TREY, student associations, and student activists have worked together to actively advocate for the restoration of student access rights to campuses. Last week, the University management decided, based on the preparation of the pandemic group, to restrict student access rights until the end of the year. We made a statement about this, as we felt that the pandemic group had ignored our appeal when preparing the guidelines. After this, the students also appeared in the media at Yle Tampere and told about their disappointment with the University (article in Finnish). A group of members of the Council of Representatives and other student actives set up a rally #ItsOurCampus, where students would move their student activities outside on 14 October at 10 PM, since these activities were no longer allowed to take place on campus in the evening due to the restrictions.
All this advocacy work done by the students was worthwhile: today, on 14 October, the pandemic group reviewed students’ access rights again, and the University management outlined on the basis of these talks that restrictions to the 24/7 zones on the campuses to be lifted on 25 October!
According to President Mari Walls, the decision was based on “the conversations with and messages received from our students”. We thank the pandemic group and the University management for consulting the state of mind of the students, and all the students who loudly highlighted the importance of campuses to their daily lives. Student Advocacy won today!