During Thursday evening, Lund University Student Unions, Lus, were summoned to sessions, where they appointed student representatives who will participate in appointing Lund University’s next Vice-Chancellor.
The meeting was opened by the startling question about appointing a student representative for the University Education Board, despite the fact that this position is yet to be announced. The reason was that the Education Board will hold a meeting prior to the upcoming sessions and that the students, thus, will miss out on an opportunity to be represented. After voting, the unions decided to let that position remain vacant until next the sessions, when the position will be announced.
Election for the Electoral College (Universitetskollegiet)
During the meeting there was also an election for the common union seats in the Electoral College (Universitetskollegiet), which is the reflection group whose task will be to appoint Lund University’s next Vice-Chancellor. The Vice-Chancellor election will be one of the key political questions during spring, since current Vice-Chancellor Per Eriksson’s term expires by the turn of the year 2014/2015. After long discussions, the sessions resulted in appointing full-time employed Lus chairmen, Clara Lundblad and Edward Linderoth-Olsson, along with medical student Martin Sjöström.
“It really is a great feeling”, says Clara Lundblad.
During their campaigning days in which they promoted themselves as suitable candidates for these positions in spite of their already packed schedules, they both said that a Vice- Chancellor election should be included in their tasks as union elected representatives.
In addition to Lus common seats, each union is entitled to appoint one representative each for the Electoral College, whose work begins as soon as next week.
Free net based courses
During the meeting there were discussions on Lund University’s efforts to launch free internet based courses, so called Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). The focus group that prepared this question said that the unions should not be opposed to these efforts, but that the university needs to have a clearly defined purpose behind these efforts. Simply being a “first-tier university” within the academic community is not sufficient.
Text: Annika Skogar
Translation: Maximilian Aleman-Tennell
