Campus Gotland course offerings now finalised
The range of programmes and courses to be given at Campus Gotland for the autumn 2013 has now been decided on – provided that the Swedish government says yes to the merging of Uppsala University and Gotland University. The changes will be small to begin with, but in the longer term the range of courses will be expanded.
‘Our goal is to have a number of new programmes and more teachers and students at Campus Gotland by 2016, but we think we will see more international students already in the autumn of 2013 with the two international master’s programmes given at Campus Gotland’, says Eva Åkesson, Vice-Chancellor at Uppsala University.
Several working groups with representatives from Uppsala University and Gotland University have been working hard to get the course offerings ready for autumn 2013. For Uppsala University to be able to offer programmes at Campus Gotland all the programmes have had to be formally established at the respective faculties at Uppsala University.
‘We are working closely together with Uppsala University to form the future activities at Campus Gotland. The range of courses for autumn 2013 is a result of our strive for continuity but also renewal. Our work is given stability by the fact that part of the courses offered are the same as previous years but we have already started developing our range, a process which will continue during the coming years’, says Erika Sandström, Vice-Chancellor of Gotland University.
The tight timetable has made the primary focus making sure that the range of courses at Campus Gotland and Uppsala University do not compete, but instead complement each other. This means that there will not be any large changes to the courses offered in this first step.
‘But there will be a new Bachelor’s programme in Liberal Arts, which builds on the programme that has previously been available on Gotland. It will be on a small scale to start with, but will be developed into an innovative educational programme of top international class’, says Eva Åkesson.
As previously, there will be a game design programme, two cultural resources management programmes, a leadership programme and web programming. Three Swedish and two international master’s programmes are given as before, as is the archeology programme with international focus. The preschool teacher programme will be given by Uppsala University while the nursing programme will continue to be run by Karolinska institutet, at least to start with.
A few programmes will be slightly changed or temporarily put on hold in order to be further specialised, to give Campus Gotland a clearer niche. The latter applies for example to the economics programme and the ecology programme, which will be given a special profile, hopefully to return in 2014. One example of a new programme being discussed for the future is a tourism programme.
The Swedish government is expected to make their decision on the merging of Uppsala University and Gotland University before the end of 2012.
Anneli Waara