Dear All, NOW or in a little while it is summer vacation for many of us, and it is much needed and absolutely deserved!

2021.07.12 | Siri Beier Jensen

Before everyone shuts down, I would like to wish you a very good holiday and say thank you very much for your great efforts in the first part of 2021.

I look forward to seeing you - yes, SEE you - again in August, where we can again fill the house with life and physical presence

INTERNAL NEWS

New art in the 'backyard'
At the beginning of May, a new sculpture by the artist Bjørn Nørgaard moved into Vennelystparken. It is placed in the square in front of the Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies (AIAS) and the defunct café Dale’s and thus just behind the department. The sculpture "Ars - Scientia - Justitia" has been donated by the New Carlsberg Foundation, and according to the artist himself, it must be seen, touched and used. Maybe worth a visit during a lunch break? Read more about the sculpture on the employee website  

RESEARCH, EDUCATION & TEACHING

Five new assistant professors will strengthen our research and teaching
Since the last newsletter, five assistant professors have been employed at the department:

• Bahram Ranjkesh, Section for Prosthodontics
• Line Staun Larsen, Section for Oral Ecology and Caries Control (Line is employed in a tenure track position, which is shared with the Department of Forensic Medicine (30%).
• Fernando Exposto, Section for Orofacial Pain and Jaw Function
• Pankaj Taneja, Section for Maxillofacial Surgery and Oral Pathology
• Casper Kruse, Section for Oral Radiology

The assistant professor positions are four year-terms, and indeed strengthening our department's research and the research-based teaching in the educations.

The journal ‘Tandplejeren’ focuses on (lack of) educational internships
The educational internships for our dental hygiene students do not hang on the trees. That is why Sisse Claudia Korsholm, our internship coordinator, in collaboration with the journal, Tandplejeren, has committed a short series of articles that will make the professional community aware of the need for and opportunities of being an internship host. In the May issue of Tandplejeren, several of our students, all of whom were interns in the South Jutland municipal dental care, participated, see attached article (in Danish).

We cross our fingers that the proactive efforts are helping to create more internships.

When the Section for Prosthodontics journal club overthrew the house (and some of the world)
On Thursday evening, April 22, the Section for Prosthodontics did something we have not tried before. They opened the virtual doors to their monthly journal club and invited the whole world inside. The occasion was that one of our Honorary Skou professors Irena Sailer (University of Geneva) had agreed to give a lecture on prosthetics in the digital age. It became a bit of a tributary. 180 participants turned on the screen from such different places as Aarhus, ACTA (Academic Center for Dentistry Amsterdam), University of Copenhagen, Bahrain and Azerbaijan and followed the presentation and the subsequent discussion. It was a great idea and a very successful 'journal club special' - an example to follow.

"Give me back the relationship"
Our IOOS ambassador for pedagogical-didactic development Dorte Lindelof has written an essay in the Danish University Pedagogical Journal (in Danish) (pp. 84-85). It is aimed at the students and addresses what the last year's online teaching has meant for the relationship between teacher and students and within students when the teaching takes place in an online learning space. And what we might still need to get wiser on.

NAMES

Vibeke Bælum is part of a new AU center on research into inequality
PIREAU is the name of the new interdisciplinary research center at Aarhus University, which will create new knowledge about inequality - both socially, economically and health-wise. The center consists of a core group of senior researchers from Health and Aarhus BSS, and Professor Vibeke Bælum, Section for Oral Epidemiology and Public Health, is one of them. It is an important and super-exciting interdisciplinary research initiative, and it is great that we are represented on the bridge of command. Read more about PIREAU on the website   

Warm summer greetings,

Siri