After talking to a member of the Faculty Council and the University Council we come to you with more details in case you are curious about what the councils do and how you can join.
As mentioned in the earlier post, both councils consist of an employee and a student faction. The student faction is voted each year while the employee faction is in office for two years. This year you can vote for both!
Faculty Council
The faculty council has different committees that each member can join depending on personal interests and the needs of the factions. Each committee focuses on specific topics and has regular meetings to discuss policy documents related to these topics. Furthermore, the faculty council (the student and staff faction) meet to exchange ideas, comments and discuss the documents. Finally, in meetings with the Faculty Board the documents, issues and significant decisions are discussed. More information about the Faculty Council can be found here (their Newsletters are also published there!)
To apply for the employee faction, contact the Chair of the Council to be included in the list for the next elections and to get more information.
As a PhD scholarship student, you can apply for the list of the student faction. All FSE students have received an email with the crucial information about how to apply (if you have not seen it, as you receive this in your student email please find the content of that email here). Before March 1 (12PM) you can apply by filling out this Google Form where basic information and your motivation as to why you would like to join the Faculty Council are asked. For any questions regarding the election and application procedure for the student faction you can send an email to listfse2021@gmail.com
After the application procedure is finalized a list is created; this list is used for the election and the nine most voted people on the list are selected to be part of the Faculty Council.
PhDs that are part of the Faculty Council receive 2 months of extension to their PhD project (for one year in the council).
University Council
In the University Council similar tasks as in the Faculty Council are executed, but on a higher level. Committees are created depending on topics and anybody can join each committee meeting depending on their interest in the subject at hand in the moment. Committees discuss specific topics and formulate documents addressing the issue at hand and propose solutions for it. Meetings are held within committees, with the entire University Council and with the University Board. More information about the University Council can be found here.
At the moment, two PhD students are members of the University Council in the staff sections, but no PhD scholarship students applied to be part of the student section. In the following year important issues and insights will be analyzed regarding the PhD scholarship experiment, thus,representation of PhD scholarship students in the University council is crucial.
The staff section is divided into personnel and science faction, if you would like to join either one of them you can contact them via email. While in the student section different lists and parties are available and can be contacted as well. If you are interested in joining the University Council as a PhD scholarship student please contact GRIN (contact@grin-groningen.nl) or the GSSE PhD Council (phdcouncil.fse@rug.nl) for more information.
PhDs that are part of the University Council receive 3 months of extension to their PhD project (for one year in the council).