Program Director of Continuing Education: "It really requires a different approach from a lecturer"
Matthieu Brinkhuis is an assistant professor in Applied Data Science at Utrecht 木瓜福利影视鈥檚 Faculty of Science. He was recently appointed Program Director of Continuing Education.
How did you become Program Director?
I am already coordinating the Applied Data Science course. What I think made the difference was when the central government asked us to give a course on Artificial Intelligence. I talked to them once and at the time, I thought with a little bravado: Why don鈥檛 I just write a course proposal?
It went down so well that they adopted the proposal almost exactly as it was and also asked me to organise the course. That was the beginning. Later, a few other course requests followed. And then came the issue: if we are now going to do more external research and organise Continuing Education-courses, we need to organise it properly as a department, and we need a program director.
How is teaching someone from the government different from teaching Master's students?
These kinds of courses have professionals who are very keen. Their enthusiasm comes with strings attached: they want good education. It has to be well organised, they are very demanding, so it really requires a different approach from a lecturer.
What makes this interesting for you as a lecturer?
I like being able to provide intrinsically motivated people with knowledge, triggering and feeding their motivation.
So it鈥檚 not just about transferring knowledge?
That鈥檚 right. The promise behind the transfer of knowledge is that you can do anything with it. For example, I teach a subject in the field of data science. This field is changing all the time, which opens up all kinds of opportunities for writing your thesis, job opportunities and developing your career. It's great to be able to give people these tools. You can use them to build and research things. Whether it's in academia or later in the business world, it will benefit you.
In fast-developing disciplines, there is a significant need for lifelong learning
How do you see the future of Continuing Education?
In fast-developing disciplines, there is a significant need for lifelong learning and for being taught on an ongoing basis. The university has a social role to play, and there is potential for growth here. The challenge for us is as follows: as a university, together with colleagues from other universities and social partners, how can we combine our knowledge in a targeted way into a high-quality range of programmes that benefit society?
How would you approach this?
If it were down to me, our Continuing Education-activities would be reflected in our areas of expertise. Research and education go hand in hand there.
This would ensure that knowledge is not fleeting but persists
In the Applied Data Science interfaculty focus area, many researchers work with state-of-the-art knowledge from various different sciences. Suppose we provide a course for the government in this area. In addition to the educational pathway, I would then also like to set up a research programme in which employees can work on obtaining their doctorates part-time, for example.
This would ensure that knowledge is not fleeting but persists, both within the organisation and the university.