This is the time of year when most universities have just started up their courses. New students roam the corridors and are getting their first impression of academic life, faculty staff, fellow students and public health nutrition as a topic. How can we be good teachers and guide them in their future endeavours? Are universities today structures that provide possibilities for good leadership or are they structures without an ethos?
The university transformation
The last few years have in most European countries meant a severely increased workload for all academic staff, adhering to the Bologna Declaration of June 1999. The priorities of the Bologna process included the introduction of the three cycle system (bachelor/master/doctorate), quality assurance systems and a joint recognition of qualifications and periods of study over Europe. In practice, this has meant a change in admission systems and changes of curricula for all courses, including a whole new way of looking at student learning outcomes, assessment and examinations. Obviously lots of energy and time has gone into this process at all levels, including that from university leadership and department chairs, but probably most of all from university teachers. The process has still not been rapid enough. The European University Association states that the reform of structure seems to have been taking place, rather than a change in substance and content, and without a ‘link to institutional strategic objectives’(Reference Crosier, Purser and Smidt1).
Where did the academic ideals go?
Let us take a look at the universal academic norms and ideals where it all began, namely with an academic structure building on consensus, academic freedom and autonomy, professionalism, and the provision of knowledge regarding what is best for society. Recent changes include going from elite to mass universities, from professional leadership towards market-geared leadership, from collegiality to management, and towards a very strong focus on excellent research centres(2).
Academic leadership becomes a new task at a time when the donors of grant funds dictate the research and when the structural and content changes in curricula become a tremendous burden to academic staff, leaving little time for development of the topic as such. A Swedish female department chair stated recently: ‘…our work is defined by economy. It feels as if research, teaching and societal collaboration have to give. It is not good that we are just staring at figures. On the other hand, we are at the bottom now. Things have to turn, become better’(2).
Life beyond Bologna in public health nutrition training and academic development in Europe
We can see the light at the end of the tunnel in European academic life. As academic staff, we have actually survived the major transformation of our courses and university structures. We have worked hard and in many cases been occupied with counting our Euros rather than defining our ethos or defending our academic freedom. In order to stabilise future healthy developments in the European population and a true mobility of public health nutrition workers, we have seen the need to ensure an efficient and comparable training in public health nutrition, ensuring a future workforce with the ability to meet demands from the market as well as from academia. The role of this journal in that regard becomes crucial and we need to publish and discuss papers on workforce development(Reference Fox, Chenhall, Traynor, Scythes and Bellman3–Reference Hughes5) as well as papers on research priorities and on public policy developments, and promote a healthy debate and lobbying. A lot of work has previously gone into trying to establish consensus in this area over Europe, creating structures for student and teacher exchange and building teaching consortia(Reference Margetts, Warm, Yngve and Sjostrom6, Reference Yngve, Warm, Landman and Sjostrom7). A new world association for public health nutrition is forming. As far as European training programmes go, now that the international structure is there, academically in Europe through the Bologna process, and worldwide through the new World Public Health Nutrition Association, we have new possibilities to collaborate.
In the midst of a confusing and straining reality in academia, let us be wise enough to remember the important role of the good teacher. Let us also remember the importance of freedom of research and to show our students, the future public health nutrition workforce, how and why they should work towards the good for society.
