Course description

DIES - INTERNATIONAL DEANS' COURSE

LATIN AMERICA 2012/13

 

The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the Foundation for the International Promotion of the Spanish Universities (Universidad.es), the German Rectors’ Conference (HRK),  the Universities of Saarland (Germany) and Alicante (Spain), in cooperation with the Alexander-von-Humboldt Foundation (AvH), are jointly organizing the DIES-International Deans’ Course for Latin America.

This intensive training course is part of the DIES program (Dialogue on Innovative Higher Education Strategies) which has been jointly coordinated by the DAAD and HRK since 2001. Saarland University and the University of Alicante are the academic coordinators of the course. Both institutions have been cooperating for a long period of time, including projects for the evaluation, development and improvement of university management in Latin American higher education institutions. 

The main objective of this cooperation is to develop a training course for recently elected Deans in Latin American Higher Education Institutions. It constitutes 3 Modules covering a wide range of topics including Strategic Planning, Human Resources Management, Internationalisation, University-Industry partnerships, and soft skills, such as leadership, communication and networking.

IDC-LA is intended to:

  • Provide up-to-date knowledge and skills of fundamental topics for Higher Education management;
  • Provide a platform for bridge-building between participating institutions (Germany-Spain-Latin America);
  • Target newly-elected Deans and is set at the appropriate level of learning objectives and knowledge;
  • Initiate a process of self-awareness and change leading to specific improvement measures in participating institutions

 

Course Content, Methodology and Schedule

The key objective of the course is to bring together a group of about 30 newly elected Deans and Vice-Deans from Universities in  in order to enable the participants to tackle the challenges of holding a deans’ position.

Issues such as Strategic Faculty Planning, Financial Management, Quality Management and Human Resources Management will be key parts of this course, which will also include a soft skills workshop. The course will be conducted in English and Spanish.

Methodology will be strictly practice oriented and mainly based on case studies. Personal experience as a university manager will greatly contribute to this course and active participation will be necessary. Participants are expected to inform on their working environments and to present a reform project which shall be implemented during the various stages of the training. In that respect a project management tool (Personal Action Plan - PAP) will be introduced in the first part. The work on the PAP will be supported by distance coaching and via online webinars (Part II). Part III will offer participants the opportunity to reflect on the implementation of their reform projects and to discuss key topics to be defined by the participants during parts I and II.

Presence and online modules:

       Module 1: October 8 to 12, 2012 in Saarbrücken, Germany

       Module 2: October 15 to 19, 2012 in Alicante, Spain

       Webinar: Online – Webinars between November 2012 and March 2013

       Module 3: April 2013 in Panama.