From May 16 to May 20, the student council elections take place, which means you can go and vote! In this article, we present the first candidates of each party––020, De Vrije Student, Activistenpartij UvA, and INTER––who run for the Student Council of the Faculty of Behavioural and Social Science (FSR FMG).
Each UvA student gets two votes, one for the Central Student Council (CSR) and the other one counts for their Faculty Student Council (FSR). Currently, the FSR FMG represents around 13.000 students from the four domains of Psychology, Social Science, Communication Science, as well as Pedagogical and Education Science. You have the opportunity to choose a candidate from a list of people who would like to represent your interests. The first candidate of each party gave us a little overview of what they and their party stand for.
Cesar van Rooji (De Vrije Student)
Our readers would love to get to know you, so maybe you can tell them what you study, in which year you are––if you want to––where you are from, and your age. You can also include other detail to present yourself that you find important for the UvA students to know.
“I just turned 24 and was born and raised in our beautiful city Amsterdam. Currently, I am in my second year of political science”. Before his studies, Cesar decided to work full-time as a renewable energy consultant, and after that part-time at a bank. “During my time at the bank, I was also, because of my liberal political view, the chair of the political youth organization JOVD (Youth Organization for Democracy) in Amsterdam.”
Why have you decided to run for the council?
“While my primary reason is that I really enjoy studying politics and debating other students, realizing how badly the UvA assists their students in finding out their talents is what got me over the edge. Students could use some preparation for life after university. In combination with my previous working experience and being a chairman of a political youth organization with around 400 members at the time, I did not doubt twice when I was asked to run for council.”
What are the core values of your party, and what core values do you identify with the most?
“I think that students should be free and decide for themselves how and when they want to study.” For Cesar, taking responsibility and having control over your own agenda is of importance. “These points are also one of the core values of De Vrije Student: be free in the choices that you want to make. Personally, I find freedom of choices very important.”
If you could change one thing at the UvA, what would that be?
“In the past 2 years, Covid has had a big impact on the lives of many students. There are still people struggling with mental health issues because of that or just because of other circumstances.’’ Therefore, Cesar wants the UvA to “invest more in initiatives that can really help people who struggle with this” because “it is key that everyone who needs our support, gets our help.’’
The turnout of our elections is usually very low (17% last year), how do you plan on changing that?
“I really hope that students realize that the council has a lot of influence in improving your UvA experience and help you with becoming the best version of yourself. Your vote really matters, and it definitely makes an impact.”
Noah Pellikaan (Activistenpartij UvA)
Our readers would love to get to know you, so maybe you can tell them what you study, in which year you are––if you want to––where you are from, and your age. You can also include other detail to present yourself that you find important for the UvA students to know.
“I am a 20-year-old first-year political science student, half American and half Dutch running with the activist party in order to implement systemic changes within UvA.” Noah has some prior experience. For instance, he was “the youngest shop steward working for […] United Food and Commercial Workers Local 555” in his hometown Portland, Oregon. In Amsterdam, Noah is also very engaged, for instance, as a “member of the FNV union, the ROOD Socialistische Jongeren political party.”
Why have you decided to run for the council?
“I decided to run for the council because I see UvA as essentially operating through the perspective of maximizing profit and minimizing cost in relation to students. […] university becomes another capitalistic institution acting often as the top source of both financial and mental stress of students while simultaneously doing the least to alleviate said stress. […] The goal of joining the FMG, however, is to be in a position where I can turn the students’ voices into actions.”
What are the core values of your party, and what core values do you identify with the most?
Two of the core values of the Activistenpartij are the democratization of UvA and students before profit. The Activistenpartij believes in transparent and anti-hierarchical educational institutions, which are accomplished through “democratization in which students decide what will happen [to students].” Noah identifies with the core value of inter-student solidarity the most. “I think that very little can be solved without the banding together of students, and that solidarity between the students as a subclass is the very basis of solving our universal issues.”
If you could change one thing at the UvA, what would that be?
“If there was one thing I could change at UvA it would be the means by which the university deals with mental health.” Noah explains that there are institutions for diagnoses like dyslexia, but not many of the other pressing mental disorders and stresses.” Especially “uninsured students and students who are not registered” suffer, as they do not get help, which increases “the rates of depression; self-harm; suicide amongst our peers.”
