Newsletter 41 from the Head of Department

INTERNAL NEWS

Employee election - our new study board is now in place
New members have been elected to our two study boards for Dentistry (dental education) and Oral Health (dental hygiene and clinical dental technician educations). The study boards are responsible for the form and content of the programs, curricula, deal with dispensations, etc. The study boards consist of representatives of staff, researchers and lecturers, and of the students. These are two strong study boards, both of which have a good composition of students from the bachelor's and master's education in dentistry and from our two educations to dental hygienist and clinical dental technician. The new study boards now look like this:

Study Board for Oral Health

• Lene Meilstrup Martinussen (Head of Studies for the dental hygienist and clinical dental technician educations, lecturer, chairperson)
• Chris Ejlerskov (lecturer)
• Dorte Lindelof (lecturer, deputy for the chairperson)
• Uwe Henriksen (lecturer)
• Heidi Kjærhede Sejthen (lecturer)
• Jeppe Damm Poulsen (dental hygiene student, vice-chairperson)
• Sam Johnsen (clinical dental technician student)

• Lars Hilton Lauritzen (dental hygiene student)
• Mette Aakjær (study advisor and lecturer)
• Helle Hornhaver (coordinator for IOOS Further and Continuing Education)

Study Board for Dentistry

• Louise Hauge Matzen (associate professor, chairperson)
• Irene Dige (Head of Studies for dentistry, deputy for the chairperson)
• Golnoush Bahrami Møller (associate professor)
• David Christian Evar Kraft (associate professor)
• Charlotte Bender (clinical instructor)
• Karina Herholdt Petersen (dental student, bachelor's program)
• Barbara Eyolfsdóttir Ellendersen (dental student, bachelor's program)
• Cecilie Krogsgaard (dental student, bachelor's program)
• Ellen Holck Kristensen (dental student, master's program, vice-chairperson)
• Katrine Mølgard Johannsen (dental student, master's program)

A huge thank you to senior lecturer in the dental education Eva Karring and Ulla Bæk Lindtoft, head of education for the dental hygiene and clinical dental technician programs, for many years of dedicated efforts to ensure the quality and development of our educations as chairpersons for the Study Board for Dentistry and the Study Board for Dental Hygiene and Clinical Dental Technician educations. Also a big thank you to clinical teachers at the dental education Jes Halfdan Nielsen and the dental hygiene education Jensa Ottosdóttir Øregaard for your efforts as members of the study boards.

Conference: Gender Equality at the Department of Dentistry and Oral Health, Biomedicine, Clinical Medicine, Public Health, Forensic Medicine, Health and Aarhus University?
On March 8, the online conference “Gender Equality at AU” will be held for all employees and everyone with management responsibilities. Based on Aarhus University's action plan for gender equality 2020-2022, the purpose of the conference is to discuss the work of promoting gender equality for all employees at Aarhus University and inspire for action. The conference is organized by Aarhus University's Diversity and Gender Equality Committee. Faculty of Health will have a separate breakout session, where the heads of the departments of Biomedicine, Clinical Medicine, Public Health, Forensic Medicine and our department will present how we intend to work with clarification of qualification requirements. It is about how we create a work culture and work environment where everyone comes into play, so that we succeed in creating excellence in research and education. Herewith a strong call from me for you to participate, if you in any way have the opportunity to prioritize it, and provide your input on what clear qualification requirements, equality, unconscious bias, etc. means at Aarhus University, at Health and at the departments:  Registration and program via the university's website.

LinkedIn course for beginners and elementary level
As you may have seen in the faculty's newsletter, a new LinkedIn course has just been announced for interested employees on Wednesday 26 May 2021 at 9-11am. LinkedIn is in the professional corner of social media and is ideal for building scientific networks and maintaining professional relationships. If you need an update, or if you want to get started with LinkedIn, sign up for the course, which is held by Health Communication. The course is held in Danish, it is free and there are a limited number of places. 

Sign up for the LinkedIn course via Health's employee website [In Danish] and read more about the course in the article: "Course: Do you want to learn how to commit to LinkedIn?" 

RESEARCH, EDUCATION & TEACHING

A long and exhausting journey - once again well done everyone
It is always a demanding task to complete teaching and exams so that both teachers and students experience it as constructive, satisfactory and with a high level of learning. In these distance learning and teaching reorganization times with students behind the screen instead of in the classroom, it is an extra demanding task that places great demands on you as lecturers. And you are doing really well! The future is difficult to predict, and we do not yet know how long we will continue with online teaching and exams, while clinical teaching is also challenged and maintained under corona restrictions and stricter hygiene requirements. I know that it is significantly more time consuming than usual and pulls great strides on you to continue to convert all theoretical teaching to online format, and that it is extraordinarily demanding to keep the online commitment and learning at the top, hour after hour, day after day - and on top of all that, the workload of scheduling all teaching for the whole of 2021. Thank you for all your hard work under these challenging conditions and that you continue to keep the fighting spirit in keeping our educations up and running at the highest learning level.

NAMES

The home office on the front page
Aarhus University's independent media Omnibus has been on a (virtual) visit to the home of Associate Professor Fábio Leite, Section for Periodontology. A nice little article has come out of this, which is about what it is like to work from the home office on such a large scale for almost a year. And even though it's a great endurance test and also looks cozy, Fábio, I'm looking forward, like you, to us being able to get back to our physical workplaces in the university park.

Read the Omnibus article [In Danish]: "In the beginning it was new and exciting to work from home - now it's hard".

Take care and stay safe.
Winter wishes, Siri