This is a repost of my original blog post from the Science Faction blog: The UC experience, four months later. Since university blog posts get archived after a while, I’m keeping this copy here for reference.

It’s been four months since I joined the university council, and I am still quite glad I had this opportunity. So far, it has been a continuous learning process. Not just about the university and the forces shaping it from the inside and out, but also, and maybe more importantly, about how to run large meetings with an open mind and an atmosphere that fosters lively yet respectful discussions.

Looking back, it has been refreshing to see how constructive and collaborative the atmosphere is. The collaboration within the Science Faction and outside of it, with the other student and staff factions, has been incredibly rewarding so far. Even when we don’t all agree (which isn’t so unusual), we have managed to have healthy back-and-forth discussions. This has been so helpful for elaborating more nuanced points of view and understanding the reasons and angles behind potential compromises. Faculties and services operate in very different ways, and just like when I joined the YAG, getting to understand these differences, and learning what works well and what needs to change, has been an eye-opener in many cases. It has also been a good exercise in letting go, and carefully decide where to focus my energy and give up control, which, at least for me, is harder than it sounds.

Something I have noticed, in retrospect, is how often I still feel outside my comfort zone. I still ruminate over parts of the discussions or my own interventions after the council meetings are over, or when re-reading the minutes. I have got some work to do on that. All in all, being in the council is a lot more work than I expected, and it’s often overwhelming. But it has proven to be a unique opportunity to voice concerns and find constructive solutions together, which makes it all worthwhile in my opinion, and surprisingly energizing.

So why this blog post?

While the UKrant seems quite reactive to the discussions we have in the public council meetings, I still feel like a lot of the work we do doesn’t really leave the walls of Muurstraat. I hope this blog post adds some more perspective, though I am quite confident only a handful of people will see it (and I’m being optimistic here…).

In the past months, we have tackled many important and delicate topics. Many of our points for the board are summarized in personal speeches that you can find in the Science Faction blog or, as I mentioned, in UKrant articles and opinion pieces. Others are discussed in confidential meetings, and who knows if they’ll ever see the light of day.

What most people don’t know, moreover, is that all non-confidential discussions are publicly available. Documents and often live recordings are on the obscure but ever-present my-meeting website. Worth a check!

At each public council meeting, we can arrange a strategic hour to learn about specific topics at our university. One that took a significant amount of energy and preparation was the strategic hour on militarization. It was crucial to start unpacking how defense funding is influencing university strategy and where we draw our ethical lines. The discussion itself was sparked by conversations with colleagues at the Arts faculty, who had learned that their students could earn credits for becoming reservists. But it quickly expanded into a much broader conversation. Preparing for this session and having experts teach us about the topic beforehand so we could reflect critically, was a lot of collective, council-wide work, and it was absolutely worth it. This was just a starting point, of course, and more transparency on the university’s views and policies on this topic will be needed. I truly hope the brief spotlight it got from the UKrant article helped it reach the “workfloor”. I think this is crucial if we want to develop a more elaborate and shared perspective.

I’ve also been heavily involved in the discussion about the draft plans for the upcoming AI office, as many of the colleagues I’ve contacted for opinions and feedback can attest. This should coordinate and shape university wide policies on AI, technical support, training and infrastructure. It could be a good opportunity to work together across faculty instead of just creating a bureaucratic beast that will only ask us to produce more paperwork. I think I have been vocal enough in the discussion meetings and in the critique and recommendations that I brought forward that I’ll leave it at that for now. It’s back to the drafting board for the council in February, and I’m hopeful.

February is going to be a busy month, as we will also be discussing the Smarter Academic Year. This is another topic where I have spent a lot of energy. My concern isn’t with the idea itself: like many others, I find it quite appealing. But with how, while trials were still running, it started being rumored as a done deal that seemed to overlook some perfectly reasonable concerns. Over the past months, I have asked to have clarity on what was happening and done my best to highlight the issues about the planning and implementation. Now, I am looking forward to the discussion in February.

My speeches probably cover enough of my views, but I can’t emphasize this enough: I think we have some important transparency issues. I am sure the board is doing its best to be open and is working with the best intention and it is necessary that they delegate this work (as they are doing), but somewhere in the administrative or middle management layers, messages get lost, and critiques or objections seem to disappear from the discussion.

This is getting in the way of the change we badly need, especially given the current budget problems. Last week, at the council we didn’t approve the university budget for 2026. I was very surprised when I realized it wasn’t mentioned anywhere in the university news. It’s a rare occurrence and highlights some significant problems.

From where I stand, I see two major concerns looming. One is the seemingly disastrous management situation at the Faculty of Arts, which I’m not the best person to explain, but to cut it short: staff is massively overworked, and there seems to be no sign of this workload being reduced. The other concern, partly related, is our current financial reality: with massive budget cuts, rising structural expenses, and a decline in student numbers, the situation is dire. There is hope tied to the new government, but looking at the formation plans, I’m not so overly optimistic. And in any case, by the time a new government is formed and charged with a new budget, one or two years will have passed, and in the meantime, our financial situation will be in disarray.

We can’t keep pretending that we can do more and better with less. Resources are scarce, workloads are increasing, and our management (hopefully with real participation) needs to start prioritizing and making it clear that we will have to do less with less. AI isn’t going to save us, and random small cuts won’t either. We may need to accept a hit to the quality or quantity of education and research, and we will have to manage with less support. But we need to decide which tasks to drop and make sure staff is not punished for making their work fit within their paid hours.

For this to happen, transparency is desperately needed. Most people I have spoken to have become so accustomed to hearing that everything will be fine and that committees are working on solutions and that the impact won’t reach us (for months), that they don’t really see the urgency of the sacrifices we are already making, or the much bigger sacrifices ahead. Sugarcoating the real situation doesn’t help mobilize people or tap into their creativity to find real solutions.

While a lot has been done, the situation is not improving and may soon force some drastic decisions. What we need now, more than ever, are clear messages, a realistic look at where we are spending money in ways that can no longer be justified, and a reasoned prioritization and reduction of tasks to ease the workload. We need to be part of this process and willing to engage in the discussion.

I do believe we can make changes to work better together and be more efficient, but that alone won’t be enough.

I needed to get these thoughts off my chest before the holidays. There is a lot more to say about what we have discussed so far, and I hope you will read more on this blog in the future. For now, I hope this gives you a sense of what we do on the council and why it is so important to participate, share your opinions, and vote when the time comes.