University election 2013: Fight for what you believe - instead of giving up in advance
One of the two current student representatives on the board, Benjamin Bilde Boelsmand, admits that the number of issues for which the two students have gained support from the rest of the board is underwhelming (to say the least).
But he still believes that it is worth spending the time it takes to cast your student vote in the election.
It’s worth voting
“I can only hazard a guess as to why so few students think it’s worth voting. And even though the reason might be that it’s so difficult to get a majority for issues that are important for the students, surely it’s better to fight to improve things within the given framework rather than simply giving up in advance by not voting at all,” he says.
What does the board actually do?
Boelsmand has been a board member for the past two electoral periods, so he is well aware that the work done by the board is pretty irrelevant for the vast majority of the students. Like many other people, the students are left with the impression that isolation is the only natural habitat of any professional board.
“Obviously, the board has to let the management run the university. But I think lots of people would be interested to learn what the board actually does and what the management does. For instance, as a board we could have contributed far more actively to the discussions that occupied us last autumn in connection with drawing up a strategy for the university in the period 2013-2020.”
Translated by Nicholas Wrigley