UvA participation councils still not in agreement with draft 2024 budget

In negotiations with the Executive Board (CvB) on the 2024 budget, the Joint Meeting (JM) of CSR and COR formulated four points of contention. Although we are six weeks into the new year, these must be resolved before a green light can be given to the UvA’s financial plans. The points of contention in question are issues concerning student engagement, the profiling fund, menstruation products, and student advisors. In other words, the JM wants the right of consent on these issues.

Crea

To start with, the budget should be increased considerably for student involvement. It is not clear how much money is needed for all budget items, but Crea, for example, burdened for years by subsidies and constantly rising costs, should receive an additional eight hundred thousand. In recent years, the UvA cultural center has received an annual subsidy of around €1.5 million. Far too little, in the opinion of the JM. More money is also requested for the Asva Student Union and the All Ears student hotline, but the letter does not state how much. It does mention an additional amount of ten thousand euro per year for each faculty-student council and the AUC student council, which is considered necessary.

Menstrual products

As a second point of contention, the JM adopted a so-called “inclusivity” line in the budget to allow central funding for free menstrual products on all UvA campuses. The intention to do so is there, according to the JM, “but Facility Services has failed to provide the information on the status of organizing their distribution to fulfill this.” The JM considers the provision of menstrual products to be “a general health issue” that should require its approval.

Profiling fund

Point of contention number three is about the so-called Profiling Fund. This is a fund within higher education as a whole, intended for students who have been or are expected to be delayed in their studies due to special circumstances (for example, illness or board membership). The JM wants the UvA to increase contributions from this fund by 50 percent for the base amount of 300 euro and all supplements, with retroactive effect from September 2023.

As a fourth and final point of contention, the JM believes that more student advisors should be appointed, which would also mean more money. Students have to wait too long before they can be helped, the JM believes, “and that does not promote students’ academic success.”

Advice

The UvA board responded to the JM’s letter this week, but it is rather disappointing: the four points of contention have been benevolently adopted by the board as “advice” and nothing more. According to the board’s reasoning, this is because approval had already been given on the main points of the budget and thus only advisory rights remain. Therefore the Executive Board is unlikely to adopt the points of contention.

At the end of this week, the JM will discuss the UvA Board’s response. Whether anything can still be done about it remains to be seen. The budget should have been finalized almost two months ago, but because of delays in the rounds of advice and approval, the matter has still not been finalized.