By Emma
Good day my friends,
If you are on campus regularly, you’ve probably seen them everywhere: those nice signs along the road with slogans like “More and better study places”, “A swimming pool on campus”, and “Gezelligheid before 17:00”. Where do they come from and what do you have to do with them?
It’s time for the student council elections again! On May 10 and 11 you can vote for candidates for the Central Student Council and the council of your study. Sounds important. That’s why I’m here to tell you all about the student council elections; the present, past and future.
What exactly does the Student Council do? To quote the TU website (because they will probably know best): “The Student Council advises the Executive Board on decisions that need to be taken. These include decisions regarding student support and guidance, student regulations and requirements, workspaces and other student facilities.The Student Council also has the right of initiative. This means that the Student Council, assisted by staff members, is able to propose and initiate ideas for improving education and student affairs at TU Delft. Some successful examples include the mechanics and mathematics helpdesk in the university library, and the Collegerama.”
Each month, the Student Council meets with the Executive Board’s Vice-Rector Magnificus/Vice-President Education. These meetings are open to everyone.
The history
The origin of the student council in Delft is actually quite interesting. In the early days, students had no real influence on decision-making in higher education. Not just not in the Netherlands, nowhere in Europe. In the 1960s, this started to cause more and more unrest among the students, which derailed in May 1968 in the Paris Student Revolt (fun fact: Not only students participated in the student revolt. High school students were also part of the protests). This spurred the Dutch students to also go on strike and protest against the lack of democracy. Although the students of the university in Tilburg were the first to move to occupy several university buildings, the main protest took place about a year later. On May 16, 1969, some 500 students decided to occupy the Maagdenhuis, the administration building of the University of Amsterdam, to demand that all university policy documents be made public. In addition, they demanded participation at all levels of decision-making.
In the Netherlands, all these protests eventually resulted in the Law on University Administrative Reform (called WUB in Dutch, for the Wet op de Universitaire Bestuurshervorming) in 1970. “According to the WUB, the board of the university/university college consists of the university/university college council, as the highest body, and the executive board. The University Council (UR for Universiteitsraad) mainly has a general administrative task; budget, regulations and regulation changes require ministerial approval.”
Unfortunately, this turned out not to work very well, so the unrest continued to reign. Over the years, the Executive Board (CvB for College van Bestuur) gained more and more power through various changes in the WUB, which resulted in a lot of dissatisfaction between the UR, the CvB and various University Council factions. In 1997, the University Management Organization Modernization Act (MUB for Modernisering Universitaire Bestuursorganisatie) came into effect. As a result, the Executive Board became the administrative body, assisted by a Workers Council (employees) and a Student Council (students).
At present, TU Delft is one of the few universities in the Netherlands to have a full-time Student Council, TU Delft claims on their website.
Okay, that’s enough bullshit about history. Maybe it’s time to talk about the parties and their candidates you can vote for on May 10 and 11. Go vote. Voting is important. This is your student life (assuming you study at TU).
The (history of the) parties
You may have already seen it from the beautiful campaign signs on campus, but this year there is a new party (in addition to Lijst Bèta and ORAS): Dé Partij!
I just lied a little. Because I find the history very interesting, here is a short summary of all parties since the establishment of the Student Council. ORAS has been active in the student council since the beginning of time, even though they started under the name SGC (Studenten Centrum Groep) as a counterpart to AAG (Department of Action Group). For a long time these were the only two parties, but this year “is not the first time that three parties stand in TU Delft’s Student Council elections. This was also the case in 1999 when dissatisfaction about the two parties that jointly formed the Student Council – Oras and AAG – led to the birth of Project Blauw. It won one seat on the Student Council, but after one year had to stand down for lack of successors. AAG stopped in 2008. Het Principe (‘the principle’) then came forward as the students behind it felt that there should be a choice. One year later, Het Principe disappeared and AAG returned. In 2010, AAG definitively stopped. Oras then represented the Student Council on its own. One year later, Lijst Bèta joined.”
So this year you can vote for ORAS, List Bèta or Dé Partij. Exciting. What are their views and what have they achieved so far?
Since the TU Delft Student Council consists of ten students, I will only discuss the first ten members of each party, their slogans and any goals. All thirty feels like overkill.
ORAS
ORAS has been around the longest of the three parties, so it is logical that they have achieved the most over the years. The real question is what ORAS has achieved for the students in recent years.
A nice image for this, because ORAS can tell what they have achieved much better than I can.
ORAS has the following candidates:
1. Maud Reinders
- Slogan: “World-class engineer”
- Goals
- Maintain and improve international reputation and status
- Implementing Virtual Reality in education
- Only pay per course you follow
2. Matthijs van Teeffelen
- Slogan: “Time for development”
- Goals
- Recognition certificates for extra curricular activities
- More financial compensation and more flexible education for extra-curricular activities
3. Alexandra Schelling
- Slogan: “Sustainable, of course!”
- Goals
- Free up more money for climate-positive buildings and renovations
- Climate-neutral printing on the entire campus
4. Jelle Stap
- Official English slogan: “Wellbeing matters!”
- Slogan translated from Dutch: “Comfortable in your own skin”
- Goals
- Student welfare and social safety always as a priority
- No waiting times for student psychologists
5. Jozua Heule
- Slogan: “Your perfect campus”
- Goals
- A padel court on campus (hasn’t it been built recently on X?)
