Students are to be involved more in decisions with consequence3s for their everyday lives as students. For this reason, the senior management team is establishing a new forum that will give student organisations a greater say in decision-making processes.

2015.01.30 | Rikke Skovgaard Lindhard

“Close dialogue with the students is very beneficial for us,” says Rector Brian Bech Nielsen on the background for the decision to establish a new student forum. Photo: Anders Trærup, AU.

Involving students is a high priority in the current process of implementing a new structure at AU. Rector Brian Bech Nielsen wishes to have more contact with the students, and he believes that strengthening the students’ voice is absolutely crucial:

“It’s very useful for us to be in close dialogue with the students, especially when it comes to issues that have an effect on students’ everyday lives, such as their study environment,” he explains.

As a consequence, yesterday the senior management team decided to establish a new forum that will ensure close dialogue between student organisations and representatives from the senior management team.

New forum to supplement existing channels

The forum is conceived as a supplement to and not a replacement for the existing dialogue that already takes place at the level of the students’ degree programmes, for example in the boards of studies. And at all faculties, regular meetings already take place between the deans and students.

Rector Nielsen thinks that it’s important for the internal debate to take place at several levels and that it should represent a variety of student viewpoints. He hopes that this forum will encourage debate about a wide range of topics, including topical issues on the university policy agenda  in which students naturally have an interest:

“In an forum like this, it will be possible to exchange views on topics of current interest freely, and perhaps even to anticipate any problems before a decision is reached. I think that will be valuable for both sides,” he explains.  

Pro-Rector for Education Berit Eika will now initiate a dialogue on how the forum is to be organised in dialogue with the student organisations.