Democratische Academie Groningen - DAG

13/02/2022

+++ protest tomorrow! +++
This Monday, 14 Feb at 12:00 (noon), we will gather at the Academy Building to hold a local support rally against structural overwork, casualisation and unsafe working conditions – including the lackluster response of the Board of the University to the YAG report on sexual harassment.
Join to !

Organizing together in the AOb union for better working conditions at the University of Groningen. We are employees at every rank and in every corner of the University of Groningen, from lecturers to PhD candidates to full professors to support staff, who are organizing to build union power to achie...

22/11/2021

After the SOS campaign, housing remains a urgent topic in groningen! Check out our demands at https://woonstrijdgroningen.nl/ and join the protest next sunday!

24/08/2021

We are once again seeing a (foreseeable) housing crisis, and we are once again asking for your help: in hosting homeless students if you have a space, and in helping us with the organisation of mutual aid and protest actions. Please sign up on http://sosgroningen.nl/.

01/06/2021

This weekend there will be the national student strike in The Hague, there will be free buses from Groningen to take people who want to go. You can sign up in the link below and/or pm us if you have any questions! Would be lovely to see some of you there

02/03/2021

February Council update:

1. Strategic Plan: The Council had voting rights on the university's 5 year plan, as well as rights to propose amendments. The Personell faction filed (with our support) an amendment that read: "The manageability of workload pressure is a strategic aim for UG. Therefore, UG will incrementally increase workload-reducing funds annually so as to at least have doubled them in 2026.". The Board initially was not willing to incorporate this amendment, but after some pressure and them taking a private meeting, they agreed to incorporate it. This is a big win for us who have been campaigning for more hard measures regarding work pressure. For those who missed our investigation and action in summer: RUG staff together works at least 10.000 hours of unpaid overtime every day. We are happy we got this money, but we will continue to press for more.

2. "Dean of Entrepreneurship"
At the same time as faculties lack money and have to cut staff/not extend temporary contracts, we are asked to approve 750.000 euro for the "Dean of Entrepreneurship". There are many problems with this programm, too many to name here. But for example, the organization was not ideal, some numbers did not add up in the evaluation report, we only got the evaluation after initially being asked to approve it without one and already delaying the vote by two months.... I was openly happy to vote down the proposal and will likely do so in the future, as the money will be way better spent elsewhere. The Council asked to shift this to a later month and to be involved in the reorganization of this programm.

3. Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer
I have been part of the "Diversity and Inclusion starting 12", a group that was tasked with drawing up a detailed Diversity and Inclusion policy. My most important points during this was to ensure a decentralized, democratic and transparent office with flat hierarchies, to structurally make a space for activist groups to be included, to make sure that people with expertise and especially marginalized groups are PAID for work that they do in working groups on e.g. anti-racism, and to stress an intersectional approach. The report was handed in before the Council, but the Board has shifted it to march instead. The board has apperantly approved the plan only with some changes, which I have not seen yet. I am curious to receive and share the final document with you!

As always, if you have any questions, advice, opinions, grievances with the university system: Feel free to message us. If you are interested in becoming involved in our student movement, you are very welcome!
🌹❤

09/02/2021

We stand in solidarity with an activist group demanding the NL government to give a year free of tuition fee because of the pandemic. This would be a huge relief for students suffering right now, having lost their part-time jobs and/or having study delay. We believe education should always be free and accessible to everyone (which means also: ending the loan system!) in general, and this is a good first step.
Please check out (and share!) their page and fill in the survey on their website. If you are also frustrated with your experience in education during these times, don't hesitate to message us or them, and: become involved!

https://www.facebook.com/CompenseerN

Wij zijn een studenten werkgroep opgezet vanuit ROOD, jong in de SP.
Wij zien dat de pandemie problemen veroorzaakt in het middelbaar tot hoger onderwijs en dat het zorgt voor studievertaging. Wij ondernemen actie om compensatie te eisen voor studenten.

10/12/2020

📢📢📢+++breaking - DAG votes against budget of the university, no majority for the budget in the council +++ 📢📢📢

We have voted against the budget of the university just now. Of 24 members of the council, 11 have given positive advice, 10 have given negative advice and 3 have voted "blanko". These votes are also counted, therefore the budget has been advised negatively! This is a major win for us, who have campaigned for this, and a major win for the council which has made its voice heard, and the academic community as a whole. Our reasons for voting against the budget:
The 10% rise in student numbers this academic year has not been accounted for in the budget. Furthermore, and even more worrying, the multiple year budget calculates with fixed student numbers, while at the same time the board of the university has been actively trying to increase the student numbers, such as by international marketing. DAG has submitted the degrowth memo that has problematized the uncontrolled growth of the university and its results, and suggested that we consciously degrow the university. It was promised that we would have a discussion about what size our university should have, which has not happened yet. In the meantime, we continue to grow without according for this in our budget.