6. Tessa Hartog
- Official English slogan: “Your study, your course”
- Slogan translated from Dutch: “Boss over your own study”
- Goals
- Only pay per course you follow
7. Madelon van Haften
- Official English slogan: “Home sweet Delft”
- Slogan translated from Dutch: “East, west, Delft best”
- Goals
- Making opportunities accessible
- Is the first ORAS candidate who says that she is also committed to international students
8. Janneke Lombaers
- Slogan: “Paying per credit”
9. Sam van Haren
- Slogan: “Padel court on campus” (I’ve heard this before…)
10. Sietje Piebenga
- Slogan: “Free menstrual products everywhere on campus”
- ORAS already achieved this last year! You should be able to go to any service point on campus in case of an emergency
In all honesty, after the sixth candidate I was inclined to stop because people kept repeating themselves, but I also want to mention all the goals of the parties somewhere, so let’s continue with the list. Only candidates with new goals will be named with their slogan, as this is also their goal. Practical.
11. Sander Kamminga
- Slogan: “BSA reduction to 40 ECTS”
14. Eef Budding
- Slogan: “Exemption of tuition fees for board members and Dream Teams”
16. Daan Smulders
- Slogan: “Permanently abolish bachelor-before-master rule”
18. Alex Remstedt
- Slogan: “Free note-taking platform like Studeersnel”
19. Veena Madhu
- Slogan: “Public transport compensation for everyone”
23. Max van Hugten
- Slogan: “Less deadlines”
24. Linde Bergink
- Slogan: “Swimming pool on campus”
27. Shirley Li
- Slogan: “Fully embrace ChatGPT”
Lijst Bèta
Lijst Bèta, although still the new party in my head, has been part of the Student Council in Delft for more than a decade now. In that time they have also made many of their goals a reality.
Again, I’ll use an image, since List Beta can describe their achievements much better than I can.
List Beta has the following candidates this year:
1. Marlou Boerkamp
- Slogan: “Innovative, top-notch education”
- Goals
- Improving stumbling subjects with new teaching techniques
2. Sam de Jong
- Slogan: “Personal attention, even as TU Delft grows”
3. Per Schrijver
- Slogan: “Sustainability in all aspects of TU Delft”
- Goals
- TU CO2 neutral in 2030
4. Albaraa Khalil
- Slogan: “A true international university, not only in name”
- Goals
- Set up a task force to investigate all language issues
5. Pravesha Ramsundersingh
- Slogan: “Every student should feel safe on campus”
- Goals
- A central welfare counter for questions and complaints
- Appropriate assistance in case of transgressive situations and incidents
6. Yasir Aydemir
- Slogan: “A diverse representation in the student council”
- Goals
- International councilors in the student council
- Public meetings in English
7. Sukriti Garg
- Slogan: “More attention to student well-being”
- Goals
- Enough psychologists for all students
8. Oumaima Azuguag
- Slogan: “More and better study places”
9. Ada Maria Precup
- Slogan: “Creating a community where everyone feels at home”
- Goals
- D&I teams at every faculty
- Lectures on intercultural communication
10. Anna Bazarova
- Slogan: “More sustainability in education”
In order to remain neutral, I should really only continue here with the rest of the candidates and their slogans, but I will make an exception for candidate number 13 of Lijst Bèta, because I find his purpose clearer than his slogan and I am a fan of the idea.
13. Hugo von der Thüsen
- Goal: To create room for soft skills and extra development in the curriculum, to give students every opportunity to enter the labor market well prepared.
15. Stijn Blom
- Slogan: “More chill spaces for socializing on campus”
16. Lars van Tol
- Slogan: “Have your feedback be heard and implemented immediately”
19. Rutger Hering
- Slogan: “Exchanging knowledge with other universities”
20. Tristan Oude Essink
- Slogan: “Better master thesis supervision”
23. Chiel van Baardwijk
- Slogan: “A good introduction period for every student!”
24. Mick Sikkens
- Goal: Instead of explicitly asking for vegetarian food, vegetarian becomes the standard
26. Britt Mesman
- Slogan: “Adobe and Grammerly licenses for students”
Dé Partij (The Party)
Dé Partij. I’ve been looking forward to this so much. Before I started writing this article, I actually thought Dé Partij was a meme. Not to be taken seriously. However, I must admit that it is refreshing to read the vision of students who want to make a change and are committed to something they themselves strongly care for, instead of reading the same text as last year in the election campaign. It also keeps TU Delft and the other two parties sharp. Hopefully.
1. Koos Meesters
- Official English slogan: “Priority number one: making campus more fun!”
- Slogan translated from Dutch: “I won’t pass my studies nominally anyway, make the campus social again”.
- Goals
- A place to live for every student; student houses instead of studios
- Abolition of the new alcohol policy
2. Jorrit Greep
- Official English slogan: “The policies need to be updated, it is not that complicated.”
- Slogan translated from Dutch: “A student enjoying a ball sandwich, it’s not all that complicated, is it?”
- Goals
- Bring back sandwiches with meatballs in X-cafe (and please toasties with ham in the weekend?)
- Abolition of the new alcohol policy
3. Florent Appert
- Official English slogan: “Housing for all, that’s our call!”
- Slogan translated from Dutch: Pretty much the same
- Goals
- A place to live for every student; student houses instead of studios
And now?
Yes. Good question. I’m not here to influence your vote. I’m just here to encourage you (and myself) to actually vote after you read up on the election and candidates a bit. It is easy to think “ORAS, they have been around for a long time and have managed to get things done, I will just vote for their party leader”, or “Huh, I vaguely know this person from Lijst Bèta through my studies, he gets my vote” or “Ha, meme party, let’s go!” but you don’t help yourself or the future students with that. Now I also fully understand that you don’t feel like researching 63 candidates, let alone having to read up for the board of your study, so I hope this summary of candidates helps a bit.
From 8:00 May 10 to 17:00 May 11! Go vote! https://stem.tudelft.nl/election!