– What is occupying you right now?
– Right now, I’m mostly focused on getting properly into my responsibilities as the new faculty director at the Faculty of Social Sciences. It’s demanding, but also very exciting. My first impression is very good!
– If you had to explain to an eight-year-old what you do at work, in three short sentences, what would you say?
– Imagine that the university is a huge school with thousands of pupils and grown-ups working there. I’m one of the people who make sure the school has money, good plans, and that everyone manages to work together. I don’t need to know everything about what everyone else is doing – but I do have to be pretty good at figuring out what needs to be done when no one is quite sure what needs to be done.
– What motivates you in your job?
– I’m strongly committed to the sector we work in. Universities and university colleges must both safeguard knowledge and traditions and at the same time be able to challenge established ways of thinking. That requires organisations that are capable of learning, listening and changing – and leaders who are able to create coherence between people, disciplines and the institution’s overall goals.
– In my work, I’m concerned with making complexity understandable and manageable, without simplifying away what is genuinely complex. I particularly enjoy the work of translating between different perspectives and levels – between strategy and practice, between academic staff and administration, and between the needs of the organisation and the people who are to make change happen.
– If you were to become something completely different, what might it be?
– I think I could have become a decent farmer.
– What do you do when you completely switch off?
– I go to the cabin on Søndre Sandøy, battling the forces of nature and cutting, digging, painting. Other ways I switch off are by walking along a path – preferably from village to village in Southern Europe – or by making large amounts of food in my kitchen in Sofies gate.
- Check out Kristel Skorges personal profile page