the spring semester 2012 but accepted to function as the deputy chairman of the Study Board. The board elected him, provided he will be here in autumn. The deputy chairman is also automatically a representative of the Study Board at the school meetings and will also be invited to meetings with the vice Chancellor where actual developments, annual reports, budgets etc. are presented and discussed.


Feedback on lectures and simulation game
Courses: Wolfgang presented a written summery of the questionnaires for he spring courses. As always only a limited number of students answered but the general feedback was overall positive. Especially the feedback on Robert was very good which is positive as it was his first time teaching at DIR/ES. The student representatives mentioned that there had been a problem with cancellation of lectures at one of the courses which created some confusion in connection with the written examination in course literature at DIR.

Simulation Game: Besides the students from European Studies 34 of the DIR students participated in the Simulation Game during the 8^th semester this spring. The feedback was good and the students were very satisfied. Evaluation schemes from the students were presented in a diagram. The students asked for the Simulation Game to be on the time schedule for the autumn semester as well but WZ pointed out that it could be done, but it would be consuming to prepare such a large event twice a year.

.The students asked for guest lectures on negotiation techniques, International Crisis Management and the like. As Troels pointed out, at the recent meeting with the Advisory Board they mentioned that it was important for International Affairs to differentiate the programs from similar programs at other universities, and simulation games in combination with negotiation techniques could be such a differentiating point, and it might be an advantage for students selling themselves to future employees.
Feedback on examination
The Board of Studies has received a complaint from a DIR student who felt badly treated during the oral examination mainly because the examination did not fully cover all three lecture series of the semester. The student wants to retake the examination with half an hour for each course and not just half an hour altogether for the three courses. WZ pointed out that the current syllabus excludes this, and it would demand many resources to make examinations like that, and an examination covering all three courses within half an hour will not work out.

Written guidelines for the teachers on how to handle the oral examination were once discussed at the board of studies and thereafter circulated.

The problem with unprepared students turning up for the examinations was mentioned once again.

There were some confusion in the beginning of the written examination in course literature at DIR with some students complaining about one of the questions covering material from a cancelled lectures but this was repudiated by Li Xing and Wolfgang after a thorough check up on the material on Moodle. Both questions were in perfect order and in accordance with lectures, slides and literature. However, because of the confusion the students were given four extra hours for the assignment. The decision and a revised hand in deadline were published on Moodle.

Gorm Winther has presented a letter to the Board as feedback on the oral examination in contrast to the written one which he considers a lot milder. Gorm emphasized that preparation time is needed for this kind of oral examinations. The letter was discussed and several alternative examination models were brought up. Malene proposed a four hours written examination taking place at the university.

It was decided to have a fresh look on the existing guidelines for the examinations at the next meeting.

Tuition fee waivers
SNIF counts on receiving 14 tuition waivers for coming autumn semester. Wolfgang presented a paper which was decided on by the board in June 2010 on the principles of allocating the scholarships. The Scholarships shall mainly be distributed to cooperation universities and to highly qualified students. As to 2011, Wolfgang proposed 4 to DIR, 4 to GRS, 3 to CAS, 1-2 to ES and 1-2 to LAS. The proposal contained LAS and ES offers to partner universities (Argentina, Beijing, Pretoria), but it is not certain at the moment whether they can send candidates. In case they will not send some, the tuition fee waivers will be distributed to DIR and GRS.

Jesper from ES questioned the decision to allocate more scholarships to DIR than to ES. With GRS, CAS and LAS being a part of DIR almost everything goes to DIR.

Wolfgang pointed out that (as previously done) just giving waivers to students from poor countries, who actually are already accepted for the programs, does not create new opportunities, does not bring us new students, and usually means supporting rich people in poor countries. By contrast, e.g. the CAS students are selected between the best students by the cooperation universities, which means new students for us, and stabilizing the cooperation with them. Student representatives pointed out that a qualified US student from a poor background should be seen as perfectly eligible for a tuition waiver.

Misc
Next meeting: Monday June 6^th at 12.30.