Radboud Honours Academy for teachers

Honours programmes are intended for students who wish to spend longer on their educational development. There are thirteen such programmes in all for first-year, Bachelor’s and (pre-)Master’s students. The programmes fall into two categories: faculty Honours programmes and university-wide Honours programmes. The role of the lecturer differs according to the programme. In most faculty programmes, you will explore a topic in depth and build an intensive master-apprentice relationship with your students. In the university-wide programmes, you will encourage your students to adopt a broad approach and to look beyond their own discipline.

All Honours programmes are more firmly based on students’ research questions and initiative than in regular education. Interaction between students and lecturers is an important part of the Honours education. You don’t just teach; you are also a coach who helps students to direct their own personal development.

The Honours Academy supports lecturers through peer support, inspiration sessions and training. You can then also apply successful modes of instruction developed in the Honours programme to your own teaching.

In addition to the one- and two-year Honours programmes, the Honours Academy also offers Honours labs. These are short, experimental projects, in which students work for weeks or months on an interdisciplinary theme of a topical nature. Unlike most components of Honours programmes, Honours labs have no fixed format. As a lecturer, you will enjoy the freedom to experiment with new modes of instruction.

Your role as a lecturer in an Honours lab is similar to that in the Honours programmes; you will always work with small groups of students and you will have a primarily coaching role. You will also be closely involved in the development of teaching, with your own ideas about education as the point of departure. Together with programme coordinators at the Honours Academy and/or other (external) experts, you will then develop these ideas further to create an inspirational Honours lab.

The city as a campus

The world is changing faster than ever. This demands different knowledge, skills and ways of learning. How do we accelerate and improve this development? And how can we achieve this together with the city? Radboud Honours Academy and City Deal Kennis Maken are working together to give students the opportunity to gain knowledge and skills by having them work on Nijmegen’s social issues. This is a practical implementation of the 2024 Radboud University Educational Vision and Radboud University Strategy goals.

City Deal Kennis Maken

Students are keen to contribute to social issues and to have an impact for others. As a lecturer, you can offer students the chance to do this with help from the different Nijmegen educational institutions and the municipality of Nijmegen. The city’s social issues are turned into assignments that fit your curriculum. In doing so, it is possible to collaborate with MBO and HBO students and professionals in Nijmegen’s neighbourhoods.

• Visit the LinkedIn page for a list of the completed and ongoing projects
• Insight into the social impact of the various projects
• See how City Deal Kennis Maken evolves towards 2030 
   

Different forms of education

Education in and for the city takes a range of forms. This offers many opportunities to embed these social issues in the regular curriculum. For example:

• Long-term course - short-term challenges/hackathons
• Monodisciplinary intake - interdisciplinary intake 
• General themes - occupation-specific issues
• Individual RU thesis - working with MBO and HBO students in a learning workshop

Teaching support

As a lecturer, you can call on the City Deal Kennis Maken core team. They help find impactful issues and get in touch with professionals at the municipality or in the neighbourhoods. 

Added value for students

• Actively contributing to the world around you
• Experiencing the social relevance of your degree programme
• Increasing your network by collaborating with regional partners
• Meeting people outside your social bubble

Added value for lecturers

• Analysis and putting theory into practice
• Working with new forms of education and social partners is motivational
• Learning in and for the city provides opportunities for PPD and job market orientation
• Limited financial support to set up new long-term projects

Added value for the city

• Using knowledge from the immediate vicinity
• New perspectives from students on urban issues
• Binding students to the city and region

Besides City Deal Kennis Maken Nijmegen, there are other options for Radboud University lecturers to collaborate with social organisations, such as Ieder Talent Telt.

Everyone deserves to have the same opportunities. Ieder Talent Telt (ITT) facilitates collaboration across institutional boundaries and ensures greater inclusion, diversity, equality and wellbeing in education.

Ieder Talent Telt is a community in which all educational institutions and childcare organisations in Nijmegen work together with partners, like the municipality of Nijmegen, young people and other inhabitants to help develop and maintain talent. This happens both in the workplace and at board level, within hotbeds and projects.

Voicing ideas or offering support in education?
As a lecturer, you can use Radboud University’s community builder. She can help you to explore your ideas further or get in touch with professionals in the neighbourhoods.