The Faculty Board has appointed Katleen Gabriels as the new Programme Director of the BA Digital Society. She will succeed current director Sally Wyatt on 1 September 2020. Katleen looks forward to starting this new role.
When asked about her vision for the bachelor’s programme, Katleen emphasises the importance of further strengthening the programme’s interdisciplinarity, simply because the challenges and promises of digitisation are global and highly interdisciplinary. Current debates on corona apps and fever detection cameras show that the challenges are not only technical but also ethical and political. The corona crisis shows the relevance of the BA programme even more clearly. Since the outbreak of the crisis we have all become dependent on digital platforms for teaching and meetings.
Preparing our students for a professional career, in which they also have to be able to build bridges between disciplines, is intrinsically connected with developing and improving academic skills. These skills include critical reading, critical and reflective thinking, analytical and argumentation skills – all skills which cannot easily be replaced by automation in the long run.
Katleen expresses her gratitude to Sally Wyatt – big shoes to fill! – and looks forward to continuing Sally’s excellent work and to contributing to the visibility of the programme.
