During the summer, plans were put in place to dissolve the faculties at RGU and replace them with 11 schools and one graduate school. This took effect on the 30th September.
During the summer, plans were put in place to dissolve the faculties at RGU and replace them with 11 schools and one graduate school. This took effect on the 30th September. The Faculties of Design & Technology and Health & Social Care will not see much change, and therefore be less impacted. However, Aberdeen Business School will see more of a change.
The name Aberdeen Business School will be covering Management, Accounting and Finance courses. There is now a new Law School and a School of Communication, Marketing and Information.
The main aim of these changes is to “provide a better experience for students”. President of Communication and Democracy Edward Pollock said: “The idea of the restructure of schools will be to empower the Heads of School to make more changes and have more control over the way the schools run to make changes quicker and more efficient.”
This new structure is believed to be more effective than the previous one. Edward went on to say this is because “the new structure should allow Schools to make the types of decisions about courses, which would have usually taken longer going through the Faculty structure.
“There is also the opportunity for a stronger identify for the Schools and a clearer purpose.”
Apart from new signs, it is not thought there will be any physical changes to the university.
Some students are optimistic about the changes. Journalism student, Jenna, said: “In the future, I think it will help the experience with certain courses as it means they should get more attention within their faculty”.
But other students remain sceptical about them. Second-year student Christie said: “If there are no physical or fundamental changes to the university, what’s the point? Most people probably won’t even notice it”.
As a result of the new structure, the role of School Officers has been introduced in place of Faculty Officers. These are, in short, senior student representatives. This has been described as a “significant year” for School Officers as they will be working with the heads of schools and passing on feedback on the changes, among other roles. Anyone with comments or questions should contact their School Officer or the Student Union.