May 21st 2018


Deans course participants, at the University of Alicante.

The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD), the German Rectors’ Conference (HRK), the Universities of Saarland (Germany) and Alicante (Spain), in cooperation with the Alexander-von-Humboldt Foundation (AvH), are jointly organising the DIES-International Deans’ Course for Latin America.

This intensive training course is part of the DIES programme (Dialogue on Innovative Higher Education Strategies) which has been jointly coordinated by the DAAD and HRK since 2001.

Saarland University and the University of Alicante are the academic coordinators of the course. Both institutions have been cooperating for a long period of time, including projects for the evaluation, development and improvement of university management in Latin American higher education institutions.

Course Content, Methodology and Schedule

The key objective of the course is to bring together a group of about 25 newly elected Deans and Vice-Deans from Universities in Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, and Peru in order to enable the participants to tackle the challenges of holding a deans’ position.

Issues such as Strategic Faculty Planning, Financial Management, Quality Management and Human Resources Management will be key parts of this course, which will also include a soft skills workshop. The course will be conducted in English and Spanish.

Methodology will be strictly practice oriented and mainly based on case studies. Personal experience as a university manager will greatly contribute to this course and active participation will be necessary. Participants are expected to develop a Strategic Action Plan (SAP) for their own faculty, which will comprise the characteristics and strategies for the faculty, the role of the dean and the underlying administration and procedures in the thematic areas of the course. In this framework, participants will develop and work on concrete measures to implement the strategy in their own faculty. The basic elements of the SAP will be introduced in the first part and the continued work on the SAP will be supported by distance coaching and via online webinars (Part II). Part III will offer participants the opportunity to reflect on the implementation of their faculty strategy and other reform projects discussed by the participants during parts I and II.

Application is open until May 28th. 

More info at http://www.idc-latinamerica.com/content/course-description-2018-2019