Conservative students get a new chairman – the key issues are the same

We meet Christoffer Hagen Pedersen in the new, round City Auditorium. He is studying business administration and recently replaced Fuglesangs Allé with Universitetsbyen. He’s currently writing his Bachelor's project on conglomerate discounts in the stock market. Yes, it’s a topic he has chosen voluntarily.

The 25-year-old from Esbjerg comes from a home where numbers and stock prices were learned at an early age. So are conservative values. At the age of 16, he joined the youth wing of the Conservative People's Party, and now he has just taken over the chairmanship of Conservative Students. 

I'm also being corrected when I call him 'chair'. The title is chairman, naturally.

The new chairman has just helped host an election debate for students, organised by the Conservative Students.
After the Danish general elections, he will turn his attention to another election, namely the University Election in November, where two representatives will be elected to the AU Board. Therefore, it’s important that Conservative Students are a cohesive group, according to Christoffer Hagen Pedersen. However, he doesn’t consider it a realistic goal to join the board. The Student Council has a strong hold on those mandates, but the success of Conservative Students can be measured by other parameters.

“My clear ambition is that we don't go back. In the latest elections, Foreningen for Borgerlige Jurister (the student association for liberal lawyers), which is also part of Conservative Students, received the absolute majority of students on the board of studies for Law. That, I think, is incredibly impressive. "Now we have the vice-chairmanship of the board of studies for business administration, law and theology," he says.

“I can't claim that it's a fair fight against the Student Council, but my clear ambition is to get the message out so that students know about Conservative Students. Especially so that liberal-minded students know where to look," he says. 

“I accept the argument that students are very different. As a conservative student, I don't necessarily feel represented by some common list," he says. 

“The student council is organised through a number of degree programme councils, where they find a consensus, and that consensus can be deadly for the minority. “You don’t really know what the unheard minority thinks,” he says.

“We are representatives of the members who vote for us in the University Elections. "We don’t claim to represent all students," he says, referring to the Student Council. 

Therefore, Christoffer Hagen Pedersen hopes to strengthen Conservative Students before the University Election in November. 

“I can contribute by having experience as chairman. I want to get everything within the committee running perfectly. It's quite important so that we have the energy and commitment to get involved in the debate," he says.

NO NEW KEY ISSUES 

He doesn’t plan to change the Conservative Students' key issues. They will still fight for better physical conditions in the form of more electrical outlets, recording lectures, and anonymisation of exemption applications in the board of studies. And the AU Exam Hall in Lisbjerg is still on the association's agenda. 

The former vice-chairman of Conservative Students had the time of the exams moved from nine to ten o'clock, citing traffic conditions, after a debate in Omnibus. 

The Student Council has also expressed criticism of the conditions around the exam hall, and nothing unites better than a common enemy. 

"At the exam hall, I definitely think it makes sense to enter into a collaboration with the Student Council, because there’s something clearly wrong," Christoffer Hagen Pedersen says. 

SHARES AND DR. MARTENS 

As mentioned, Christoffer Hagen Pedersen comes from a home with numbers. His father is an accountant. 

“There has been a lot of talking about numbers, accounting and shares at my house,” he says. He has carried his interest in shares with him throughout his student life, and it also occurs to him to compare Conservative Students to shares. 

“If Conservative Students were a share, they would be a steady share that you can always count on,” he says.

“Because we will always be represented. There will always be students who subscribe to the liberal view of being a student. There’s a lasting demand," Christoffer Hagen Pedersen says.

At first glance, it sounds classic for a liberal-minded student to be interested in shares, numbers, and accounting. But he doesn't live up to the stereotype with his clothing choice today. 

“There are probably some members who’d also wonder why I'm not wearing a tie today,” he says. 

“I wore a suit to the annual general meeting, but I probably feel more comfortable in a shirt and my Doc Martens,” he says.

This text is machine translated and post-edited by Lisa Enevoldsen.