Groepsfoto USR/USC
Groepsfoto USR/USC

USC Column December 2023

This month's University Student Council column is written by Sven Braster and Naomi Smolenaers. They clarify their key points for the upcoming year.

It has been an eventful month marked by the elections and its results. Almost everyone has been busy this month reading up on the political positions of the various parties. As USC, we too have been busy with key points. Not only those of the parties for the general elections, but also our own. In this column, we will tell you a bit about the key points we have been working on over the past month and what exactly we as the University Student Council are planning this year.

Integral sustainability

One of the central issues we will be working on is integral sustainability. By the word 'integral' we mean that we want to focus not only on ecological sustainability, which focuses mainly on the environment, but also on social sustainability, which focuses mainly on well-being. We want this to be reflected on the campus as a whole as well as in education and research. In doing so, we focus on a number of spearheads.

First, we want to work towards a transition towards a more plant-based campus. Plant-based products are generally much less polluting than meat- and dairy-based alternatives, so we think it is important to make the choice for plant-based products as easy as possible. We are also concerned with implementing courses on sustainability in the curricula of different studies. Many study programmes already deal with sustainability, but not all of them yet. In addition, we focus on promoting circularity. This is about reusing waste streams, materials and structures.

(Active) student life for all

Besides sustainability, active student life is one of the most important points for us. Here, it is important to us that student organisations get more visibility among students and that contributing to active student life is possible for everyone. To make this possible, it is important that active students (i.e. those doing a board or participation year, for example) receive sufficient support to take the chances of these extracurricular activities.

We envisage this support in several ways. For instance, we want to push for an increase in the financial allowance students receive. In our view, this is not proportionate to the time active students put into their board or co-signing positions in a year. It is also important to us that active students have the opportunity to attend trainings and workshops that can help them during the year. Another spearhead is an increase in the accessibility of flexible study. Our goal here is for flexible studying to become the principle university-wide, and for all lectures to be recorded.

If you would like to know more about the USC and what we all do, or if you have ideas/comments on bigger themes within the university that are playing out within your student body? Then follow us on Instagram or send an email to USR [at] ru.nl!

On behalf of the entire USC,

Sven Braster

Naomi Smolenaers

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University Student Council