Debating on university training in a seminar by the UB Student Observatory
Under the title “Representing university training”, an international seminar organized by the UB Student Observatory aimed at lecturers and students in order to debate on the 21st century university, took place on Friday, June 22. One of the guests was Kristina Hauschildt, coordinator of the EUROSTUDENT project, which gathers data on social and economic conditions of European university students, and Sylvia Hurtado, lecturer at the California State University - Los Angeles (USA), who dedicated great part of her research to promote equitable educational centers.
Hauschildt presented, for the first time in Spain, the results of this yearʼs edition of EUROSTUDENT, a European project coordinated by the German Center for Higher Education Research and Science Studies (DZHW), which gathers data on the social and economic conditions of higher education in many European countries. Hauschildt graduated in psychology and holds a doctorate on industrial and organizational psychology from the University of Kiel (Germany). Her work focuses on the assessment of policies and practices in higher education regarding a wide range of topics, from school dropout to the impact of taxes on the quality of the facilities in higher education.
Under the title “Representing university training”, an international seminar organized by the UB Student Observatory aimed at lecturers and students in order to debate on the 21st century university, took place on Friday, June 22. One of the guests was Kristina Hauschildt, coordinator of the EUROSTUDENT project, which gathers data on social and economic conditions of European university students, and Sylvia Hurtado, lecturer at the California State University - Los Angeles (USA), who dedicated great part of her research to promote equitable educational centers.
Hauschildt presented, for the first time in Spain, the results of this yearʼs edition of EUROSTUDENT, a European project coordinated by the German Center for Higher Education Research and Science Studies (DZHW), which gathers data on the social and economic conditions of higher education in many European countries. Hauschildt graduated in psychology and holds a doctorate on industrial and organizational psychology from the University of Kiel (Germany). Her work focuses on the assessment of policies and practices in higher education regarding a wide range of topics, from school dropout to the impact of taxes on the quality of the facilities in higher education.
In her lecture “How are studentsʼ study choices related to their social-economic background?”, Hauschildt highlighted that the financial environment and higher education studies of the families are two aspects which impact a lot when working on a university future for the youngsters. Also, she noted social dimension is important in the process of implementing the Bologna Process, since the initial idea was to promote a diverse corpus of students, but the EUROSTUDENT report states that so far, there is not almost a single country to prove it.
Also, Sylvia Hurtado noted in her lecture “From microscope to telescope: Examining students life and university educational practices” that the first year of university students is very important regarding retention, since one of the most common problems is school dropout during the first term. She also put emphasis on the fact that this dropout usually reflects a problem of the institution and the teaching methodology than the studentʼs performance. This leads university institutions to opt for the integration of research already during the first years of the studies, a closer control of the students and a promotion of help among classmates when sharing study methodologies, for instance.
Sylvia Hurtado was the director of the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) of the University of California, a center that, since 1966, has conducted the oldest university survey in the United States. Hurtado supervised several international projects on the university learning environment, and her research focused on the university admission policies, students and tutoring issues, among others, to get the most equitable educational centers. She is known for her publications on the educational climate in campuses regarding different ethnic and racial groups. The journal Black Issues in Higher Education named her one of the top fifteen influential people when promoting grants and student integration.
Renewing the observatory
According to the rectorʼs deputy for the Student Observatory, Francisco Esteban, “the Observatory intends to work out during the next years out of specific work lines. On the one hand, participation of the students to conduct studies on several themes for an improvement of the university policies. On the other hand, research on the university life, designing and launching a specific research project on this issue”.
The Student Observatory aims to promote and develop studies on the field of the university life to improve those policies affecting students. It offers information as well as systematic, qualitative and quantitative data, and provides the university authorities with them in order to guarantee decision-taking processes to be properly motivated and documented.
The aim is to improve university policies through the active participation of students, based on periodical and systematic studies on the conditions of life and studies, participation and profiles of the UB students, and with the collaboration of lecturers experts on different fields related to the objective of this observatory.