Lots of activities regarding our degree programmes

Lots of things have been happening with regard to our degree programmes: A study shows that the students feel that our programmes are relevant, the new semester structure has been implemented, and we are in the process of increasing our focus on attracting new students. 

A job relevant degree

The Ministry of Science, Innovation and Higher Education has asked graduates from the regular college and university level programmes who have graduated in the October 1, 2012 to September 30, 2015 to evaluate the relevance of their programme. With regard to the master programme in Agrobiology, 53 percent of the graduates agreed and 47 percent highly agreed with the statement ’My degree programme has equipped me for my present or latest job’ – that is a whole 100 percent! 

The new semester structure

In the autumn of 2016, teachers, those responsible for courses, AGRO’s degree programme committee, and the degree programme committee for agricultural science have collaborated on adapting courses and making synergy and progression between the courses more visible. This has been a large and complex task.

This spring the board of studies for ASOS has dealt with academic regulations and course descriptions for our bachelor and master programmes in Agrobiology and Agro-Environmental Management. They have now all been approved and will be implemented in the autumn semester this year, at which time courses will be planned according to a semester structure with 15 weeks of teaching followed by four weeks of exams. 

Apart from the academic knowledge that the students gain from the courses, we have emphasised describing the skills that are communicated in the courses in order to demonstrate the link between what the student knows, what the student is capable of and what the student is able to do afterwards. 

While the bachelor students from 2014 are currently working on their bachelor projects, we have made transitional plans for the students starting in 2015 and 2016. This is because we have changed the placement and extent of a range of required and supporting subjects. We have held meetings with all of the students in order to prepare them for choosing their line and elective subjects. The master students are in the process of choosing their thesis topics. 

Coordinated recruitment efforts

The ST Recruitment Forum is developing and coordinating the faculty’s recruitment efforts. This will be carried by, among other things, coordinating, developing and creating synergy between the recruitment activities in the departments, centres and museums.  

A campaign is presently running on bachelor.au.dk and in the city environment in Aarhus. An agency has been working with the campaign and has taken a closer look at the target groups. The agency’s study shows that the most talented of the college students are interested in a high academic level and the career perspective. These are therefore the themes in the new AU recruitment campaign.

The new gymnasieportal (college portal) gathers all Aarhus University’s offers for colleges, including the rolling university, continuing education courses for college teachers, and information to students about AU’s degree programmes. 

In the future, the ST Recruitment Forum will discuss the campaign’s ST content, the process for the upcoming school year with regard to college teacher days and courses for students in the college-oriented activities.

Focus on specific target groups

The task of the Recruitment Committee for Food and Agricultural Science is to improve existing student information, increase awareness of Agrobiology among the target groups, and target marketing of Agrobiology to selected colleges.  

The committee members are Rasmus Pedersen (ST administration, chairman), Jakob Sehested (ANIS), Tommy Dalgaard (AGRO), Lars Wiking (FOOD), Mette Glerup Thomsen (International), Claus Bo Andreasen (DCA), Margrethe Therkildsen (FOOD) and Bernd Wollenweber (AGRO). 

A series of workshops have been held with participation of committees, students, VIP and communication staff in order to describe the recruitment efforts. The committee has identified four different target groups among the potential new students. Each group has its background, interests, and opinions and should be approached with specific story angles and recruitment strategies. The four target groups are designated Rural, Save the World, Veterinarian and Foodie.

Rural, Save the World, Veterinarian and Foodie

The Rural group is characterised by being familiar with agriculture and typically lives in the country. People in this group would like an education in agriculture and have a good feel for the career opportunities. They have an applied approach. They can be attracted if we appeal to their need to delve deeper and if they discover a wider spectrum of career and graduate study possibilities. The group is not particularly big but is interested in the subjects covered by the programme and can be reached via focused media. The story angle could be: “We need to produce more and with a higher quality.”

People in the Save the World group are interested in biology, live in towns but are interested in nature, the environment, climate, sustainability and food production. Often they have no connection to the rural environment. They would like to study in Aarhus, but are perhaps only aware of the biology programme. Their approach can also be characterised by a more humanities/business/social science way of thinking. On the other hand, they are often attracted to the university as such. To attract them we must raise awareness of our existence. We can also take the applied and problem-oriented angle, such as “The whole world needs food.” 

The veterinary group comprises students that would like an education in e.g. veterinary science, animal science or natural resources at the University of Copenhagen and who are unaware that they can study Agrobiology in Jutland. They often have the relevant college level. The efforts here should be directed at raising awareness of the alternatives in Aarhus and that AU is on par with KU. The group is relatively diffuse and best reached via web ads and various student counsellors who can bring us up as an alternative. The story angle is: ’We need to take animal welfare into consideration.”

Foodies live in towns and are very interested in food, health, and human nutrition. This group regards studying at a university as something quite natural but they might head in the direction of food engineering or food science at KU. The group is relatively large and best reached via the Internet, various food festivals and markets. The overall story is: ’We need to eat healthy and avoid food wastage.”

Comments to the new order

The National Agency for Education and Quality under the Ministry of Education has submitted a draught for an order about the college programmes with an associated draught for college learning plans for consultation. The order draught has been sent to those responsible for courses in the master programme and we have sent our comments to the learning plans to the National Agency for Education and Quality.