New Rector’s Vision
On February 20th academic council of Ilia State University elected me as the new rector of Ilia State University. It is my responsibility to lead academic process in the institution often referred as “Iliauni”. The academic council supported my vision of university development and specific goals that I will introduce shortly.
Three components of education management
According to the definition of the middle ages, university is a union of professors and students. This description covers the aim of the union – education management- which includes three parts: production, distribution and utilization of education.
1. Production of education - research
Research is a basic element of university mission. Research results of university significantly determine its quality and status. Based on sound research results, university is able to aid economic and social advances of a society.
Ilia State University has a well-developed research system: research institutes; research component in professors’ work; high quality of Ph.D. work due to international publications requirement. Despite this fact, we need to take actives steps based on “best practices” of universities worldwide, to improve research scale and quality:
a) Establishing institution of research planning
b) Developing research strategy and management plan
c) Determining priorities and evaluation process. The following fundamental issues have to be decided:
a) Are the decisions on the distribution of research resources made centrally or on a faculty level?
b) Does university recruit existing good researchers or does it raise them?
c) Do we choose institutional or competitive financial model?
d) Do we give preference to research teams or individual researchers?
e) What do we expect from the professors: research and teaching or separately only research and only teaching?
I have one answer to all of these questions – mixed system. Faculty grants have to be added to the centrally-made decisions and practice of competition-based grants--to institutional financing; main emphasis was and is made on team research, though we should be able to make exceptions for interesting individual projects; individual research and scientific profiles should determine professors’ research or teaching load; we should educate researchers within the university and also recruit them from other sources.
In addition to these issues, university research potential may be enhanced by the following approaches and actions:
a) Making research international – encouraging Iliauni academic staff to participate in international research
b) Providing long-term regular training in academic publications, research methods and other relevant fields, conducted by representatives of western universities and offering TOT, based on knowledge shared by the trained staff members
c) Encouraging young scientists – for example, providing prize money for articles published in scientific journals that are included in prestigious databases.
d) Sabbatical- providing professors involved in research process with teaching-free month once every 5-6 years, to be used for research. Obviously, university has to clearly present research results (projects, publications, and etc.).
e) Providing Ph.D. stipends – Ph.D. education is one of the most problematic fields in the Georgian university education system. Absence of doctorate stipends is the main reason, thus making it difficult for the Ph.D. students to conduct a research without being involved in other (non-scientific) work. Iliauni can provide number of stipends for especially promising young researchers, provided the fact that they work in the university full-time (for example, as research assistants).
f) Developing and modernizing infrastructure necessary for scientific research.
2. Distribution of education - teaching
a) Making study programs international – creating international programs that attract foreign students should be Iliauni’s priority. Creating unified educational programs and providing graduates with international degrees should be implemented based on Erasmus or other international programs and bilateral relations.
It is especially important that several selected programs attract not only Georgian but foreign students. Opportunity to develop such programs should be available in the faculties of natural, social and humanitarian sciences.
b) Accessibility – online lectures. As a result of a project initiated in 2011, many video lectures of professors became available via internet, thus increasing Iliauni awareness and providing distribution of knowledge outside the university. I believe that it is possible to start a second stage of this project – video lectures of selected professors can be recorded according to international online education standards. This means including visual or audio materials, quizzes and integration of professor and student discussions, in order to increase interest of students and society towards these lectures. The final result should encompass creation of courses by Iliauni professors that will be integrated in prestigious international online platforms. Including one or several such courses in international platform will significantly enhance international awareness of Iliauni and will help acquire more research projects.
c) Union of students and professors – so-called “academic advisor” institution is planned to be implemented in Iliauni, in order to ensure better contact between professors and students. According to this idea, every student should have an opportunity to choose an adviser among professors, who will help him/her manage his/her educational process. Not only will this innovation provide students with a practical benefit but will also enhance the spirit of unity in the university.
d) Promotion of student self-organization forms – activities that are not part of the educational program, but may help student acquire knowledge and experience and develop public skills have to be emphasized. Academic staff members should be motivated to help students plan and implement such activities.
e) Academic database – Iliauni online strategy is extremely successful. According to the international research, it is ranked as first in web-rating. Despite this fact, there is a need of academic database that includes data on all professors, lecturers and researchers. Database is important not only for Iliauni representation, but also for the university students and staff members. It is possible to create such database on Eprint Iliauni web site. Data on each professor should be fully integrated with Iliauni website.
f) New educational programs – new, innovative, international programs, in order to attract new students.
3. Utilizing education
Relation with the employment market is one of the biggest challenges of Georgian university education; education it is not linked to employment market. Unfortunately even the scale of the problem is unknown in Georgia, and much less is recognized about the ways to overcome it. In order to increase employment of its graduates, the university should adopt a two-fold strategy: on one hand, for the market-oriented programs and on the other hand - for the programs that are not directly linked to the market. In both cases, it is imperative to identify components that are in demand on Georgian employment market and share them with the students. I believe that Iliauni’s work in this direction should be institutionalized – a special organizational unit should be established. A career planning service that is an integral part of western universities should serve several important functions. Existing internship practices should be developed to give students opportunity to have practical experience in partner state, commercial or non-governmental organization. Statistical accounting of graduate employment should take place in order to identify the problems and ensure right actions to solve them.
Public functions of university
One of the main challenges of the university education is often operating in the hostile environment. Spreading obscurantism gets in the way of development of critical thinking, sharing scientific picture of the world and establishing civic culture. Under such circumstances, university cannot afford a luxury of purely academic activities or even market-oriented programs. An energetic public activity is imperative not only for the recruitment of new generation, but also for defense and practical implantation of university ideals.
Social and humanitarian sciences have special need of what we may call, for the lack of better term, “a new education”. This involves establishing critical reasoning practices, according to rational standard. University should play a leading part in this process. This concerns selection of issues relevant for the society and having a scientific, audience-friendly discussion to deconstruct social myths, oppose obscurantism, and raise the prestige of science and the university, as specially organized space, in the society. University, as enclave of rationality – this should be university’s function in the society that exhibits hostile attitudes towards rationalism. Public lectures, publications (including/primarily online publications), and media contact – all of these means should be used to establish a space for rational discussion in this country.
Spreading a scientific image of the world is utterly important in order to reveal university’s function in the society. While youth today is not interested in natural sciences, one of universities should popularize science.
Iliauni has been working in this direction for several years. An annual science picnic is a successful project that should be kept and developed; experience and resources of foreign partners should be utilized; science festivals and events should be held and school students should participate in them. Such stance proves to be important not only for the society through popularizing science, but also serves a pragmatic function – it attracts future student to the university. Intensive collaboration with media is necessary, in addition to this direct contact. Creating a proper infrastructure and space for science popularization and its accessibility to school students and members of public should be one of the key goals.
This is a short outline of plans. It goes without saying that frequent consultations with professors and students will be necessary to implement and re-evaluate all of these objectives.
Consequently,
Looking forward to seeing you!
Professor Giga Zedania