University-Wide Art Studies (UWAS) - University Teacher and Coordinator

I was hired as university teacher and coordinator for this program in 2021-2022, to oversee and support 17 electives of the 2-year curriculum. UWAS was a special educational unit created at the university-level in 2016 as a platform for transdisciplinary teaching and learning serving BA and MA programs across Aalto University. I coordinated a total of 40 courses along with the UWAS director then, Timothy Smith. My responsibility included management of budget, registrations, teaching contracts and online tools, student outreach, and course programming within the institutional existing frames. I also offered and taught two courses based on my own projects: the EKW and a podcast course set up in the Conversation Room project.

The UWAS curriculum developed by Juuso Tervo over five years, was structured with six themes grouping the elective offerings (curated via an open call): Anthropocene, Practice and Action, Reflections, Manifestations, Collaborations, and Tensions. During my work as coordinator, I worked with the new director to include intersectional, societal, and humanitarian concerns that were underrepresented in the thematic structure of the curriculum, and we proposed additions such as: Dis/abling Wellbeing; Thinking from/with Global South Women filmmakers; Worldling the Metaworlds; Decolonize Your Studies; Why do we do the things we do? Podcast course; the Embodied Knowledge Workshop (implemented twice); and the Field Ecologies Intensive (in collaboration with Lucy Davis and ViCCA MA).

I supported the faculty and hourly-paid teachers in the design and implementation of their courses under the pedagogical approach of UWAS program. Preparatory meetings with each teacher focused on ensuring transdisciplinary contents, methods and pedagogical experimentation. Feedback discussions were also held to assess learning processes afterwards. Supporting their work in remote and/or hybrid teaching was essential during the two years of Covid 19, and working out arrangements for safe contact teaching was key to my job.