Abstract Stip-HF meeting 21 March

Time: Thursday 21 March, 13:00–14:00

Place: HF building, room 301

 

Members of the STIP-HF board present at the meeting:         

Wassim Rustom (chair)

Christina Videbech (secretary)

Ragnhild Gjefsen

Juliane Tiemann

 

Agenda

 

1. Approval of agenda

 Approved.

 

2. Information items
3. a) General meeting at AHKR on the Oslo model (fourth-year model) for PhD fellowships.

The meeting will take place Wednesday 27 March, 14:00-16:00. Place: Øysteinsgate 3, Seminar room

Wassim and Ragnhild will go. They will report to the rest of the board and we will discuss it in a later meeting.

 

3. Discussion items
4. a) Lunch meeting with the dean and vice-dean concerning theme-days for PhD candidates.

Christina quickly briefed the rest of STIP-HF on the topics, which were discussed at the lunch meeting with the dean. Christina also suggested that she and Dinara would be the main contact persons in regards to developing the seminars. Dinara later confirmed her interest in this via mail.

It was discussed if the first topic of such a seminar should be the new PhD-program as has been suggested. Generally, the board members were skeptical about this and preferred the subject of “mental health” instead. Christina promised to take the concerns of the board to the other organizers.

 

1. b) Discussion of faculty board agenda items (will be forwarded two days before this meeting).

The faculty board agenda items were discussed and the board found the following interesting:

 

• The report on health, environment, and safety says nothing on mental health, which is strange. The PhD group is especially vulnerable to mental health issues, more than regular students, but we do not have access to the rights students have, like therapy. The problem is not the amount of money PhD students have to pay, but the fact that they have to wait so long to get an appointment. This can have serious consequences for the timeframe of the thesis.

 

• Medarbejdersamtale: Phds generally do not get to go to ”medarbejdersamtaler”. Preferably, this should be undertaken once a year as the work environment, relationships with colleagues, etc. is very important for the success of the individual PhDs.

 

• A discussion on an honor’s program: Generally, the board is skeptical about this as it might exclude students who are “late bloomers”. We would like to keep an eye on this topic. It was voiced that it is strange that no PhDs are present at the work group related to this theme.

 

Ragnhild will take our concerns to the board meeting.

 

4. Miscellaneous