One of the elements of the project is to consider how and when students are involved in judgements of teaching competence which take place during appointment and promotion processes. Lunds Universitets Studentkårer (LUS: the umbrella organisation for the faculty students’ unions at Lund University) is represented on the project steering group, and we have met with the faculty representatives regularly through the project.
At the most recent meeting with the faculty representatives, in April 2023, we presented the interim report and asked how students could get involved and what support they would need. They identified two important areas: the role of individual students in contributing to a teacher’s portfolio, and the role of representatives in supporting appointments and promotions.
We talked about capturing individual student views through coruse evaluations, but the representatives were very aware of potential biases in such systems, as well as some apathy among students in relation to completing such surveys. It was suggested that this is sometimes because of a lack of knowledge of how the results are evaluated and followed up. We talked a little about different survey approaches, and the project team will make reference to these in the final report, as something to be followed up in faculties when they do their detailed planning.
In relation to student representatives, they need support and guidance to contribute to other processes, such as planning for faculty approaches to teacher appointment and promotion in faculty education boards or through membership of the Teacher Appointment Boards. There is some existing training for the Appointment Boards offered through AHU, which provides a good foundation.
One challenge expressed for both of these roles is that representatives report feeling that other members of the board may see them as temporary members presenting their individual opinion, rather than representatives able to present a collective view. We will take this into account when developing guidance and training for the Teaching Appointment Boards. In relation to these resources, representatives felt that they particularly needed more guidance on understanding and judging pedagogical portfolios. Everyone agreed that test lectures were a very valuable part of the appointment process, so clear criteria for these should also be included.