The newly appointed board of the ISS with representatives from University of Oslo faculties, external members, students and staff, recently had their first meeting. Such a consolidation is at any given time a milestone for an organization, but especially so as we are still in the midst of a pandemic, with the risks, challenges and opportunities which this global predicament poses for our short- and long-term operations.
It is a special pleasure to welcome Gunn Enli as the new chair of the ISS board. Gunn is Pro-dean of education at the UiO Faculty of Humanities and professor at the Department of Media and Communication. Furthermore, she has herself at one time been course leader at the ISS.
“I am honoured to serve as the chair of the board and excited to collaborate with the highly qualified leadership and staff at ISS,” Gunn says. “My history with the International Summer School dates 20 years back, and started when I was hired as a teaching fellow in a temporary position at the Department of Media and Communication. One of my first teaching was actually at the ISS, and I remember being incredibly nervous about teaching in English. The students came from all over the world and were highly qualified, many of them journalism professionals, including TV news anchors. Teaching ISS students was fun, and I think I learned more from them than they learned from me. The international environment socially and academically is an exceptional experience I will never forget.”
The board meets four to six times a year, and their main function is to oversee the strategic, academic, administrative and financial development of the ISS. They ensure the ISS recruitment policy, and see to it that overall operations are in accordance with our mandate. The board is also the executor of the ISS scholarship fund.
We asked Gunn about her expectations to the new board, and she shared some of her thoughts: “I hope the board will be helpful in strategy development and strategic decisions in the year to come. A major challenge is to renew the ISS in a digital age, and to make sure we find the right balance between continuity and change. What I especially anticipate, is to contribute to further improving and strengthening the role of the ISS in relation to the University of Oslo and the Norwegian public, as well as to our main target groups abroad.”
As the ISS are closing the spring semester and heading into what promises to be a busy and exciting new digital summer session with 30 classes encompassing 18 different courses, a big huge thank you to our new board which will be a big asset to the ISS. We appreciate each one of them now becoming a part of the ISS family and providing their experience, perspectives and networks to the further development of the ISS in the years ahead.