With the upcoming start of the winter semester, the welcoming of the new freshmen is the next event that is scheduled across all areas of the student council. In addition to the faculty-specific and department-wide freshers’ introductions, the student representatives will once again have the opportunity to take part in the event in the Heinrich-Lades-Halle. Some departments and university groups will also introduce themselves there. Furthermore, we have taken part in several status group discussions, of which we would like to go into the most important ones here.
Diversity Audit
A small group of students participated in the Diversity Audit and spoke about the good and bad study conditions for diverse groups of people at FAU.
However, the time available was felt to be too short to do justice to the issues involved – so it is to be hoped that more time was left for this in the other follow-ups to the process.
Exchange Bürgermeistersteg
The mayor Florian Janik invited the students’ representation, the pupils’ representation, as well as the district youth ring and the youth parliament to a discussion about the BMS during the Bergzeit. The focus was on the toilet situation, as well as the awareness efforts of the city and various groups and the omnipresent littering problem. Unfortunately, there will not be a permanently built toilet block like the one at Bohlenplatz due to underground problems, but a toilet truck and several large rubbish containers are to be installed next year. The biggest problem identified was not the provision of infrastructure, but the willingness of those present to use it due to longer walking distances, etc. The use of own jukeboxes will remain prohibited until further notice for noise protection and sociability reasons during the mountain time at the BMS. We have been invited back towards the end of September to look at the current state of development for next year.
However, our point that fewer parallel parties would form to the Bergkirchweih itself if the price of beer did not compete with the Oktoberfest will probably not result in any real change.
Handing over the keys to the Siemens campus
A Stuve delegation was present at the handover of Siemens Module 7 in Erlangen to FAU. In the long term, large parts of the technical faculty will be housed here in new buildings. For the time being, the administration will move into the existing buildings next year to bridge the renovation work on the castle until the Raspberry Palace is ready for occupancy. On the sidelines of the event, we were able to talk to Interior Minister Herrmann about the shortage of affordable housing in Erlangen, and although he expressed his understanding for the problems, concrete results or proposals were unfortunately lacking.
We also brought up the discounted Deutschlandticket and the Minister of the Interior confirmed to us that the discount will remain in place for a longer period of time, but that there will be a benefit analysis after one year. However, there are no plans to compensate for price increases of the Deutschlandticket.
Participation in FAU NEWS
We had the chance to present the Student Council and its current work in a short clip from FAU News; we are currently working on ensuring that more of the student council’s work can be seen on FAU channels in the future.
Meeting with the President of the Unibund
The president of the Unibund introduced himself and the organisation to us and would like to promote the Unibund more strongly and thus strengthen identification with FAU. The Unibund is more than an alumni organisation and is also open to students, who thus gain access to the exclusive lectures and tours.
