Teaching at SCIENCE is in a free fall. Join our sit-in

On Friday 23 October at 12 noon, we will hold a sit-in outside the dean’s office at SCIENCE, Bülowsvej 17, Frederiksberg Campus.

Over the past week, more than 1,000 people have signed our petition to preserve the quality of teaching at the faculty.

The protest is organised by nine student associations under SCIENCErådet and the Student Council. We are protesting because UCPH’s new shared academic calendar will shorten the regular teaching blocks at SCIENCE from eight weeks to seven.

We fear that having less time to cover the same syllabus will mean worse conditions for students and teaching staff alike – and lower academic standards on our degree programmes.

Our demand is simple: The quality of teaching at SCIENCE must not be diminished by a cost-cutting exercise disguised as improved interdisciplinarity.

Seven weeks means fewer teaching hours – with the same syllabus

UCPH is introducing a new academic calendar at SCIENCE, the only faculty that uses a block structure rather than a semester structure.

The stated rationale is to promote interdisciplinarity by making it easier for students to take courses at both SCIENCE and the university’s other faculties without clashes between classes and exams.

Fair enough – interdisciplinarity is important, but not at the expense of teaching quality!

At SCIENCE, however, the change means that the current eight-week teaching blocks will be compressed into seven weeks. But the syllabus will remain the same because the courses must still award the same number of ECTS credits, according to Peter W. Thulstrup, associate professor at the Department of Chemistry, joint union representative and member of UCPH’s General Cooperation Committee.

On top of the extensive layoffs of teaching staff at SCIENCE, the new block structure is yet another blow to the faculty that will diminish the quality of teaching.

If the number of weekly teaching hours remains unchanged, shortening the blocks from eight weeks to seven will mean 12.5 per cent fewer teaching hours.

The quality will decline, and we have to ask: Which teaching and skills, exactly, are we supposed to receive 12.5 per cent less of?

Should we receive 12.5 per cent less training in the skills needed to develop the digital solutions that businesses are crying out for? Or 12.5 per cent less training in the skills needed to protect our drinking water from PFAS and nitrate? How can we be expected to receive a proper education when the structure does not allow for proper teaching?

Many of our courses include laboratory sessions, practical exercises and fieldwork. This kind of teaching cannot simply be compressed or rescheduled. Time already feels scarce, and long-running experiments will become impossible.

Why make this change?

The shared academic calendar is intended to promote interdisciplinarity at UCPH. But according to Prodean for Education Andreas de Neergaard, only around 7.5 per cent of SCIENCE students’ study activity, measured in full-time student equivalents, takes place at other faculties. This is apparently sufficient reason to ruin the teaching for the remaining 92.5 per cent of SCIENCE students.

It is also doubtful whether the 7.5 per cent of SCIENCE students in question will actually benefit from the new structure. We simply do not understand the rationale; it is completely disproportionate. It looks more like a cost-cutting exercise.

The »unofficial« supplementary weeks

There will, however, be some compensation for the loss of the eighth teaching week. The new structure introduces so-called »unofficial« supplementary weeks.

In an interview with University Post, Andreas de Neergaard says that three unofficial supplementary weeks can be used to retain eight weeks of teaching in blocks 2, 3 and 4.

He acknowledges, however, that the shorter teaching period in block 1 will be »academically inferior to what we have now«.

The obvious problem is that the supplementary weeks are not official teaching weeks, so there is a risk that they will not be used at all.

They also fall during holiday periods: Week 1 is often between Christmas and New Year, while week 42 is during the autumn break. For staff and students, this will mean less time to prepare for exams and will cause difficulties for those with children.

In future, resit exams will take place either during supplementary weeks or regular teaching weeks.

Teaching staff will have to find room in their own calendars to make this administrative nightmare work, which seems ironic in light of the recent administrative reform and the latest round of layoffs.

The break week and exam preparation period will disappear

The change is not only about the number of teaching hours. It will also alter the rhythm of the academic year.

The current break week between blocks will disappear. This week is currently used to catch up, take a break before new courses begin and participate in activities that help sustain the study environment. Student revues, associations and tutors carry out much of their work during this period.

At the same time, exam periods will be compressed, and the exam preparation period will be removed altogether. Students may end up attending classes for one course on a Friday and sitting an exam for another course on the following Monday, before starting an entirely new course the Monday after that. This could be the pattern throughout their degree programme.

The existing block structure is already highly intensive and feels particularly short when courses include laboratory exercises or fieldwork.

Why are students and teaching staff not being consulted?

Why did the University Board approve the new block structure before it had even been discussed by the General Cooperation Committee? Why were neither the Academic Council, the boards of studies nor the teaching committees consulted? Why has the new block structure not been published on KUnet, for example, and only appeared in an article here in University Post?

UCPH’s mantra of interdisciplinarity is beginning to ring hollow. A shared academic calendar must accommodate the fact that faculties teach in different ways.

At SCIENCE, we have experimental courses where 20–24 hours of teaching a week is the norm. This comes on top of approximately 20 hours of preparation and other study activities. It is therefore not possible to compress eight weeks of teaching into seven.

To us, it seems that the university management has made yet another decision from behind a desk, with no respect for the academic environments that will have to live with the consequences.

It cannot be reasonable to weaken the block structure at SCIENCE so significantly that we lose the high quality for which UCPH is otherwise known. UCPH’s science programmes risk being branded as second-rate degree programmes.

We are furious – and we know that we are not alone. We want to challenge a system that does not listen, does not understand and consistently puts spreadsheets ahead of students’ opportunities to learn.

If UCPH still wants to be a university that benefits all of us who want to help solve the major societal challenges of the future, it must put an end to this culture of cutbacks and start prioritising teaching quality again.

We therefore invite everyone who is interested to join our sit-in on Friday 23 October at 12 noon outside the dean’s office, Bülowsvej 17, Frederiksberg Campus.

We demand that the teaching blocks at SCIENCE retain at least eight weeks of regular teaching and that the necessary resources be allocated to run courses without cutting academic content. The unofficial supplementary weeks must not become a poor excuse that also clashes with resit exams.

Students, teaching staff and academic communities must also have genuine influence over the decisions that shape their teaching and everyday lives. We demand degree programmes that reflect the responsibilities society expects us to shoulder.

We encourage all students, staff and others who want to preserve the quality of teaching at SCIENCE to sign the petition. 

Co-signatories:

Biotekforeningen
Foreningen af Naturressourcestuderende
STENO – Geologisk Studenterforening
Fysisk Fagråd
Nanofagråd
DIKU-fagrådet
Foreningen af Ernærings- og Fødevarestuderende
Foreningen af Landskabsarkitekturstuderende
Geofagrådet

This article was translated with the assistance of artificial intelligence and subsequently reviewed by a member of the editorial staff.