Arts presents plan: Some degree programmes close and some are resurrected in new forms
In the future, the Faculty of Arts will have five fewer Bachelor's degree programmes and 14 fewer Master's degree programmes. This is part of the faculty's plan for the implementation of the Master's degree reform, which has been underway for six months. Several language programmes that were initially set to close will instead be merged into new programmes.
The work to implement the government's Master's degree reform began in September last year at the Faculty of Arts, and there has since been a lengthy process in which students and staff have been able to provide input. During the process, the Faculty of Arts' plan has been adjusted several times. Now, about six months later, the final plan for the faculty's resizing and implementation of the Master's degree reform has been finalised.
The common denominator is that Arts will have fewer degree programmes, both at Bachelor's and Master's level. In the future, Arts will have 30 Bachelor's degree programmes and 41 Master's degree programmes, compared to the current 35 Bachelor's degree programmes and 55 Master's degree programmes. In addition, the faculty stipulates a minimum admission requirement over a three-year period in some degree programmes. If the programmes do not meet this requirement, they will be cut off.
CAS gathers its languages in two new programmes
At the School of Culture and Society (CAS), major changes are taking place in language and area studies. Where there used to be six different language programmes at Bachelor's level, there will instead be a unified programme without language requirements, called Global Studies, and Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Russian will share academic regulations. The four programmes will have joint teaching, except for the language component, which will have separate instruction. Language teaching will take up less space than it does in the current programmes. In the future, there will be two instead of five Master's degree programmes in language and area studies at CAS: International Studies and European Studies.
When the Faculty of Arts published its original plan for CAS in September last year, all the language programmes were set to close. Instead, only two are closing: Brazilian studies and India and South Asia studies. However, the two closed degree programmes will be incorporated into the new Global Studies programme, according to Arts. A common feature of the four remaining language programmes is that there will be minimum requirements for the average admission over a three-year period.
The current Bachelor's degree programmes in Classical Archaeology and Classical Philology at CAS will close. The same applies to the Master's programme in Classical Philology. Instead, there will be a new Bachelor's degree programme called Classical Studies, which gives a legal right of admission to the Master's degree programme in History. The Bachelor's and Master's degree programmes History of Ideas and Philosophy will survive, but there will also be a requirement for an average minimum admission over a three-year period here. The Master's programme Sustainable Heritage Management is also closing, and the Master's degree programmes European Studies and Human Security are converted to 75 ECTS.
Aesthetic subjects survive at CC
At the School of Communication and Culture (CC), the amount of degree programmes is being cut considerably. Currently, there are two entry paths for Spanish, German, French, and English – namely Language, Literature and Culture and International Business Communication. In the future, only English will retain both entry paths. This is the case at both undergraduate and graduate levels.
The four Master's degree programmes in Intercultural Studies, which are currently divided into Spanish, German, French and English, will in the future become a single Master's degree programme in English called Intercultural Studies. Experience Economy will be moved to AU's campus in Herning and shortened to 75 ECTS. Overall, language and area studies at CC will decrease from 15 to 9 Master's degree programmes.
The six aesthetics subjects at CC – Dramaturgy, Art History, Comparative Literature, Musicology, Aesthetics and Culture, and Rhetoric – will remain but must, at the Master’s level, be organised collaboratively within the same academic regulations. Each programme is given a minimum admission requirement, which must be met as an average over a three-year period. The Master's programme in Children's Literature, Media, and Cultural Entrepreneurship is closing. Arts informs that the faculty will enter into a dialogue with the programme's current partners about "a possible future collaboration, and the research environment will be integrated into other teaching activities at CC".
CC's degree programmes in the areas of IT, design and media will remain, but the Master's degree programme in Journalism becomes a one-year Master's degree programme of 75 ECTS. At the same time, Arts will investigate the possibility of creating a new Master's degree programme called Digital Life of 75 ECTS. Digital Life is currently a line on the Master's degree programme in Information Studies. If it is not possible to create a new programme, the faculty will instead shorten the Master's degree programme in Digital Design to 75 ECTS.
Four didactic programmes become one at DPU
The third department of Arts, the Danish School of Education (DPU), will also be affected, but there is more uncertainty about the outcome here. This is due to a coming reform of the university college sector, which is expected to introduce a programme-dimensioning of a yet unspecified scale, according to Arts.
Arts will investigate whether it is "technically possible" to transform the current four Master's degree programmes of didactics, which are Educational Theory and Curriculum Studies in Danish, Math, Material culture and music education, into a single Master's degree programme called Subject Didactics. Although didactics contains the smallest study environments at DPU, the degree programmes constitute an important part of DPU's educational contribution to primary and lower secondary schools and university colleges, Arts notes in the plan.
DPU is also establishing two new Master's degree programmes. Diversity, Sustainability, Inclusion and Equality is the name of one of the programmes. In the plan, Arts writes that the programme has "good opportunities to attract university bachelor's graduates and address a known demand for expertise in CSR/DEI". The other Master's programme is called Technology and Pedagogy and will be based on the current Master's programme in ICT-based educational design, which will disappear.
The Master's degree programme in Educational Psychology, which is the largest and most sought-after programme at DPU, is expected to be partially restructured or limited, or both, because of the future university college reform.
The Master's degree programme in General Education is currently available in both Aarhus and Emdrup but will only be available in Aarhus in the future.
In Arts' plan, it is proposed that all DPU's Master's programmes be made vocationally oriented. The intention is to begin with pilot projects in the academic environments "where there are considered to be the best opportunities for success".
At the beginning of next week, Omnibus will publish an interview with Dean of Arts, Maja Horst.
This text is machine translated and post-edited by Cecillia Jensen.