Are university elections really as useless as many people seem to think? Without co-determination, the UG today would have looked very different, and not in a good way, says columnist Dirk-Jan Scheffers.
While the goings-on at the university are never boring, they were particularly exciting when I was part of the university council from 2017 to 2019. What happened back then has was instrumental in shaping the university today. The biggest issues back then were the plans for the branch campus in the Chinese city of Yantai and the restructuring of the KVI-Centre for Advanced Radiation Technology.
Let’s start with the latter: the board of directors wanted to make drastic changes to an institute that was in the middle of a process that would show it would be able to take care of itself. This one-sided termination of an administrative agreement was anything but fair.
By not agreeing to the changes unless forced termination were off the table, the university council ensured the reorganisation was handled with grace – and the particle accelerator is running like never before.
Because the university council didn’t agree, the Chinese campus was never realised
The branch campus was a different matter. Located in the Chinese provincial town of Yantai, the UG’s branch campus would train 12,000 new students every year, and they would be paying hefty tuition fees. Supposedly, this campus would have complete academic freedom, and the Chinese government would not interfere. It all sounded too good to be true.
When the council, together with the personnel and student factions, took a proper look at the plans and financial underpinnings, it turned out it was. Because the university council didn’t agree, the Chinese campus was never realised.
I regularly run into people who tell me how happy they are Yantai never came to fruition. That shows progressive insight of the matter; when things were getting a bit tense, many people were mainly trying to appease then board president Sibrand Poppema.
Going against him was difficult at the time. Concerns about the campus were dismissed and opponents of the plans were ridiculed. Even the faculties’ deans at the time let themselves be used. To quote university historian Van Berkel, they were ‘the board’s errand boys’. After all, in an organisation where a small group of people holds all the power, it’s a strategic move to ensure you are friends with these people.
Even the deans let themselves be used as the ‘board’s errand boys’
The fact that managers have all the power and never have to explain themselves was recently made clear to me once more. Without talking to their co-determination parties or any other members of the academic community, Dutch university boards went to the minister and proposed a plan in which they sacrificed various English-language social sciences programmes in an effort to get out of being subject to a foreign-language education assessment.
While Groningen actually does quite well in that plan (our very own Jouke is apparently better at diplomacy than his predecessor), it’s kind of amazing that our managers think they can strike a deal with the same minister who basically tore up the previous agreement.
The Dutch academic world is greatly lacking in democracy – but at least we still have co-determination. And it can certainly make a difference. We’re heading for an uncertain future, and our manager will have to make some difficult decisions. Proper co-determination parties who defend the academic community are indispensable.
The university elections are next week. Use your vote; it’s very important. There is a lot at stake.
DIRK-JAN SCHEFFERS