Law: No mess here

In The University Post you could recently read a description of the Faculty of Law which has no basis in reality. It is supposed to be a mess, but it is not.

I have worked for over 40 years at Law, now a faculty, which is natural at a university where you can only hope that the next rector does not get any strange ideas. I’ve tried most governing bodies, been head of department for several years, and have now ended up as chairman of the bachelor’s programmes’ study board. At no time has a mess been a remotely adequate description.

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All rise! This court finds Law guilty of a study programme mess

Times have changed from a time when the individual disciplines could be able to organize their routines in accordance with the discipline’s needs within a reasonably clear legal framework. Today, an infinite number of rules and regulations are constantly being incorporated. They come from the government level and sometimes also from the Rector’s office, where they apparently hold the view that even in a mega – too big – university, the same rules must apply everywhere: one size fits all. Like other parts of the University we are exposed to the bureaucratic accreditation process that moves at a rate substantially under the speed of a tortoise.

“I’ve tried most governing bodies, been head of department for several years, and have now ended up as chairman of the bachelor’s programmes’ study board. At no time has a mess been a remotely adequate description”

All this, and more, asks a lot of a faculty with over 4,000 students: a faculty that can complain about the rules, but that as a law faculty perhaps more than others is willing to abide by them, and which does so. It is a large machine in operation, and large machines occasionally make mistakes. Of course this is regrettable, but they happen very rarely. It is a well-oiled machine, and it is not fair and it is misleading to talk about a mess.

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Law managers not qualified for their tasks

Of course not everyone agrees with everything that faculty management does. There may be disagreement about the organization of study programmes, about whether the research is managed too strictly, whether the right job positions are posted, and whether the imminent deportation to the Amager campus are a blessing or a disaster. Of course there are disagreements: otherwise the faculty would be a dead and dreary desert rather than an academic environment. But disagreement does not mean that the faculty is not managed properly, nor that it is a mess.

“The individual cases mentioned were, of course, exciting or remarkable. Not least the teacher taking the student to court, but they were isolated cases and in no way do they give us a true picture of the Faculty anno 2016”

There is, in reality, no evidence for this mess, because there is no evidence. The individual cases mentioned were, of course, exciting or remarkable. Not least the teacher taking the student to court, but they were isolated cases and in no way do they give us a true picture of the Faculty anno 2016. Here there is order, and there is no reason to believe that this will not also be the case in the future.

uni-avis@adm.ku.dk