Contact
Kristina Dahlborn, Dean
Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science, SLU
kristina.dahlborn@slu.se, +46(0)18-67 21 86
SLU news
Dean letter: Half-time and half-halt...
Published: 28 August 2017
New semester with new students and new tasks. Hope you’ve all enjoyed a well-deserved holiday but that you’re still happy to return to your assignments and duties at VH. In any case, I look forward to continuing lead the faculty and I feel strong confidence in you fantastic employees doing the real work and I think you also feel confident that I'm trying to do my best for VH and SLU. I have now been your dean half my term and I feel it's time for a half-time reflection on what we have done, and to look forward and see what we can achieve.
Kristina Dahlborn is Professor and Dean at the Faculty of Veterinary medicin and Animal Sciences.
We have an economy in balance and we have reviewed our research topics. However, we continue to decline in staff and we see more sick leave. At the SLU management's strategy meeting last week, I simply said that VH no longer has a "sustainable development".
We also reported all the key issues for SLU and the activities for which we are responsible. For SLU, it is for me "What is and want’s SLU?" And "How does SLU allocate their resources and why?" Principles of how we allocate resources hopefully will be on the SLU management’s agenda in the fall and I am looking forward to it.
I also drew up the disputed shortage of animal healthcare staff and that the Agriculture Agency now obstructs the law by opposing the majority of referrals by enforcing a proposal to allow staff with only 2 weeks of education to administer anesthetics to pets, which is a disaster for patient safety and animal welfare.
I also raised the UDS question as a fate for the entire SLU, pointing out that "Gerdin inquiry", etc., has not improved the teaching situation at UDS so far. I hope now that Maj-Britt Johansson is the wise person the vice chancellor says, and in collaboration with the faculty, our clinical staff and UDS, we will ensure that our clinical education and research will, if not become world-leading, become functional.
In addition to the UDS question, I consider that the most important issue for VH is "How we best use the resources we have?" My suggestions are:
- Clearer assignments at all levels, transparency in resource allocation
- Review research topics - Clear linking assignments and funding
- Strengthen and collaborate to achieve our shared mission and our new strategy with the best resource utilization
I hope that we can jointly justify the distribution and implementation of the tasks we have and that everyone at VH feels that we have a responsibility together for our mission and that we all feel needed.
In addition to performing our regular activities, we will be celebrating the 40th anniversary of SLU, work on KoN2018 and launch two platforms, SLU’s future animals (nature) and health and the platform SLU Aquaculture. I also hope that those who applied for writing weeks will get many manuscripts ready and we will soon be announcing a second call for those who didn’t have time to apply last time!
To all of you - good luck with the autumn missions!
Kristina Dahlborn, Dean