From 16 to 27 May 2024, you will have a new opportunity to elect student members in the university’s bodies as well as the student bodies. Here is what the polls are about and how it works.
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Many just don’t know it any other way: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Martin Luther University switched its campus elections to an online service and that is how it has been ever since. Most members of the student union have no objections. What they see above all are the benefits of better accessibility for the voters and less workload for the polling clerks. The weak point of a digital ballot, which can be either secret or allow for the results to be verified, has been of less importance to most. So for the time being, the university will run its campus elections online and will make the service available to the student union, too.
Diagram: Konrad Dieterich
Once a Year …
… the student members of the Senat (senate), Fakultätsräte (faculty councils), Studierendenrat (student council), and Fachschaftsräte (faculty-level student councils) are elected anew. Other member groups of the university cast their votes less frequently: every four years for professors and every two years for academic and non-academic staff. These two groups of university staff will also take part in the senate and faculty council elections of 2024.
In German, “Gremium” is a term that can refer to any group of experts or elected representatives who debate on certain matters and end up making decisions or recommendations. The university bodies and student bodies fit this general definition. As far as these bodies are elected, they are comparable to parliaments or councils and decide on their matters — within the scope granted by the Higher Education Act of the State of Saxony-Anhalt. The power of each Gremium varies considerably, with the university’s senate having the greatest room for manoeuvre.
The Senat as well as the nine Fakultätsräte are bodies of the university where all member groups are represented. In contrast, student bodies — the Studierendenrat and Fachschaftsräte — are elected and filled exclusively by members of the student union. This means that all enrolled students are eligible as long as they have paid their student union fee of 12.35 euros, which is usually included in the semester fee.
Within the bodies, some campus groups represent political orientations. On the ballot slips these can be generally recognised by their names. However, not all nomination lists can be attributed to a partisan political orientation and there is no need to be affiliated to any campus group to run as a nominee.
Lost (& Found) in Translation
Studierendenschaft (f.) is often translated as “student body”, as it generally means the entire group of students within a particular university, or even beyond. However, the translator settled on “student union” because a Verfasste Studierendenschaft is a legal entity attached to its university, as constituted in the Higher Education Acts of most German states, and students are members of it. This choice of words should also help avoid the ambiguity of “body”, which can refer both to a large group of people and a governing organisation with dedicated tasks.
Elected Uni Bodies
The Senat is the highest decision-making body of the university. Its tasks include deciding on study and examination regulations, the draft budget, and cooperation agreements — it determines all fundamental matters of the university. Plans on the future direction of the university, which come down to cutting courses and chairs, have been adopted by the Senat in the past years, too. Every four years, the Senat elects the rector of the university; however that’s not happening again until 2026. For specific tasks, the Senat has established several commissions. Meanwhile, many other organisational issues are within the authority of the rector’s office, which serves as the executive body of the university.
Tasks of a Fakultätsrat include for example proposing new professors for vacant chairs as well as deciding on study and examination regulations within their respective area of disciplines. Numerous other matters are within the scope of the deans’ offices, which are the executive bodies of the faculties.
Both in the Senat and in the Fakultätsräte, seats are allocated to the university’s member groups in a fixed ratio. This ensures a majority for professors, while students and academic staff each receive just short of a sixth of the seats, and non-academic staff close to a twelfth. An absolute majority of seats and votes for professors is stipulated in the Higher Education Act of Saxony-Anhalt and has been repeatedly criticised by the other member groups as undemocratic.
Diagram: Konrad Dieterich
Elected Student Bodies
The Studierendenrat (student council, often referred to as Stura), and the Fachschaftsräte (faculty-level student councils) are bodies representing purely student interests. Fachschaften are organisational subdivisions of the Studierendenschaft (student union) and roughly correspond to the faculties or electoral areas of the university, with some variations. As members of the student union, students are members of a Fachschaft, too.
Within some of these student faculties, so-called Institutsgruppen (department groups) have emerged to represent the students of specific subjects; these are, however, no official bodies of the student union and more akin to working groups supported by their respective student faculty council. They will not be on the ballot during the campus elections.
Beyond representing their members’ interests in the field of higher education policy, the bodies of the student union are supposed to address the cultural, academic, social, and financial needs and issues of their members. In other words, they not only act as a student mouthpiece to the university, state politicians, and the general public, but also assist with practical issues, such as legal advice and other forms of counselling, a hardship fund, and a childcare room. In addition, they organise events and activities and sponsor projects of students. Fachschaftsräte also provide support and intervention in case of specific study-related problems.
Both the Studierendenrat and the Fachschaftsräte are entirely composed of students who are members of the student union. Half of the representatives in the Stura are elected at-large, with nominees from the student union as a whole, while the other half are determined through electoral constituencies consisting of one or more student faculties. For specific tasks, the Studierendenrat elects a number of spokespersons and can also appoint officers and establish working groups which are open to non-elected students.
