Date: November 24, 2015
Location: UFMG School of Engineering Auditorium
Organized by the Institute for Advanced Transdisciplinary Studies at UFMG, the Higher Education Colloquium consists of a series of meetings that aim to intertwine knowledge and higher education through dialogue and listening to managers and scholars to support reforms and improvements in Higher Education. The debates, open to the broad participation of managers, researchers, teachers, students and technicians in Higher Education, will be guided by reflection on the relevance of an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approach in undergraduate studies. Over the next two years, several meetings will be held open to the participation of the entire academic community.
The introduction of interdisciplinarity into curricula was the theme of a day held on November 24th in the Auditorium of the UFMG School of Engineering.
Started at the Federal University of ABC, and followed by other federal universities, such as UFBA, UFSB, UFJF, UFRN, UFOPA, UFRB, UNIFAL-MG, UFVJM, the proposal to implement Interdisciplinary Bachelor’s Degrees is one of these pioneering initiatives, and seeks to expand the training options of Brazilian universities, currently focused on early professionalization and equipped with a rigid curricular structure.
An old debate at UFMG has reinforced the need to rethink curricula and improve the undergraduate training process. The dynamic consists of comparing problems and issues reported by managers and various actors involved in the implementation of interdisciplinary trajectories with studies by specialized researchers. The Colloquium sought to bring to light interdisciplinary training in Higher Education, as well as the challenges and advances in the experience of implementing Interdisciplinary Bachelor’s Degrees with experience reports from UFBA, where they were implemented in parallel to the traditional structure, and from UFABC, a University created with interdisciplinary structure. Experiences from Undergraduate and Postgraduate courses with interdisciplinary perspectives existing at UFMG will be heard. On the occasion, the document from the National Education Council, Guiding References for Interdisciplinary and Similar Bachelor’s Degrees at Federal Universities, was also discussed.
The event was organized in partnership with the Deans of Undergraduate Studies (Prograd) and Postgraduate Studies (PRPG), the Institutional Assessment Board and the Distance Education Support Center (Caed).