The Office of the Senior Executive Vice President aims to create a strong academic foundation on campus and provide extensive support for learning, teaching, and research. We work towards fostering a vibrant academic atmosphere focused on research and education.
At the core of our initiatives to provide our students with cutting edge education, we endeavor to introduce new learning and teaching styles and diversify the academic environment. We are focusing on learner-centered educational methods, as well as establishing alternative evaluation methodologies to cater to the varied current and future needs of our students.
By harnessing the expertise of the Technion’s Center for the Promotion of Learning and Teaching’s in-house education specialists, we have been working to integrate faculty-level initiatives that promote innovative learning and student engagement.
Simultaneously, we are developing expanded Humanities and STEM cross disciplinary educational clusters beyond our undergraduates’ primary fields of study, providing them with a broader education and a more comprehensive understanding of the intricate complexities associated with real-world challenges.
The Office of the Senior Executive Vice President takes important actions to enhance Technion’s research infrastructure by providing support to newly recruited faculty members. We ensure that new faculty members are fully prepared from day one to fulfill their roles as researchers and scientists, as well as educators and mentors. Additionally, on a campus-wide scale, we are working closely with each department to develop a multi-year academic development plan aimed at ensuring that academic progress is planned and evaluated based on long-term vision, goals and needs integrated with the Technion’s strategic vectors and the development of the campus.
Strengthening the Foundations of Learning
Over the past year, under the auspices of the Office of the Senior Executive Vice President, the Center for the Promotion of Learning and Teaching has been working with the academic units to maximize the academic achievement, learning experience, and personal development of our students and faculty. The Center, together with the Deans and the academic and administrative staff in the departments, has developed an innovative and non-conventional mode of operation for providing comprehensive support to faculty members and teaching assistants, equipping them with the necessary knowledge and tools to enhance the learning experience and effectively evaluate students’ comprehension and retention of course material.
The Center, led by Education Specialists in many of the Technion departments, has worked closely with instructors to optimize course structures and curriculum resources for better learning outcomes and experiences. The Specialists, who all hold a PhD in their field of science or engineering expertise and are affiliated with the specific department (as well as the Center), are passionate about excellence in education, and possess up-to-date knowledge of educational technologies, teaching practices, and their respective academic disciplines. They encourage the use of advanced tools like the Center’s state-of-the-art lightboard equipment, recording studios, digital learning solutions, and a multimedia classroom suitable for interactive learning with both small and large groups of students. With their guidance, a modern, technology-mediated learning environment is being created, combining face-to-face interactions and mentorship with ground-breaking methodologies and concepts for maximum impact.
In addition to improving learning and teaching methodologies, our Office is actively working to broaden the scope of studies to include courses in the Humanities and Arts along with the classical fundamentals of science and engineering. Currently, undergraduate degree programs in all faculties at the Technion require courses in mathematics, physics, chemistry, and computer science. However, the challenges presented by complex, 21st-century issues in science and engineering often involve a broader foundation and, in particular, societal and moral considerations. Consequently, an ongoing evaluation is taking place to explore the practicality and advantages of adding new courses to the curriculum, with some already in development. These courses would focus on topics like data and decision sciences and life sciences as well as philosophy, ethics, and the history of science and engineering.
Developing Academic Infrastructure
Critical to our teaching, research, and service mission, the development of academic resources and infrastructure is a top priority of this office. We are continuously evolving the underlying processes of resource and infrastructure development to make it more efficient and responsive to the needs of our faculty and students. This past year has seen marked progress on two parallel fronts: (1) personalized start-up packages for new faculty members; (2) multi-year academic development planning at the faculty level.
Technion’s onboarding process for new faculty aims at their success right from the beginning. Our program includes customized start-up packages that align with each individual’s academic profile, needs, and long-term goals as an educator and researcher. The Office of the Senior Executive Vice President, along with the faculty dean and the new faculty member, collaboratively designs these packages to provide the necessary resources for success in teaching, mentoring, and research. Support includes assistance in pedagogical development, purchasing of research equipment, and setting up laboratories.
In order to plan ahead for success, every faculty is now obliged to prepare a five-year academic development plan, consistent with its vision, objectives and needs as well as the ones outlined in the Technion’s strategic development plan. Academic development planning at the faculty level reflects the department’s expectations and academic goals for the coming five-year period in a range of areas including faculty and student recruitment; objectives in research and education; educational and research collaborations and other joint initiatives with on-campus partners, other universities, and industry. Integrated, multi-level long-term development planning will leverage the way Technion operates, reduces uncertainty, and streamlines the management of processes essential to the university’s continued academic excellence.
The Office of the Senior Executive Vice President remains committed to advancing the educational foundations and bolstering the academic infrastructure on campus. As we approach the Technion’s centennial year, our office’s goal is to continue to foster the growth of successful and well-rounded students while providing unwavering support to faculty members, enabling them to excel as educators and researchers.