Lampara
Community. Inclusion. Access.
Lampara understands that it’s the students that gives this university life. It’s you who organises events, participate in associations, or—simply—attend classes. You make the university a living thing. We also are deeply aware that this is not always reciprocal. Nobody deserves to be seen as the “unexpected student” who doesn’t fit in the sterile bureaucratic system of an ivory tower. Lampara stands by community-making. We stand for sticking up for one another. We stand for raising each other up. We stand for making this university inclusive and alive with what students have to offer. We’re beyond diversity: we’re already here, aren’t we? But… does the ivory tower realize it yet?
Lampara wants to make it easier for students to access resources within the university that allow student-led initiatives to happen. We also stand to alter university systems and policies to let students of all backgrounds and abilities to feel safe, included, and empowered during their studies. we want UvA to own it’s international reputation and better support its international student body, especially those from outside the European Union.
Click on any motion below to see the parties explination
Calling the police is an appropriate response when protests disrupt education or access to services.
Fully disagree
Some of us come from countries where the freedom of speech is nil, and students face grave or even deadly consequences for wearing their values on their sleeve. Why would we want to bring that mindset here? When this has happened in the past, the intrusion of the police has harmed and disrupted education in this university and student welfare much more than the protesters have. It is ridiculous to invite violent state bodies into institutions to fight against students. Want to dissipate a protest that’s too disruptive? Our suggestion: Talk to the protesters. Hear their demands. Work from there.
Student & Workers Councils should have the final say in all policy decisions
Fully agree
The university is made for and by its students and staff, and any policy decision will affect our quality of life and education. It only makes sense for us to have a say in shaping policy decisions wherein our stances can lead to decisions—or compromises—that favor our well-being.
The UvA should expand research collaboration and funding partnerships with private sector companies.
Neutral
We cannot avoid working with private sector companies, especially in terms of funding and providing research or internship opportunities. However, we believe that an ethical framework must be made to vet these companies into consideration of partnership to ensure that the university funnels graduates and researchers to companies that are as positive and constructive as institutions can be. It is in the interest of the university and all those in it that the university holds up their attitudes on their code of conduct, environmental agreements, and values on human rights in partnership agreements.
The university should actively prioritise diversity targets in hiring, even when this means deviating from purely merit-based selection.
Fully agree
Why does this question pose diversity as costing the quality and merit of applicants? This is an empirically unfounded claim: a variety of studies of workforce management and organizational psychology have shown that thoughtfully implemented diversity policies in no way sacrifice qualitative standards. Lampara stands for a diversity-oriented hiring policy.
The Binding Study Advice (BSA) should be abolished.
Agree
Mistakes made and bad landings done in the first year should not seriously affect a student’s academic trajectory. The first year, maybe troublesome for some for whatever reason, and the first year of education is not a good indication for the quality of a student. A non-Binding Study Advice in which the university advises students on their academic standing and reconsideration for the degree program would be a fairer and more humanistic approach that respects students agency and ability to grow.
Students wishing to follow honours programmes should be admitted based on academic performance, not motivation alone.
Fully disagree
Education is already a privilege, why gatekeep a certain number of opportunities to those who have a stellar first or second year of university? Currently, admissions to an Honors program is laid on the assumption that a student’s performance in the earlier years of education is an indicator of their passion and drive to learn. This is not fully true. Students who—for whatever reason—have difficulty getting a stellar GPA in their first year should not be barred from opportunities to grow, discover their passions, and maximize the privilege of going to university in an Honors program. As it is, the Honors program is meant to show grit, growth mindset, and a commitment to academic education. That is not something that can only be indicated in the first year assumes students that begin the year with a lower GPA cannot exhibit these traits, when Lampara believes that that is not the case at all.
The majority of the food options sold on campus should be plant based.
Fully agree
The animal-based food industry continues its disastrous contributions to the climate crisis. Switching to a primarily plant-based policy with regards to food at university would be the sign of the UvA staying true to its commitment to sustainability.
Occupations should be considered as a legitimate means of protest at the university.
Fully agree
Any rights ever won were won through protests. We do not frown on the right to protest by students, and we respect the living and colorful history of student movements in Amsterdam and especially in the UvA. In the conditions where the will of the students and staff are not heard, protest and occupation are powerful tools in putting our foot down to decisions we do not agree with or to stand up with causes we feel deeply about.
Admission to programmes with limited capacity should be based on random lotteries rather than selection procedures.
Neutral
We do not stand for a gender-blind, race-blind, class-blind, and/or disability-blind lottery system. A blind lottery assumes every candidate is of equal standing and has equal stakes of going to university, when this is untrue. While we understand the intention of random lotteries to create equal access, certain demographics of people have historically been underrepresented in higher education institutions, which leads to the lack of diversity of institutions/industries down the line and handicapping certain demographics by forcing them out of specific occupations from the beginning of their careers. Nor do we stand for the extremely unbiased fully “meritocratic” system where underprivileged students fall between the cracks. We need to think of better, more inclusive compromises.
