TNW Enrollment15 February 2012 |
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Earlier this month a committee, chaired by prof. T. Sminia (former rector magnificus of the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam), visited our faculty to review the development of our bachelor and master programs and related outreach activities. This review occurred in the framework of the so-called Sectorplan Natuurkunde en Scheikunde (SNS) which have led to additional funding for TNW of more than 1 M€ per year. During the review two figures were shown, which are also included in this News Letter.
Figure 1. Number of first year students starting in one of the TNW bachelor programs in the years 2000 – 2011. Each color represents one of our programs. In Figure 1 the number of students is displayed that are enrolling in one of our bachelor programs each year since 2000. For each bachelor program a different color has been used. This figure clearly illustrates the very substantial growth of our student population – from less than 100 per year to more than 350 – and the effect of initiating new bachelor programs such as Biomedical Technology, Technical Medicine and Advanced Technology. The committee was pleased with these results, as it demonstrates the success of a well-chosen policy to educate more students in science and technology, for which a large societal demand exists. Despite this success, the need for delivering more degrees in Chemical Engineering – in particular – remains. The reason is quite simple. The Netherlands has a large chemical industry, and the solution of all issues related to sustainable energy also require the availability of many more chemical engineers. The faculty TNW has addressed this issue as well, as illustrated by figure 2. In this figure it is shown how the master program Chemical Engineering is attracting many students from outside their own bachelor program. This is a very encouraging development, as it meets the societal needs and – at the same time – demonstrates the attractiveness of our program.
Figure 2. Number of students enrolled in the master program Chemical Engineering. Purple represents the total number of students, while the dark red bars represent the number of students originating from our own bachelor program. Successful reviews, as the one described above, are occurring frequently in our faculty. Less well known is the enormous effort spent by some of our colleagues in preparing the required self-evaluation reports, slides, meetings etc. The faculty is very grateful to Ben Betlem, who has been in charge of the abovementioned SNS review (and prepared the graphics shown!), and the educational review of chemical engineering which is scheduled a few months from now. In this respect I also would like to thank Heleen Miedema who realized the successful reaccreditation of the master program Technical Medicine in 2011, and is preparing the reaccreditation of Biomedical Engineering of 2012. Finally, I should mention the research assessment of the Applied Physics program, organized by Vinod Subramaniam and Marloes Letteboer , which resulted in an average score of 4,7 (out of 5,0) for our physics research groups. A very good result! The faculty TNW received the Sminia committee in a new meeting room in the Carre building, the Half-Ronde Zaal¸close to the back entrance of Carre. This room only came available this month, and can now be used for such reviews, meetings of the Faculty Council, or hosting any other outside delegation visiting our faculty, etc. It serves a long-existing need for a somewhat more pleasant meeting room (with windows!) that can used for this purpose. I hope that many colleagues will make use of this new facility. Gerard van der Steenhoven Dean Faculty TNW |
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