The statement that JKU Rector Meinhard Lukas sent to the Ministry of Science is twelve pages long. And the criticism has it all: with the vague concept, as it is in the draft of the founding law, no successful technical university can be created in the opinion of the rectorate. Many points of criticism essentially correspond to what the JKU Senate and the Works Council have already complained about.
A core sentence from the rectorate’s statement, which expresses the doubts: “Universities are rightly built for years of impediments. It would be an unbelievable omission not to seize the once-in-a-century chance of a real TU for Upper Austria because one wants to limit oneself to a topical university for reasons of topicality”.
However, the Rectorate doubts that a “real” TU will be created. Concrete expectations are attached to a TU, “among other things, these expectations include a range of subjects from engineering and natural sciences”. “Based on this, contrary to what the name might suggest, we are not currently planning a technical university in the true sense, but a themed university,” the statement regrets.
The draft law only says vaguely: “The university’s professional sphere of action includes digitization and digital transformation in a broad and interdisciplinary understanding that also includes the arts. Research fields and courses are dedicated to all, in particular the technical and artistic dimensions of digitization and its transformative effects on science, art, society and the economy as well as the conception, application and potential of digital design options A structure without the establishment of disciplines would be unrealistic and, above all, unscientific”.
“One key conclusion can be drawn from all of this: the planned TU in Linz will train various disciplines, despite all the concentration on the cross-cutting issue of digitization and digital transformation, if it wants to be successful. The majority of these necessary disciplines (e.g. computer science, mechatronics, sociology, etc.) have long been established at the JKU. This raises the question, nolens volens, of whether these disciplines at the TU should be built up a second time in Linz. This urgent question remains unanswered in the concept paper and in the EB on the ME,” the statement said.
The Senate, Works Council and University Conference have already voiced massive criticism of the fact that a structure is planned outside of the University Organization Act. This is also criticized by the rectorate, as well as the fact that the existing university collective agreement should not apply, and as far as the foundation procedure is concerned: this responsibility is all the greater as the law …. contains almost no guidelines for the foundation. The competence of the members of the founding convention, which is necessary for this task, is all the more important.”
Creating the first curricula without representing the faculty that is then supposed to implement the teaching is “problematic”.
Source: Nachrichten
