Student Representative
Being a student representative is not only a fun experience, but also a merit on your CV. You will get the opportunity to influence your education and even get paid. As a student, you have the right to be represented in all preparatory and decision-making bodies within the university.
"Bodies" are decision-making or preparatory forums, councils or committees for issues that concern you as a student in various ways. It is everything from program councils that concern direct issues in your program, to the University Board where, among other things, the Vice Chancellor takes decisions at a very high level.
Students can be represented at all preparatory or decision-making organs at the university. For example, most programs have a program board where some of the teachers and students discuss matters related to the classes, study environment and upcoming events. At each faculty there is a faculty board. This board also has meetings where some of the decision-making staff, as the Dean and the administration is meeting. In this meeting the students have three seats. One of the seats is for a doctoral student, the other two are for undergraduate students.
If a student which to become a student representative (in Swedish it’s called a “studentrepresentant”) you must apply via our website. . After applying our board decides and then we contact you. As a student representative you get a fee for every meeting you attend to. The fee is 350 SEK for meetings up to 4 hours. If the meeting is longer than 4 hours the fee is 700 SEK. The fee is paid by the university at the end of each semester.
However, international students’ possibilities to impinge on their education as student representatives is inadequate. Almost all preparatory or decision-making organs don´t use English as working language, they all use Swedish. The reason of this is the Swedish law called “Språklagen (2009:600) that claims the Swedish language is the one to use in government workplaces.
The board of the Linneaus Union recognizes that there is a problematic situation that international students encounter when it comes to the possibilities to impinge on their education due to the law of the Swedish language.
As far as we know, only the international programs where the educational language is English, uses English as working language in the program board meetings. Otherwise all decision-making or preparatory organs uses Swedish as working language except for the Internationalization Committee. Temporary institutions sometime use English as working language, for example an Employment board.
