FASoS 2017/2018

Meet your FASoS Representatives for 2017/2018 and read what they stand for!

Manifesto

Dear FASoS Students,
We all love our faculty for its special atmosphere, the delicious coffee at Banditos and the chats with our international fellows between classes. However, we also believe that there is still much to be done to improve the quality of our faculty, for the sake of all students at FASoS.
We, the eight candidates running for the Faculty Council on behalf of NovUM, present to you our proposals for realistic and concrete improvements at our faculty.

Career Orientation
For us, students of Arts and Social Sciences, there are numerous different options for future studies and workplaces. However, many of us have a hard time deciding what to do after our studies at FASoS and often don’t know what paths are available. Therefore, we support the organisation of career fairs, excursions and events with alumni to provide students with better career orientation.

Revising PBL
For many of us, PBL is one of the main reasons to study here in Maastricht. We believe it to be crucial in our education, but we see problems in its current application. We want the PBL-Process to be adjusted to each specific course. Lectures, tutorials and readings should be coordinated in a way to not only repeat the same content, but also give space for critical questioning. Furthermore, there should be a greater emphasis on the self-responsibility of students, especially regarding to self-selected literature.

Improvement of Feedback on Exams and Papers
At some point in our studies, many of us have felt frustrated because of the lack of valuable feedback on papers and especially exams. However, feedback should enable us to learn from our mistakes and improve our performance. To tackle this problem, we want to enable tutors to spend more time on giving individualized feedback to students and enhance the accessibility of the tutors grading. Furthermore, we want to facilitate the feedback process for both staff and students with the implementation and usage of a Standardized Feedback Form.

Recorded E-lectures
Did you ever wish to revise lectures, because you weren’t present at one or didn’t understand something? We push for lectures to be recorded and made available on Student Portal. This provides an incentive to lecturers to improve their level of teaching and is useful for students in the preparation of exams. Many universities are doing this already, so why shouldn’t we?

Mentor Program
We believe in the theoretical value of our mentor program, however, we still see room for improvement. Therefore, we advocate a redesign of the mentor program which is tailored to students’ needs and without obligatory portfolios.

Break the Vicious Circle of Resits
Currently, a number of students are stuck in the vicious circle of resits, as the resits take place in the same week as the regular exams. We want all students to have a fair chance to pass all their exams. Therefore, we advocate that resits should be scheduled in a different week than regular exams.

Integration through a Common Room
Besides increasing the quality of our studies, we also push for better facilities. Often, especially with bad weather, Banditos is over-crowded. We want to establish a room, where students and staff can hang out with friends and colleagues to take a break from studying, researching and tutoring. Such a Common Room would improve the integration within the faculty and increase the wellbeing of all of us.

Sustainability for a Greener Faculty
To continue the effort of NovUM in the last years to promote sustainability, our goal at FASoS is to focus this year even more specifically on sustainability. In order to achieve this, we want the faculty to implement further electives on sustainability and place and promote the topic more prominently in the curricula of our programs. This will enable us to learn more about one of the most urgent topics of our time, keep our education up with global developments and increase the students employability.

Feedback Vote on the Smoking Policy
Were you also surprised when the new smoking policy was implemented? Did you feel that the setting of the first vote on the smoking policy prevented an adequate student participation? We value democratic participation and want to make sure that the majority’s opinions are considered. Therefore, we press for a feedback vote on the smoking policy in which we would like to hear your opinion!

Students empowerment
Student participation is a crucial element for us to improve our faculty and society around us. We want to further increase the faculty’s support of student initiatives, and improve the transparency and communication of decisions taken by the Faculty Board and Faculty Council that affect all of us.

Do you want to help us achieve these goals? Vote NovUM!
As we are standing to become your representatives, we will not simply fight for our own ideas. We want to speak up on behalf of all students at FASoS, representing your interests in the Faculty Council. Therefore, we will need your input, by telling us your concerns and suggestions for the faculty! If you want to be represented by a team of engaged, open-minded and motivated students, vote for NovUM!
We are: Paul Denfeld – Sophie Schluderbacher – Niklas Zerr – Emma Kessenich – Nathalie Hanner – Jan Kleinheinrich – Tania Comenencia – Anupriya Datta

Candidates for 2017/2018 elections

Tania Comenencia – Emma Kessenich – Paul Denfeld – Sopie Schluderbacher – Niklas Zerr – Nathalie Hanner – Jan Kleinheinrich.