Education Blog Archaeology: Alex Geurds on being Vice-Dean Education
In this series the Vice-Dean and portfolio holder of education in the board of the Faculty of Archaeology reflects on the state of education.
Posts can range from shedding light on current national shifts in the university landscape to arguments as to why it’s important to be timely with designing your classes. Some blogs will be aspirational, others will be more informative, or indeed also inviting. The opinions found here are personal but will also not be disconnected from Faculty Board policymaking.
How about a role as Vice-Dean Education? A lighthearted nudge from the outgoing one
As I prepare to hand over the keys to the Vice-Dean of Education office (they are metaphorical keys, of course. Mostly it’s passwords, OneDrive links, and an alarming number of Microsoft Teams channels), I’ve been reflecting on a question that some of my Faculty colleagues might have on their mind: “Should I apply?”
The short answer is: yes, you quite probably should.
The longer answer is what this blog post is for.
Being Vice-Dean and responsible for the Education portfolio at Archaeology is an exhilarating and occasionally head-scratching combination of intellectual leadership, strategic juggling, and the kind of diplomacy usually reserved for special envoys. Yet, paradoxically, it is also one of the few positions that allows you to help shape the future of the Faculty in a concrete and lasting way. So if you’re even marginally curious, here’s a candid tour of the role, including its tasks, challenges, perks, and pitfalls. Perhaps it will convince you that stepping into this role might be more rewarding (and less daunting) than you think.
What does the Vice-Dean Education actually do?
Let’s start with the basics. The Vice-Dean Education is responsible for the oversight, quality, and ongoing development of the Bachelor, One-year Master, and the Research Master programmes at our Faculty. In practice, this means:
Steering educational policy: You are the strategic guide behind curriculum development, various accreditation processes, and external reviews. At the moment, for example, this prominently includes work on the revision of the Bachelor and Master curricula, to make these ready for the future of our discipline and the professional world awaiting students.
Supporting the Educational Director and all lecturers: One of the most rewarding parts of the job is working closely with the Educational Director, the Head of Education and Student Affairs, study advisers, various coordinators, and of course our group of lecturers. Your role is to be a facilitator: from my point of view you help good ideas gain traction, you try to help clear university hurdles, and occasionally try to find the balance between colleagues’ commitment to teaching and their, sometimes quite different, pedagogical philosophies.
Representing the Faculty: You are a teammember on the Leiden ‘Onderwijsberaad’, also known as OWB (one of the more important of many acronyms you’ll be confronted with), and you liaise with student representatives. The Faculty Board’s assessor is also a close speaking partner to ensure keeping the view from the lecture room benches sufficiently represented. It will mean more meetings than you now have, yes, but these are meetings where things genuinely get decided. And often there are free cookies with the Leiden coat of arms (The Hague heraldic cookies remain pending – much to the understandable chagrin of my FGGA colleagues).
Crisis navigation: Occasionally, you will be confronted with unexpected or not so unexpected turbulence: Exam regulation changes, internal planning bottlenecks, student wellbeing being an ever-growing concern and an online exam system that decides to go bonkers on the morning of a first-year’s exam. Don’t worry. You will get used to it, and you usually sleep well again by late June.
Current challenges and opportunities
This is a transitional moment for the Faculty. The recent external review was honest (sometimes brutally so), but also supportive and constructive. We have been handed a clear direction for strengthening structure, transparency, and cohesion, intensifying the path we were collectively on already.
Some current themes you’d help shape:
- Reinforcing educational quality assurance, especially around assessment and curriculum coherence.
- Supporting staff at a time when several are experiencing high workload, and helping to facilitate course redesign and innovation.
- Enhancing student wellbeing and communication, in collaboration with study advisers and the Board’s Executive Director.
- Balancing creativity with compliance, because for every inspired new course idea, there may be a university regulation waiting to tap you on the shoulder.
It’s a rich moment to step in. Complex, yes, but also full of possibilities to leave your mark.
Why you should apply: The pros
You can help shape the future: Few roles give you a comparable opportunity to influence the trajectory of our Faculty’s teaching programmes. If you enjoy big-picture thinking and constructive tinkering, this is your place.
You get to work with strong professionals: Our Faculty is full of dedicated lecturers, energetic students, and support staff who care deeply about doing things well and being involved. As Vice-Dean you collaborate with people who genuinely want to improve how we teach.
You develop new skills: Policy development, communication, strategic planning, smart negotiation; all skills you will create or sharpen. Consider it an advanced apprenticeship in academic leadership.
You gain perspective (and humour): Once you’ve dealt with overlapping accreditation timelines, three parallel feedback cycles, and a task force meeting that spirals into a debate on commas, you start to see our discipine’s centuries-long time resolution in a soothing new light.
It’s actually rewarding: You see students grow, curricula strengthen, colleagues supported, a couple of problems resolved, and some innovations implemented. Few positions offer such frequent glimpses of impact.
…and the contras (honesty-warning!)
Yes, there are a lot of meetings: But many are important, and some even end early. I’ve witnessed it at least twice.
Your inbox will turn into a layered archaeological deposit: Every day, a new stratum. Some emails are diagnostic finds; others (sorry senders!) just turn into backfill. You learn your non-random systematic sampling quickly.
You can’t please everyone: Educational leadership inevitably involves making decisions that not everyone will love. Thick skin develops naturally over time.
Time management becomes a ritual practice: You will become intimately acquainted with the university calendar. You may even dream in semesters.
So… should you go for it?
If you are passionate about teaching, if you consider yourself to be a people person, can balance patience with decisiveness, and if you want to help our Faculty steer confidently into the next accreditation cycle, then yes, give it serious consideration.
You don’t need to know every regulation by heart (spoiler: nobody does). But you do need curiosity, collegiality, a listening ear, an openness to change your view on things, and an appetite for shaping a future that benefits staff and students alike.
And, most importantly: you won’t be doing it alone. The support structures around you include the Education Director, the full force of the Educational Office, commitees, Council… all full of people who want you to succeed. Not to mention having a Faculty Board at your disposal, to bounce ideas off and to experience the trust and backing of a tightly knit team.
As I wrap up my tenure, I can say with sincerity and a wink: If I survived and even enjoyed it, you almost certainly will too. So, if you’re at that stage in your career with us, take a deep breath, think it over, and perhaps hit that “apply” button. The Faculty and your future self may very well thank you.
Interested in the position? See the vacancy for more information. Application deadline December 11.
Exchange ideas with Alex Geurds
Would you like to exchange ideas with Alex Geurds? Please send him an email or walk by his office (A2.07).