Autumn 2020 in Docturne

The autumn semester 2020 was the first full semester of Docturne. We kicked off the semester with the General Assembly in September. In the General Assembly we elected a new board for the association for the next term and made decisions regarding how to run the association.

The autumn semester was also the time to launch Docturne Lift Ups: the discussion events regarding current matters in academia, research work or other relevant topics. During autumn 2020 we held two Lift Up events. The first one was ‘Let her speak – Gender equality in academia’ in which we got into deep discussions of gender equality issues in our line of work. The second Docturne Lift Up session dealt with anxiety in academia. We shared our thoughts and feelings about what causes us anxiety in the academic setting, why we might feel anxious, and what could be done to mitigate the anxiety that people working in academia experience.

In addition to the more academically focused events, Docturne also wants to enhance the communality of all doctoral students in the faculty. We think this is especially important during the pandemic when everyone is working from home and the connections to a work community might be non-existent. To do that we also try to organize some leisure time activities. In the name of supporting communality, we started hosting coffee breaks in Zoom to offer a safe place for some chitchat during the work week. We also held a Happy Holidays Party to end the year with some fun activities together. In addition, we have started a book club that meets occasionally to share opinions and thoughts about books we’ve all read (or tried to read, at least!).

In addition to the events and activities, during the autumn semester the board of Docturne also did quite a lot of work towards promoting the interest of all doctoral candidates in our faculty. We discussed with the faculty about the organization of seminar groups for doctoral students, took part in the workshop offered to supervisors of doctoral candidates, among many other things.

Thank you for everyone who took part in any of the events and activities Docturne organized during the year 2020! And remember to check the Events page for information regarding our upcoming events and activities!