The UvA should completely exclude research collaboration and funding from the security and resilience sector.
Fully agree
We wanted cops off campus—Now why is defense knocking on our door? We stand against state-sanctioned violence and the appropriation of research, academic material, staff, and students by the military.
The UvA should strongly oppose any government attempt to reduce the number of international students.
Fully agree
The university benefits from internationals as much as internationals benefit from it. Not only do we help fund it— especially non-EU students with our institutional fees—but we are able to bring in our perspectives, our knowledge. our labor, and our community efforts to the academic and social weaves of this institution. University is already a privilege to those in the Netherlands, why make it more gatekept to those beyond borders, especially those who want to have the best education they can get and give back to their academic communities?
Study programs should be audited by an independent board on the diversity of the academic and ideological perspectives in their curriculum.
Fully disagree
Lampara believes we should trust our course coordinators—hired members of staff that are selected into this university for a reason—to ensure that their courses have a balanced set of academic perspectives when approaching theory. We don’t doubt that our teachers practice pluralism in their creation of the syllabus, and the course evaluations and program committees are there to raise our concerns as regular students to our course coordinators. Bringing in an independent auditor is unnecessary. Continuing, Lampara believes and trusts in the students and staff to challenge each other in terms of ideological perspectives. Education is a multi-way street: it is not a top-down mechanism, where the university has to ensure that a program has multiple perspectives. What are teachers and students for, right?
The executive board of the university should be elected through an open election by the students and worker's body.
Agree
The students and staff will no doubt be affected by decisions of the executive board. It is an important set of positions that propel the character and equality of this institution. The student and staff workers’ councils (like the FSR) are policy-shaping bodies that are elected into position, and it would be a powerful show of confidence in voting in qualified candidates to the executive board.
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
Job security for junior lecturers is essential for their wellbeing, and the university should treat the wellbeing of its labor force as a priority. Furthermore, beyond worker welfare, permanent contracts for junior lecturers would allow them to do a better job serving the university community as they would not have to deal with the stress of potentially having to be uprooted after their temporary contract ends, which is especially important for junior lectures, coming outside of Europe.
Every bachelor programme should be offered in both Dutch and English.
Agree
This is relevant for both Dutch and non-Dutch students. People should be able to study in whatever language they are comfortable with, and this university claims to be a bilingual one. For some students, that means preferring one language because it’ll be the lingua franca of their industry. For others, it is what they're most comfortable learning and talking theory with. There are many reasons as to why a bilingual system in program education is relevant.
The university should significantly expand student services like student advisors and psychologists, even if this requires reducing spending on education and teaching.
Fully agree
Why are disability, mental health, and access seen as expenditures and a threat to education? Shouldn’t the quality of education match the needs of students being served? Student services that provide more access to education should not be seen as something in competition to education and teaching: it is a necessary part of education to ensure all students are fully taking advantage of the privilege of going to university, studying with dignity, and feeling secure in their choice of program and institution.
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
The humanities is already employable. The university just needs to help and encourage students to gain practical experience outside the classroom. In the humanities, many of us here are excited to learn the specificities and niches of our programs and academic subjects. In every course syllabus, there is a list of soft and hard skills that we are intended to learn in the following weeks of education, and with many degrees’ interdisciplinary approach at present, we are able to engage with course material while incorporating different skill sets. It is not like that we are studying in a vacuum where information is being downloaded into our brain: instead, we need to encourage students to be able to access more extracurricular activities. The university should help students get more internship and extracurricular experiences if they are so worried about employability because classroom learning about employable traits can only go so far.
The university should prioritise expanding study spaces over investing in additional contemplation rooms.
Fully disagree
Study spaces and contemplation rooms serve different purposes, have different space-related needs and both contribute to student wellbeing in different ways. There is no need to treat one as a sacrifice of the other. The university should work to provide both.
The university lacks sufficient readily accessible gender-neutral toilets and should convert more existing toilets to be gender-neutral.
Agree
It is appalling that the students have to look far and wide to find gender neutral bathrooms in the humanities campus and there is no readily accessible directory to find where the gender neutral bathrooms are in the buildings of PCH, OMHP, and the UB. Many students don’t even realize that we have a set of gender neutral toilets in the back hall of the toilet wing in OMHP. convert more bathrooms into being gender neutral: we need more gender neutral bathrooms with urinals and/or menstrual product bins that are clean and dignified to use. As it is—Everyone’s gender fluid depending on what bathroom’s available anyways.