Helle Jensen is a fifth-semester student of the study of religion. Lectiology is her supplementary subject, and during the summer holiday she could already see that two of her subjects overlapped on her timetable. The planning office at the Faculty of Arts told her there was nothing to be done about this.

“They told us we could either choose a different supplementary subject or study an elective subject instead,” she explains.

Teaching by dictaphone

Jensen is the only person combining the study of religion with lectiology as a supplementary subject; and thanks to the flexibility of the lectiology teachers she managed to sort the problem out without switching to another subject. But her fellow students on the study of religion programme were not all as lucky as she was.

“Other people have been forced to skip the teaching in a subject, asking someone to record the lessons on a dictaphone and put it out on the net instead,” she says.

Chair of Arts Council surprised

Andreas B. Olsen, the chair of the Arts Council, confirms that quite a few students have complained to the council because their timetables have been double booked.

“In some cases the planning office was unable to plan the teaching without creating overlaps in some Arts subjects. And lots of students have problems when they start studying a supplementary subject in another field because there is no coordination between our main academic areas.”

Timetable planning has caused difficulties in the past, but Olsen is surprised that there are still problems because both the Faculty of Arts and BSS are now using the Syllabus system to plan their timetables and classrooms.

“Syllabus was presented to us as the light at the end of the tunnel because it would make it easier to gain a clear overview of what was going on. So it’s very strange that there are still problems affecting whole classes of students.”

One big jigsaw puzzle

“It’s true that there were problems in connection with planning the teaching at the start of the semester,” acknowledges Liselotte Malmgart, who is the director of studies at the Department of Culture and Society. She is the person responsible for the practical organisation of the teaching.

But Syllabus has actually improved the situation, she says.

“Syllabus makes it easier to see how many students will be affected if we move lessons to a different time. The biggest problems are being encountered by students who choose supplementary subjects outside the Faculty of Arts, so this will hopefully improve when we get a joint planning system for the whole of AU.”

She underlines that planning the timetable is like one big jigsaw puzzle.

“Students at the Faculty of Arts have more than 50 supplementary subjects to choose between. For instance, students of anthropology have chosen 22 different supplementary subjects. And we didn’t know how many students had been admitted to the different classes until the last week of August. But we will try and improve next year,” she promises.

According to Malmgart, the jigsaw puzzle is even more complicated for the study of religion programme, which is what Helle Jensen is studying. In the fifth semester there are lessons in the study of religion three times a week, but the students also have teaching in their supplementary subjects two or three times a week. Most of the other students at the Faculty of Arts write their Bachelor projects in the fifth semester, and all the teaching connected with these Bachelor projects is timetabled on Fridays – so the teaching in supplementary subjects is conducted on Mondays to Thursdays.

Find a joint solution

But the problem is not limited to the planning system and internal planning at the Faculty of Arts. It’s also about being genuinely committed to putting strategic decisions into practice, says Andreas B. Olsen.

“This is an important issue in connection with cross-disciplinary activities, the inner education market and the links between different departments. If we’re serious about our strategy, there really should be more collaboration and efforts should be made to find a joint solution for all the main academic areas,” he says.

Liselotte Malmgart agrees with this criticism.

“We ask the students to adopt a cross-disciplinary approach to their education, so it’s a real shame that we still haven’t solved the practical problems arising as a result.”

Political statements of intent

The Dean’s Office at the Faculty of Arts and the four vice-deans for education are aware of the practical barriers encountered by students who want to study subjects in more than one main academic area, says Marianne Ping Huang, who is the vice-dean for education at the Faculty of Arts.

“This isn’t a new problem, but perhaps we’re more aware of it now than ever before because we’ve got a joint planning system at BSS and Arts, and because we will also have a joint system for the whole of AU at some point. This will enable us to start working with technical solutions instead of simply making political statements of intent in collaboration with the Studies Administration Office and the degree programme managements.”

The vice-dean underlines that flexibility is required across the main academic areas, particularly with regard to subjects designed for teaching at upper-secondary schools.

“But even though we increase the level of coordination, there will still be some problems we can’t solve. Particularly in subjects where the teaching involves several fields of study and several degree programmes. For instance in a subject like business administration, where 35-40 students from the Faculty of Arts attend the teaching alongside about 150 other students from BSS degree programmes. But in cases like that we will just have to go on asking people to find individual solutions for our students from Arts,” she concludes.

Translated by Nicholas Wrigley