The turnout of our elections is usually very low (17% last year), how do you plan on changing that?
“I view the extraordinarily low voter turnout rate as being due to a general disaffection that traditionally exploited populations have with representative democracy.” Noah considers the low turnout as “a class issue, and as long as the student subclass remains without power to change their position, the voter turnout will remain low.” When students see how their voice translates to action, “that’s when students will vote.”
Our readers would love to get to know you, so maybe you can tell them what you study, in which year you are––if you want to––where you are from, and your age. You can also include other detail to present yourself that you find important for the UvA students to know.
“So a bit more about me; I am 19 years old, I am Ukrainian American, and before Amsterdam, I lived in New York, Ukraine, and Switzerland. I am currently finishing up the second year of my Political Science Bachelor specializing in Political Theory. In my free time, I love socializing and fixating on new hobbies, the current one being a rotation of fitness classes.”
Why have you decided to run for the council?
“I decided to run for student council because after finding a strong footing with my academic and social life balance, I realized I have more of myself to give to a positive cause. Having heard endless stories about how people were dissatisfied with the university or felt downright excluded gave me the push towards 020 and the FMG.”
What are the core values of your party, and what core values do you identify with the most?
Progressive pragmatism, pillars of diversity, housing, internships, quality of education, democracy, mental health, and sustainability are core values 020. “Out of these, diversity, internships, and mental health resonate the most with me.” This is due to being part of The Decolonization Club, as Alexandra is “constantly being made aware of the inequalities, inconsideration, and discrimination students of marginalized identities regularly face within the university.”
If you could change one thing at the UvA, what would that be?
“If I could change one thing about the university, it would be to create a more understanding atmosphere. I find that there is often the attitude of executing exactly or perishing.” Alexandra believes that compassion is lacking, for example, for extensions, grades, and other arrangements. Whereas “this strictness only limits those dealing with unexpected circumstances.”
The turnout of our elections is usually very low (17% last year), how do you plan on changing that?
“I think it is impossible to drastically increase turnout within a single year as the reasons students don’t vote are numerous, but a bump in participation is definitely possible.”
Alexandra does not want “friends just vote for friends”, instead she prefers to “create an environment in which people feel comfortable approaching me about an issue well past the election period.”
Our readers would love to get to know you, so maybe you can tell them what you study, in which year you are––if you want to––where you are from, and your age. You can also include other detail to present yourself that you find important for the UvA students to know.
“I am a first-year Political Science student. I am from Romania, but I lived almost half of my life in Italy. I am 20 years old”. Andrei would summarise his personality as a combination of “Euphoria’s Jules, Yungblud and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.” Moreover, if Andrei’s life translated into a movie set it would be “the underdog story because every time someone underestimated me, I became better and proved my worth.”
Why have you decided to run for the council?
“I decided to run for the faculty’s council because I know that many things can be improved at UvA like mental health, sustainability, transparency, and diversity.”
What are the core values of your party, and what core values do you identify with the most?
“The core values of INTER are transparency, democracy, sustainability, quality of education, diversity, and student health. The value with which I identify the most is the diversity feature because I would like to see more open-mindedness and inclusion in UvA. Also, cultural or nationalistic problems should come to an end after addressing and solving them.”
If you could change one thing at the UvA, what would that be?
“I think that the most important thing that I wish to change at UvA would be the transparency issue because many people studying are willing to get a degree but don’t have any career prospects from their university. I think that UvA could enhance their transparency regarding the quality of education, career opportunities, and future possibilities in order to help its students.”
The turnout of our elections is usually very low (17% last year), how do you plan on changing that?
“I do plan to change the voting turnout by engaging more people in solving the UvA problems. My party, INTER, does a very good campaigning job, and I feel that it will make more people vote in the elections due to its popularity.”
The party UvASociaal is not taking part in this year’s elections due to the late submission of electoral lists. The lists were supposed to be submitted personally to the central electoral committee before April 19 at 5 pm. However, the president of UvASociaal is from Ukraine and received tragic news from the ongoing warzone. Thus, another representative of the party was appointed to hand in the lists, but it was too late. Now, a lawsuit is taking place due to the exceptional circumstances.
Photo by Catherine Vu.