ActivistenPartij UvA

The Activistenpartij UvA aims to unite all radical, intersectional, decolonial, and progressive students at the university. We are active year-round, spanning across all campuses and uniting Dutch and international students of all backgrounds, cultures and identities.

We advocate for a truly democratic, accessible, and inclusive university. We know that real systemic change cannot be brought about within the institutional system alone, which is why we’re also active outside of the councils; in the hallways and on the street. From the very foundation of the “medezeggenschap” to an affordable canteen, student action drives progress!

We fight for an affordable and accessible education, abolition of punitive systems like the BSA, democratize the university and better support for international students. The university should be a place to learn and grow, not a diploma factory! We want an education policy that takes student-wellbeing seriously and respects working students. Finally, we demand an end to our university’s complicity in genocide and resist the criminalisation of peaceful protests.

Democratise, decarbonise, decolonise!

Click on any motion below to see the parties explination

The executive board of the university should be elected through an open election by the students and worker's body.

Fully agree

Currently the College van Bestuur (executive committee) and other managers of the UvA rules the university with nigh absolute power. The power is increasingly centralised within the CvB and the deans. To combat this, it is needed that the CvB is brought under democratic control and power returns to the students and the staff of the student en workers councils to make decisions. The democratisation of the university is one of the main aims of Activistenpartij UvA and we staunchly reject the bureaucratic and autocratic rulership of this university.

The university should significantly expand student services like student advisors and psychologists, even if this requires reducing spending on education and teaching.

Agree

Student services are lacking - study advisors are often not helpful, and it is unclear what they do; student psychologists are not enough, the meetings with them are short and infrequent. Especially for working-class and first-generation students, those services can prove crucial. We believe this type of infrastructure should be the foundation of a properly working institution, and it is of paramount importance to fund them properly.

The UvA should prioritise offering permanent contracts to Junior Lecturers (D4s), even if this leaves less financial room for senior lecturer salary increases.

Fully agree

The Activistenpartij stands in solidarity and fully supports the causes of CasualUvA. The UvA should offer permanent contracts and better working conditions for Junior Lecturers, thus ensuring stable living conditions.

Every bachelor programme should be offered in both Dutch and English.

Agree

Ideally, programs should be made accessible in both Dutch and English. In some cases this isn’t practical. For instance, PPLE would not make sense in Dutch due to its international aspect. The same goes for some other programmes and masters, such as Public International Law. Therefore programs should retain autonomy over the language in which they teach, with decisions coming from thoughtful conversations between students and staff in each department. As such, we believe this decision should not be enforced on a central level.

The university should ensure a larger part of the curriculum (of all study programs) is focused on career preparation, even if this takes away from time spent on academic subjects.

Disagree

We believe the university should be more than just a diploma factory. While career preparation is important and we do not oppose further possibilities to orientate on the job market during study programmes, this shouldn’t come at the cost of teaching critical perspectives. Especially in our current contentious political climate it’s more important than ever to cultivate socially engaged academic critique. Moreover, the UvA shouldn’t be used as a recruiting ground for companies, especially ones that are complicit in genocide, apartheid, and the pollution of our planet. Instead, the UvA should encourage career development by getting rid of mandatory attendance, as many students already work just to make ends meet.

The university lacks sufficient readily accessible gender-neutral toilets and should convert more existing toilets to be gender-neutral.

Fully agree

While our pressure in the council has already seriously achieved more gender-neutral restrooms, the University must still prioritize the increased availability of gender-neutral bathrooms throughout all university campuses, including areas notably/potentially inaccessible to gender nonconforming students with disabilities.

The university should prioritise expanding study spaces over investing in additional contemplation rooms.

Neutral

Why does the university not prioritise both?
Instead of selling buildings to fill holes in our budget, the UvA can make use of the space It has for both study space and contemplation rooms - giving students the tools to spend more of their time on campus and do well at their studies.

Student & Workers Councils should have the final say in all policy decisions

Fully agree

The UvA management is in dire need of democratic oversight. Ever since the introduction of the New Public Management model in the 1990s, the representative institutions of students and staff have been deprived of power and responsibilities. This has led to a notable drop in student interest in the work of the councils, with election turnout decreasing from 60% to barely 15% over the last 25 years. To reverse this process and give back the decision-making power to the student and staff community, we need to empower the councils once more. This aim of democratising our university has always been one of the defining parts of the AP programme, and we will keep fighting for it until it is realised.

Calling the police is an appropriate response when protests disrupt education or access to services.

