Howdy!
I’m Aleksi Niemi, a student of Administrative Sciences and I’m a student representative in the Academic Board. The Academic Board is the most demanding of the representative positions, as it holds the highest academic power of the university. In the academic board, we appoint the University Board, decide on curricula, and about the abolition and creation of degree programmes. We are informed of the major issues affecting the university and the academic board’s opinion influences the decisions of both the university’s management and its board. In other words, we act as the students’ voice at the highest level of university governance.
I myself got involved in being a student advocate when Tampere University was being formed from the old University of Tampere and Tampere University of Technology. The merger affected almost everything at the university. I was in the process of applying for the position of education policy officer of my student organisation Staabi ry and I noticed that the student representative search was ongoing. I thought that influencing my own faculty in addition to my own study field might be interesting and decided to apply for the Faculty Council. I was accepted as a vice-representative. Before that, I had one year of board membership in a student association and had not done any direct student representation before. I strongly recommend both old and new students to apply for a student representative position! You learn by doing, and it’s good to have students at different stages of their studies on the Faculty Council in particular.
The Faculty Council and being an educational affairs officer inspired me to make an impact on the university community in general, in addition to my own studies. I gained experience in meetings, speaking and getting to know students from different disciplines. I found it so inspiring that I ended up influencing many bodies and eventually ended up as President of the Student Union.
The academic board is the most rewarding and challenging of my student representative positions so far. We talk about a wide range of topics from recruitment to academic issues, so meetings require preparation and good communication between student representatives, as well as active collaboration with other groups in the academic board. In the academic board, I have had the opportunity, for example, to elect the University Board and to raise student issues with the Rector and other management. We have also been able to bring the student perspective to many university documents and policies.
The most interesting moment in my own career in the academic board was the election of the Board. There were a lot of really good constructive discussions about what kind of people would best serve the interests of our university. Together in the academic board we created a set of criteria that took into account, among other things, understanding the students’ point of view. I think the criteria were very successful and the new university board has Tiina Mikkonen, a student also proposed by TREY, as a member!
I would recommend being a student representative to anyone who wants to know more about how the university works and influence the direction our institution is taking. I have learned a lot about meetings, decision-making and networking during my student representative career, and it’s definitely worth getting involved!
– Aleksi Niemi, student representative in the Academic Board
Picture: Timi Kuosmanen