This is a structural source of work pressure. As DAG has calculated, every day there were already 10.000 hours of unpaid overtime labor being done at our university in 2019. With the corona crisis work pressure has risen even more, as has been reported in the staff survey. With 10% more students, and not much more money freed up in the budget to hire more staff, this will become even worse this academic year. And when rising student numbers are not taken into account, it will rise every year.
Today we have taken a stand against the exploitation of our academic staff, and the according demise of the quality of our education. We demand the university to revise the budget and make a strong action plan to adress this. - --
Aditionally, we have asked the university to increase the budget of the confidential advisor, who now has to by herself handle harrassment complaints from the entire institution. We have demanded the university to increase funding for student psychologists.

Furthermore, the university council was not sufficiently informed about items that we were asked to vote upon. For example, we were asked to approve 750.000 euro for the "Dean of entrepreneurship", which we have never seen any evaluation of, even though we have been asking for it for months. Also, these items were never properly discussed in the council, but all put on the december council, making for a very full agenda. On top of this, (almost) none of the documents (except for one DAG memo on transparancy *the irony*, and a letter on diversity policy from the YAG) were available in English, making it extremely difficult for the international members of the council (including me). This behaviour of the Board of the University is undemocratic, intransparent, and unacceptable.

We hope the Board of the University of Groningen will take this issue seriously, and we are looking forward to the coming discussions! ✊✊✊🔥🔥🔥

21/11/2020

+++NOVEMBER COUNCIL UPDATE+++

Not a video this month, we're all socially distancing and I am too awkward to film myself...

1. We have finally (after 3 months...) received an answer to our "Emergency Laptops" Memo. The memo proposed that the RUG provides laptops for up to 2 weeks short-term loan for anybody whose laptop breaks unexpectedly. The board said no, saying that their survey showed that students are very satisfied with their equipment. It surprises us that this answer took them 3 months to deliberate. While that is good to hear, that does not prevent the equipment from breaking, and also we do not have access to that survey. I have asked for access but not received it yet. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Wzon8u3xYTVhCR1e2D5N-tskZCki2HAw/view?usp=sharing

2. The RUG has grown 10% in student numbers for this academic year, especially a lot in some masters (check out this document!!). Even with this growth, there will not be much extra money. It seems that the university has little idea on how to adress this. I have asked for example how many students have used the zachte knip (starting a masters while not having completely finished their bachelors), and the numbers are not available... With staff already overworked to a unacceptable level, this growth will be disastrous for our university and decrease the quality of education and working conditions. Last year we submitted a Memo about conscious degrowth, but instead of looking into this, we just keep growing further. This also means that coming back to inperson education will be increasingly difficult: 10% more students for the same amount of seminar rooms and UB study spots. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1x_b0yN7Y03B5hRrfOHAFJG3LgJ6XvJ75/view?usp=sharing

3. interdisciplinary PhDs
There will be more interdisciplinary PhD's, which is good. However, many of those positions will be scholarship PhDs, which has been criticised a lot. DAG is the only student party that voted against the next round of this experiment.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kgU63KywhpM4jyUNAr-br8N9nl69Dotg/view?usp=sharing

4. integriteitsbeleid
This is the new strategy on integrity. The RUG will spend a lot of money on this. Since the confidential advisor should also be involved in this (1 person who is supposed to take in any cases from sexual harrassment to problems with employers to experiences of racism, for the whole institution), we have asked again for her budget to be increased and for additional confidential advisors to be hired.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/19rJbZpGnWYaLHdTf1g8upXcwQhFPXeWc

5 Other news: I am now part of a working group that will draw up the Inclusion and Diversity policy of the RUG. Any input is of course very welcome!

6. all the documents that were discussed + the agenda:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kgU63KywhpM4jyUNAr-br8N9nl69Dotg/view?usp=sharing

7. as always: your input and questions are more than welcome!!! If you are interested in university politics shoot me a message. Maybe you want to run for one of the councils next year?

cheers and stay tuned for december: we will be discussing the budget which we can vote down . . . . . .