Consultative meeting UGV/OR/USC with Executive Board, December 7, 2020
In this update, the USC shares the main points identified during the Consultation Meeting. In the Consultative Meeting, the central co-determination has the opportunity to ask questions about policy documents in order to then make a good and well-considered recommendation and/or vote. This meeting focused on the budget and the reorganization of the HOVO.
Budget 2021
In the Annual University Budget Plan, the university indicates what it plans to do with its finances in the coming year. The UGV (Works Council + elected members of the USC) has the right to advise on this document, which means that they must advise the Executive Board and the Board may only deviate from this with good reason. Both the USC and the Works Council had a number of questions about the budget in advance. The underlying documents for some of the plans had not yet been submitted to the USC, which made it difficult to ascertain whether the expenses were justified. Essential policy documents that were missing included the Campus Plan, the iStrategy and the Housing Vision.
In addition, a number of assumptions were made that the UGV also questioned. For example, it has been said for years that the intake of students will decrease, but this is (still) not the case. However, this is budgeted for. It is also included that the vision is that there is a greater need for hybrid work.
All this together has made the UGV decide to issue a negative recommendation. This indicated that we needed the essential policy documents, on which the board based its choices, in order to be able to give an actual advice. On January 4, an extra GV took place at the request of the Executive Board to consider the advice. It was promised that in the future the employee participation body would be shown the policy documents at an earlier stage. The Board also promised to provide the four-monthly and eight-monthly reports in addition to the Annual Accounts. Following this, the UGV changed its advice to a positive one.
Reorganization HOVO
The HOVO training institute organizes courses at the academic level for interested people over 50 years of age. Last summer, the college made the decision to pull the plug as of January 1, 2021, to the disappointment of many course participants and also the co-determination. Due to a price increase in 2016, because VAT had to be levied on the courses, the number of registrations dropped significantly. On top of that, there was also the corona crisis, which meant that course participants did not register for the new courses. We are now looking into the possibility of giving the HOVO a place in the Radboud Academy. In the future there must be a suitable offer for this group.
During the GV it was asked whether it is possible to monitor whether former HOVO students actually make use of the replacement offer. The Executive Board has indicated that it is willing to do this.
Anonymous assessment
Last year, the USC wrote a memorandum requesting that, where possible, all forms of assessment be administered anonymously by using only a student number. The board indicated that in testing periods 2 and 3 it would start a pilot with anonymous grading of a number of tests where this might be easy to realize, such as exams with open questions, exams with multiple choice questions and the assessment by the second grader of graduation papers. The college still had reservations about anonymous assessment of all forms of tests. “Education, in addition to qualification, is also about socialization and formation of the person.” In period 4 of this academic year, the pilot will be evaluated with students and teachers. Based on this evaluation, it will be considered whether or not it is possible to introduce anonymous assessment more broadly.