Fully disagree

Our university should be a safe space for everyone. We strongly condemn the brutal police violence used on many occasions against our students. Therefore we are clear and loud for "Cops off campus.” The suppression of peaceful protests by calling the police is an antithesis to the principles of open discussion and academic freedom. The greatest danger to the safety of students and staff is often the police. Thus for peaceful protests there is little to no reason for the UvA to depend on the police.

The UvA should expand research collaboration and funding partnerships with private sector companies.

Neutral

It is important that our University stays connected and able to produce the highest level of research. Expanding collaborations with actors such as those in the renewable energy sector are necessary to try to sustain our lives on this planet.
When collaborating though, we must not be dependent and ensure that ethical guidelines for third party collaborations are followed, ensuring the integrity of our research. Furthermore, funding should be transparent like the UvA budget and involve the CSR and FSR to give their input on/possibly shut down dubious ties that are hard to break, but will be broken later.

Students wishing to follow honours programmes should be admitted based on academic performance, not motivation alone.

Fully disagree

On principle, we believe that every student should be given the greatest ability to pursue whatever courses match their interests. We also question whether a simple GPA is an appropriate measure to assess their suitability for a given course.

The university should actively prioritise diversity targets in hiring, even when this means deviating from purely merit-based selection.

Fully agree

Activistenpartij fully supports the prioritisation of diversity targets, as we should follow the equity principle in terms of diversity. We strongly believe this approach doesn't hinder merit-based selection, as its purpose is to reverse centuries-old discrimination which precludes actual merit-based selection by excluding anyone and everyone who isn't a white man. Because of this history, those of minority backgrounds systematically encounter more barriers that heavily affect their life chances. UvA should counter this via affirmative action.

The Binding Study Advice (BSA) should be abolished.

Fully agree

The university should be a place of learning and personal growth and not a diploma factory which only looks at performance and forces students to finish studying as fast as possible. There is conclusive proof that the BSA does not improve study results. We believe the BSA should be replaced by an Advising Study Advice (ASA), aiming to support students in their studies instead of expelling them from their courses. In the faculty of Humanities, AP council members have fought to abolish the BSA in the past years, which has led to a workgroup and pilot with a non-binding study advice.

The majority of the food options sold on campus should be plant based.

Fully agree

We are fighting for affordable and sustainable food options for everyone. This means that every food provider should offer a vegan version of the dish as a default with non-vegan options as an addition. De Nieuwe Mensa offers a wide variety of vegan food options and has proven to be very popular among students.

The UvA should completely exclude research collaboration and funding from the security and resilience sector.

Fully agree

Collaborations with the so called security and resilience sector actively contribute to the oppression of the working class. Security has been used in the past to justify major conflicts, such as the Iraq war and internally secures only capital not the people.
Our university must not partake in the building of weapons or improving monitoring systems for the police. Collaborations with historical archives for degrees like Military History (Militaire Geschiedenis) are valid for science as a means and end. Careful consideration is necessary when lives are at stake.

Occupations should be considered as a legitimate means of protest at the university.

Fully agree

Generally, the UvA considers occupations to be inherently violent and therefore targets for immediate police eviction, even if they do not disrupt the daily activities at our university. This approach is not only detrimental to the safety of all students at the UvA, but is also illegal according to the legal advice received by AP CSR members. Our party will always fight to protect students against overreach by the administration and the police.

Admission to programmes with limited capacity should be based on random lotteries rather than selection procedures.

Fully agree

The Activist Party is in full support of limiting the growth of the UvA through a lottery system, the only truly egalitarian selection procedure. Selection committees tend to have biases and grades don't represent a person. Research has shown that a lottery system is the least biased way of limiting student capacity.

The UvA should strongly oppose any government attempt to reduce the number of international students.

Fully agree

The government’s plans as they stand would be catastrophic to the university, effectively destroying many of the study programs currently being offered. We believe that the UvA leadership should stand behind their stated commitment to the international character of our university. On the other hand we believe the UvA should take housing availability into account in admitting international students, as to avoid the risk of students ending up homeless.

Study programs should be audited by an independent board on the diversity of the academic and ideological perspectives in their curriculum.

Neutral

The Activistenpartij believes in academic and ideological diversity to foster a more decolonial academic climate. Curriculums should include differing academic and ideological perspectives that can serve as tools for students to understand our world and critically engage with it. Within the array of perspectives used in a course, curriculums should stress a critical approach encouraging students to deconstruct and reflect on them while emphasizing their utility in fighting for social justice.
The Activistenpartij remains wary of an auditing committee in terms of how it will be held accountable, as well as on which basis it would work. We take the position that an auditing committee should always be held democratically accountable, which is not workable in the current, undemocratic UvA context.