Unsealing, University Groups, and the kontakt Festival
At its meeting on 28 May 2024, the student parliament passed five motions on the topics of sustainability, culture, volunteering and study organisation.
Unsealing the Feki courtyard
At the request of the Bamberg Green-Left Student Initiative (BAGLS), parliament voted in favour of unsealing the Feki inner courtyard. This is intended to increase the quality of the space and at the same time fulfil the university’s sustainability goals. According to the applicants, sealed surfaces “ensure that rainwater cannot seep away and the formation of new groundwater is made more difficult”. This leads to “the loss of habitats for plants and animals and thus to the loss of biodiversity that is also vital for us humans”. The ambient temperature is also artificially increased by the current concrete floor.
Storage rooms for university groups
The Ring Christlich-Demokratischer Studenten (RCDS) submitted a motion calling on the university management to provide storage facilities for so-called university-affiliated groups. Currently, only groups that are part of the university’s organisational structure (such as the Student Councils and the Student Representation) have their own premises. One exception is feki.de, which uses a small room for the university shop.
Other groups currently do not have this option, which the applicants would now like to change. Upon request, the university should “provide lockable storage facilities or cupboards […]” and also enable parcel deliveries in certain cases. The Student Parliament adopted this motion after a lengthy debate on whether university-affiliated groups should be recorded in a register.
Inequities in part-time study programmes
The Student Council for Information Systems and Applied Computer Science (WIAI) has submitted a motion to rectify an injustice in part-time study programmes: Students who are currently studying part-time have double the number of semesters available for the standard period of study. However, once the standard period of study has expired, all students only have two semesters left before they are de-registered.
Assuming 40 hours of work per week for 30 ECTS, full-time students can still complete 60 ECTS after the standard period of study with a reasonable amount of effort. Part-time students who work up to 20 hours, however, can only achieve 36 ECTS. This disadvantages those who are dependent on gainful employment or who are unable to study full-time due to other commitments, such as caring work or childcare. In its resolution, the student parliament called on the university management to adapt the examination regulations accordingly.
A response from the university management arrived quite quickly: since the introduction of the Bavarian Higher Education Innovation Act (BayHIG), this regulation has been enshrined in law. According to their lawyers, the universities have no room for manoeuvre.
Transparency note: The author of this article is also the applicant.
Positioning on the Sustainability Strategy
On another matter: a new Sustainability Strategy is to set the direction for the future development of the university. The ideas of numerous working groups of the Sustainability Steering Group have been incorporated into a paper on which the Student Parliament should take a position. The student representatives on the steering group, Paula Müller and Ole Littke (both from BAGLS), worked with other students to develop a draft that was discussed in parliament.
Among other things, the document calls for clearer and more transparent rules for the work of the steering group and is in favour of more permanent positions in sustainability work. However, the authors also criticise the lack of student involvement in the steering group.
The content of the Sustainability Strategy was also criticised in a variety of ways: some measures had already been implemented and were therefore no longer worth mentioning, while others were classified as medium or long-term, even though they only required a small amount of effort. More far-reaching measures such as the reduction of third-party funding from fossil fuel industries were also proposed.
The “Student initiative” section, in which the demand for a constituted student body was included, caused some discussion. While one side saw this as providing new financial opportunities for sustainability projects, the other side criticised the fact that a constituted student body would have no effect on the sustainability of the university, would not change the existing opportunities to have a say and would therefore be out of place in a sustainability strategy.
The vote on this resulted in the student parliament’s view that the passage should remain in the strategy. A second, much-discussed topic, the implementation of team-building measures in all committee meetings, was also retained in the strategy by vote. The entire strategy will now be bound together into a final document and then adopted. It remains to be seen to what extent student feedback will play a role in this.
Transparency note: The author was involved in the statement.
Solidarity with the kontakt festival
The last motion of the evening came from the members of the AStA list. In it, the Student Parliament expressed its solidarity with the kontakt festival, which was previously expected to pay abruptly high rental costs for the festival site. The Bamberg Student Parliament supports a petition to this effect and “would like to […] point out to the university management that [the Student Parliament], as the largest official representation of students in Bamberg, has an interest in ensuring that cultural experience and learning spaces are preserved and that these represent a basis for the further development of skills, but also for an attractive university city.”
