The next board meeting is coming up soon. As usual, we compile a report for the board with the latest updates. One thing hits me.
Since the last meeting, we have had three ministers visiting our university or planning to visit us, we have welcomed an astronaut, 2,500 upper-secondary school pupils, met with the Ministry of Education and Research, organised one of Sweden’s largest job fairs and, of course, many other exciting activities as well. In short, we have had a lot of meetings. But what is the purpose of all these meetings?
I think we can all relate to the fact that not all meetings are fun and filled with energy. That is worth thinking about, but this text is not about those types of meetings. What I have in mind are those meetings that offer new insights or contacts, where we get the chance to talk about our activities as a university or discuss an important challenge. And we seem to have had many of those meetings this spring.
When the Minister for Education, Mats Persson, visited us in March, he said “It was very interesting in general. I’m very pleased.” His minister colleague Camilla Waltersson Grönvall (Minister for Social Services) added that “It is crucial to meet with representatives of the education that forms the foundation of our social services.” And a student who attended the Hotspot fair concluded that “This a great way to meet employers and have interesting conversations. Sometimes surprisingly interesting.” In other words, the meetings seem to be perceived as interesting and important by many of our visitors.
Receiving visitors and showing off our university is an important task. Sometimes this includes decision-makers at the national level who come to visit us or vice versa. Since we are not located in Stockholm where spontaneous visits would be easier to arrange, we need the make the most of these opportunities by creating carefully planned programmes and including as many of our activities as possible. Sometimes these meetings are about welcoming upper-secondary school pupils, such as the Kau Days in March. On such an occasion, it is about showing off our university to prospective students, which is just as important. Other times we act as a host or stage for a meeting that offers new perspectives – like when Marcus Wandt attended the final of Teknikåttan and talked about what it is really like to see Earth from space.
The winter and the spring have, in other words, offered many meetings. I would like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who helped organise these meetings. I always feel a great sense of pride and I’m often impressed when students and our employees present what we do. Well prepared and suited to the visitor usually characterise these presentations. Then there are, of course, many more who help organise these meetings in different ways and who contribute to us being, at least in my mind, an excellent host. So, what is the purpose of this then? Well, it is of course about the image of our university. The image of an energetic and forward-leaning 25-year-old who is relevant to visitors and meeting participants. An image that is reinforced by well-executed meetings.
