Groningen, 7 February 2025 – The Groninger Student Union (GSb) will take part in this year’s elections of the Faculty Council of Arts. In the previous year, the student union already participated in elections at the faculties of Behavioural and Social Sciences, and Law. ‘Students are being screwed from all sides, we want to bring back democratic decisiveness to more faculties,’ said chair Jitske Wielers.
The candidature at the Faculty of Arts comes at a striking time. Earlier, the GSb had started a petition against the reforms, which has already garnered more than 200 signatures from students and staff at the faculty. In recent days, the student party Letteren Vooruit had also criticized the reforms. The staff party and the faculty board refused to accept the students’ sentiments. ‘The faculty council is deadlocked,’ Wielers said. ‘It is now up to the union.’
The faculty wants to reduce the number of courses by 30%, eliminating 400 courses. They want to start offering larger courses, including faculty-wide interdisciplinary courses, and ban electives for smaller studies. According to the student union, the proposed reforms are ill-conceived, bad for student welfare and bad for the quality of education.
The student union also argues that the faculty board is using the budget cuts in higher education as an opportunity argument to push through their controversial plans. Major reforms were also recently announced at the Hanze University of Applied Sciences, centralizing the organizational structure. The Groninger Student Union fears that the budget cuts in higher education will be implemented in disguise in this fashion, before the fight against it has been properly fought. Wielers: ‘In times like these, it is important that we exercise our democratic right.’ Connecting with local and national politics is becoming increasingly crucial. That is why the Groninger Student Union is the candidate of choice to bridge this.’
The petition against the reforms can be found here.
