Honoured President, Professors, and other members of the university community,
I still remember clearly how, at the kick-off event on the day before my orientation week, I first walked onto Etunurtsi, the Hervanta campus front lawn. I was welcomed by tutors of Ympäristöteekkarikilta as well as other students, both my fellow freshers and more senior students. The guild operatives had organized an orientation week full of fun and instructive activities for us freshers.
We were told about the overalls project, in which we freshers were to work together to acquire our own student overalls by securing sponsors. On the Friday of the orientation week, my fellow students chose me as the team leader to run our overalls project.
Since then, over the years, I have learnt all sorts of things in the university community. I have learnt a lot about energy engineering in lecture halls, but almost as much, if not more, I have learnt through conversations with my fellow guild members, guild alumni, and my teachers. In addition, I have had the opportunity to learn all kinds of things in the community that are not in any way related to energy engineering but are all the more valuable.
Now, at the beginning of a new academic year, we once again get to enjoy the corridors of our campuses filling up with new students. They have just started a new journey in their lives, which hopefully will be very rewarding for them in many ways.
Our student years are for so much more than just completing courses and aiming for the degree certificate. Our student years offer us students a chance to grow. Growth certainly happens in lecture halls, but especially outside of them as well.
Growth happens in meaningful discussions with teachers and professors, where the learner can, in the best case, challenge their teacher.
Growth happens when you brainstorm ideas with your peers and reflect on your own experiences.
Growth happens when you participate in democratic decision-making, both in positions of responsibility in subject associations and through participation in university decision-making.
Growth happens when you influence developments within your own community and in the society around you.
And growth happens through unforgettable experiences, such as rising from the waters of the Tammerkoski rapids surrounded by your friends as freshly dipped teekkaris, or getting to put on your student cap for the first time in a while surrounded by thousands of people.
At best, you can experience all of these things during your time at university. I therefore want to encourage you all to welcome new students into the community with open arms, to challenge them, and to give them opportunities to participate and grow. Each new student brings fresh ideas and perspectives that enrich the entire university community.
It is precisely the open and critical community that makes the university the institution that has been trusted for centuries to be the beacon that guides society forward.
And dear friends, I am concerned, because at present, attempts are being made to undermine this institution.
If we take a look across the pond, criticism of academic education and scientific freedom has been circulating in public discourse for some time now.
And this regression has reached our shores, too, quite some time ago.
Students are being put under increasing financial pressure, which weakens their chances of participating in the community.
The freedom of science and research is being restricted, and democratic decision-making is being challenged and undermined.
For us, as a university community, to be able to demonstrate to the society around us that education, democracy, culture, and scientific freedom are the right path forward, we must remain organized and unwavering.
We must demonstrate that the university community exemplifies advancing the society through research that is conducted democratically and critically, and producing not just masters with pieces of paper but educated and critical experts.
Even though these shared values of ours are being challenged, we still have every prerequisite to be a beacon of democracy for the surrounding society.
However, it requires us to trust one another. It requires transparency and participation in collective decision-making. It requires giving and receiving support, as well as critical discussion.
Above all, it requires us to work together and to be able to demonstrate that our democratically functioning university community stands united behind its values.
Let us therefore set off into the coming academic year with open and receptive minds, developing cooperation. We can demonstrate that our democratic and free society is worth preserving.
Who knows, the work that we are doing now may yet take us far.
Free Palestine.
Thank you!
– Opening ceremony speech on September 2nd, 2026 — Chair of the Executive Board of the Student Union of Tampere University Tami Nordström
Tami’s picture: Jonne Renvall / Tampere University