ew and final approval by the President (Rector). In the case of faculty appointments the recommendation should be made to the Dean by the Department Head and by the Dean to the Provost (Vice Rector) or President (Rector). A similar process should be followed for faculty promotions.
· Department Heads should be selected by the appropriate search committees and should be appointed by the Deans with the approval of the Provost (Vice Rector) or President (Rector). Deans should be selected by the appropriate search committees and should be appointed by the President (Rector) with the approval of the University’s Governing Board.
D. Enforce Accountability: Measuring Performance
· It is necessary that the universities be accountable for their actions. They should have the responsibility to measure and publicly report their academic performance.
· Universities should acquire information technology tools and develop policies and processes which allow them to annually measure the output parameters and assess the effectiveness of their operation. Some examples: tenure track faculty headcount and FTEs (full time equivalent), temporary lecturers in headcount and FTEs, enrolled students by year, graduated students (4 years, 6 years and 8 years), research expenditures, publications, citations etc.
· Universities should report the teaching load of their faculty in the form of student credit hours and focus on improving graduation rates and retention. Improving graduation rates should become a primary goal.
E. Improving Undergraduate Curricula and Strengthening Graduate Studies
· The University Senate should be responsible for revising and approving undergraduate and graduate curricula. The curricula should be flexible, of the highest academic quality, should reflect the needs of the profession and the needs and aspirations of Greek society. The Senate should also be concerned with the organization of degree programs and the procedure of examinations. Studies should be specified in the internal rules of each institution, within a broad framework set by the state. All new curricula and existing curricula changes should require the final approval by the Provost (Vice Rector) and President (Rector). The various degree programs should be accredited by an appropriate accreditation board regularly.
· We support the establishment of Schools or Offices of Graduate Studies in every institution. These schools or offices should be in charge of developing and proposing postgraduate qualification programs, and doctoral programs to the Senate. These schools or offices should be responsible for making sure that program requirements are satisfied for the award of graduate degrees.
F. Ethics and Transparency: Creating Trust
· In this particularly difficult period, every euro spent educating students is essential. A special public service or an independent authority should be responsible for handling and distributing public funding to institutions, for evaluating the cost of services, for processing relevant indicators and standards and collecting all necessary data from the institutions.
· It is necessary that universities create a set of rules of faculty, staff and student engagement based on a broad set of ethics. The universities should have clear clauses that define and manage conflicts of interest and conflicts of commitment to safeguard against unintended misappropriations, mismanagement, plagiarism and nepotism. The universities should have a clear set of rules and processes to promote and enforce ethics in a way that brings about trust.
· Each university should perform its own audit of various financial functions and report regularly the results of this audit.
Members of International Committee
Professor of Medical Science and President of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
Patrick Aebischer was trained as an MD (1980) and a Neuroscientist (1983) at the University of Geneva and Fribourg in Switzerland. From 1984 to 1992, he worked at Brown University in Providence (Rhode Island, United States), as an Assistant and then Associate Profess