The Dean's Office has been restructured, and the groups, offices, and service centres have been organized into departments. The leaders of the five departments are well-known colleagues who previously worked in other positions, and there is a new leader as well. We talked about the reason for the restructuring and its future efficiency with Zsuzsanna Varga, the head of the Dean's Office, who is temporarily the head of one of the departments as well.
Written by Rita Schweier
- The dean’s and the leadership’s new ideas regarding the future of the School were the reasons for the restructuring, by establishing new tasks and positions, new units. The structure that has operated the administration so far has no longer proved adequate to achieve the new, innovative, creative goals that were also expressed in the School’s strategy. I also think it is fundamentally important to renew an organization from time to time, and the time has come now. The previous structure was established five-six years ago, I see development and progress in the change. I am confident that we have been able to find colleagues for the various tasks who have the right perseverance and strength to perform them and have the right qualities to achieve our goals together. By the way, it was a long process, I had been looking for the right people for the different positions for a long time, I was watching who might be suitable for these and I was trying to help them in their development and the change by training them.
- Why can this form, the restructuring be effective for the implementation of the new ideas?
- There were overlaps and parallels in the tasks of the previous ten offices, or rather units, but because there were ten, in my opinion we did not have enough time to create common fields and help each other's work this way. With the establishment of the departments and the thematic organization of the organizational units, I believe that this will become much simpler and more efficient. For example, a unit dealing with undergraduate and postgraduate education has been set up - the Department of Educational Support, Development and Habilitation - which brings together directly the units dealing with the related areas. Under the direction of a head of department, the flow of information, communication can be smoother and serve progress better than the previous structure. The student service centres were also organized into a group - which were also created to serve the students, only from a non-academic point of view -, under the Student Service Department. These units have worked closely together so far as well but they have not had a leader who synthesizes knowledge, eliminates duplications, and rationalizes their operation. With such a leader, we are also better able to concentrate the resources.
- We mentioned two of the five departments, the other three are the following: the Department of Marketing and Communication, the Department of Quality Management and Institution Building, and the Dean's Secretariat. You managed to find leaders for each department, only the Department of Educational Support, Development and Habilitation is left.
- Indeed, I am in charge of it for the time being. There was also a change of leadership in the Registrar’s Office, which is why it was difficult to find the right person to lead this department. Education is the main pillar of the School, the department that brings it together is huge, and I have not found the professionally competent person who can see it through and coordinate this field yet. I hope that it will also be solved within one year.
- How will the students, teachers and colleagues perceive the change?
- Students will go to the same offices, communicate with the same administrative officers, thus the change does not affect them in this respect. However, the fact that customer service will be even better, we can rationalize workflows and thus serve the students faster will affect them. That is why we established the central parcel point, and its opening hours are different from the offices. It is likely that the other ways of organization, collaboration, and the different type of representation of the various offices will mean more for the teachers and colleagues as well.
- After how long will it be possible to feel the real impact of the restructuring?
- We have already started operating the new system in the summer, but we talked about it a lot before as well, so it is based on well-founded ideas. I can already feel the effect, but it will take another half a year for this satisfaction to be formulated in others. It also takes time for all colleagues to find their place in it, get accustomed to their position, get to know the new situation, the new leaders who have a significant commitment, a desire to learn about developing their leadership skills, which we support through organized training as well. I am confident that the students, teachers, and colleagues will see this restructuring as a qualitative, positive change.