Faculty Student Council

As FSC you meet up at least once a week during the lunch break in an internal meeting. In this meeting all running cases are talked over. These are for example own policy issues, registered complaints from students or incoming (policy) documents from the faculty that the FSC has the right to look into. Examples of policy documents are:

• The Teaching and Examination Regulations and the Implementation Regulations;
• The Faculty Regulations;
• Data on the passing rates of the binding recommendation regarding the continuation of studies (BSA) or data on the inflow of new first year students;
• The strategic framework or multiannual plan of the faculty and the Executive Board of the TU Delft.
• Minutes of the meetings of the Mangement Team.

Apart from internal meetings the FSC also has got periodic meetings with among others the dean, the head of Education and Student Affairs and the faculty secretary:

•  During a consultation meeting, once every six weeks, subjects are provided by both the FSC and the faculty and are discussed in a formal way. For example, the FSC gives a formal advice on the Faculty Regulations or it has the opportunity to accept of decline parts of the Teaching and Examination Regulations and the Implementation Regulations. During these meetings, the formal secretary of the FSC from the faculty’s secretariat is present to make minutes of what is being said and decided during the meeting.
• During a lunch meeting there are no minutes made and there is no agenda as well. This meeting, once every six weeks, is meant to discuss and brainstorm in a more informal way with each other. During the meeting, there is a lunch served for all people present.

Outside these meetings, there is a lot of contact with the faculty’s staff as well. Besides that, there are meetings outside the faculty, like the inter-faculty meeting. In this monthly meeting with all FSC’s and the Central Student Council of the TU Delft more broad topics are discussed like Collegerama or the campus. Furthermore, the FSC is regularly invited for meetings between the Central Student Council and the Executive Board.

A lot has already been achieved by the FSC in the past. However, there are still things to be improved, especially in tough and unpredictable times we are currently facing. Here, the subjects to which the FSC gives priority are listed:

• Analysis and evaluation of motivation, study culture and struggling points of students;
• Better communication of the faculty towards students;
• Higher software availability for students outside University;
• Increasing the amount of recordings on Collegerama in the bachelor of Applied Earth Sciences;
• Building and improving relationship with other faculty bodies, such as PhD Council, Study Associations, dispuuten and Board of Studies;
• Separate goals concerning COVID-19 including regular checks on student well-being, looking ways to increase number of study spots at the faculty and discussing the importance of regular on-campus lectures and exams for students study success and mental health.

The FSC has as the participation council of our faculty a number of rights. These rights are used as a tool to truly have influence on the policy of our faculty:

• Information right: The FSC has to be kept informed by the dean and the board of the faculty on all the current affairs.
  Example: During a consultation meeting the FSC gets the chance to inspect the mailing list of the dean.
• Right of advice: The FSC has the right to give advice on (changes in) the policy of the faculty.
  Example: By the appointment or resign of a dean and the annual budget plan.
• Right of consent: On certain domains, the FSC has the right of consent. This means that, if the it has well-founded arguments, the FSC can reject a decision / proposal of the faculty.
  Example: On parts of the Education- and Exam policy.
• Right of initiative: If the FSC has a good idea, it can hand in a proposal at the dean’s office. The dean is then has to give a reaction within a reasonable period of time and has to discuss it with the FSC.
  Example: A proposal for extra study facilities or to refurnish a certain area in the faculty.

Below you can see what the FSC has already achieved in the last years:

Academic year 2019-2020:

• We helped to set-up a green team in close cooperation with GreenTU to help facilitate the faculty becoming more sustainable. In light of this recycling was promoted and more bins were placed throughout the faculty;
• A visible reminder of the FSC is the new coffee machine near lecture hall E which we advocated for;
• In order to create more study places throughout the faculty we organised that free lecture halls could be used for self study;
• We helped to increase the visibility of the FSC in terms of our trademark lunch Speeddates with a sandwich Leo;
• We contributed to a whole range of things behind the scenes such as the new Bachelor Thesis rubrics, the new exam rubrics, the accessibility of the minor abroad, student mental health as well as providing input for the redesign of the MSc;
• We were involved by securing the student's voice in the sudden change to online education and exams in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic and in the vision on the restart of on-campus education.

Academic year 2018-2019:

• We made it possible for students to work in the lectures halls when you are not being used for lectures;
• We gave input on the renovation of the lectures halls;
• We improved the sustainability at the faculty, supporting the separation of waste and the vegetarian lunch options;
• We gave input on the compulsory Application For Education plans;
• We realised a new Master Information Event.

Each year a new FSC is being chosen during the student council elections in May. So:

• Do you want to represent all students of the faculty on front of the dean and the faculty’s board?
• Do you think the coffee is too expensive or not good enough and do you want to do something about it?
• Do you want to know more about how big organisations like our faculty work?
• Do you have a vision on the education at our faculty?

Make yourself electable by sending an email to fsr-citg@tudelft.nl

P.S.: Are you interested in education specifically? Joining the board of studies may suit you better. You can find more information here.