The Stura of the MLU, together with three more student councils (of Burg Giebichenstein, Merseburg, and Anhalt), exerts some influence on the Studentenwerk Halle. This public sector organisation offers a range of student services in the region, including cafeterias and dormitories. Each Stura gets to appoint one of the student members in the Studentenwerk’s board of administration.
Studienkolleg
The Landesstudienkolleg (preparatory college of Saxony-Anhalt) is an educational institution providing international students with additional knowledge and skills prior to their regular enrolment. Collegians cannot participate in the university’s elections for senate and the faculty councils. They can, however, run for a seat in the Studierendenrat and the Fachschaftsrat of Neuphilologien/Studienkolleg, and cast their votes, too. By the time they come into office, the elected nominees will be no longer in the Studienkolleg but can still represent the interests of the new Collegians. Therefore it makes most sense to run if they plan to enrol at MLU.
Diagram: Konrad Dieterich
Promovierendenvertretung
Since 2022, there has been a representative group dedicated to the interests of PhD candidates. As some of them count as students, others count as staff, and some “externals” have no university member status at all, their matters are meant to be brought together in a single committee. Two PhD candidates per faculty are elected as representative and deputy. At meetings, the committee discusses matters and interests of PhD students. Furthermore, one member each has the right to speak at meetings of the Senat and the Fakultätsräte. They can also propose motions there, but do not have the right to vote.
Gleichstellungsbeauftragte
Exclusively female students and female university staff have the right to elect the Gleichstellungsbeauftragte (equity officers) of the university at large as well as of each faculty and other areas of MLU. Nevertheless, all members of the university are allowed to run as nominees. Equity officers are not elected directly, but by way of so-called Gleichstellungskollegien (equity colleges) with up to 12 members each, who then choose one person from their circle as equity officer. In the Senat and each Fakultätsrat, equity officers have one seat with voting rights.
Vote on Student Transit Pass
The Stura aims to use the campus election platform to let the voters decide on the future of the Semesterticket (student transit pass). For the current summer semester, a temporary switch to a discounted Deutschlandticket has already happened. Now they want to ask for the will of the students in a ballot vote.
If the majority decides against the new Deutschlandticket, the student pass of the regional transit association MDV will be reinstated from the winter semester. An exit from any kind of student pass would not be immediately possible as the five-year contract between the Studentenwerk Halle and the MDV does not expire until the end of the 2025 summer semester.
What happens next
Notices of Election issued by the university and the student union give detailed information on the preparation and further steps of the campus elections. These are the key points in brief:
Voters have been automatically registered. They can confirm their eligibility (Wahlberechtigung) through the self-service Löwenportal. This is particularly relevant if students are involved with more than one faculty or electoral area based on their combination of courses.
(Almost) too late to run. As the election date has been set around two weeks earlier than in 2023, the deadlines for submitting nomination lists ended correspondingly earlier, too. However, there is still a chance to be elected: If not enough candidates have registered for some of the university bodies or student bodies, there will be blank fields on the voting slip where you can write in eligible students. You can find out where this is the case from 30 April.
From 30 April, accepted nomination lists for the various bodies are announced. The lists will be posted in several places at the university as well as on the websites of the student union’s election committee and the university’s election office.
“Mahlowat”: In past years, the Stura has prepared an election compass to help voters find a campus group that matches their interests. It should be considered that the propositions cannot cover all topics and that there are candidates on the ballot who do not belong to any of the featured campus groups. Therefore, it may be a good idea to take the results of the compass with a pinch of salt.
16 May, 6:30 pm, Audimax building: The “Löwenrunde”, a presentation by the student council’s election committee, gives an overview of the upcoming campus election. Furthermore, campus groups present their topics in a panel discussion which is open to contributions from the audience. The event will be live-streamed again, and subsequently be available as a recording.
16 May, 10:00 am to 27 May 2023, 3:00 pm: Elections. After logging into the Löwenportal, students can cast their votes online for both the university’s and the student union’s bodies. The ballots will indicate how many votes the eligible voter can cast for the respective body. It is possible to split the votes on more than one nomination list and to cast up to two votes for one person. The ballot will be invalid if more than the admissible number of votes are cast. Should there be not enough candidates running for a particular body to choose from, names of eligible students may be written in the provided fields.
1 September 2024: The term for the elected student members of the Senat (senate) and the Fakultätsräte (faculty councils) begins. It is starting on 1 October for the Studierendenrat (student council), and on various days for the Fachschaftsräte (student-level faculty councils).
Text: Konrad Dieterich
Translation: Konrad Dieterich
Featured image: Marlene Nötzold