Once again, the time has come to elect Student Union of Häme University of Applied Sciences Representative Council for the year 2023. Members of student union has a right to stand for election in the upcoming elections. What is the Representative Council and what are students doing there? By reading this blog, you will – at least we hope you do – get an answer to these and other questions on your mind.
What is the Representative Council?
Let’s start at the beginning – it is mandatory by law that every university of applied sciences must have a student union and at HAMK we have HAMKO. The most important job for the student union is to monitor the interests of students. Every year 21 students are elected to be in the Representative Council, and they appoint 8 students to the Board. The Representative Council and the Board guides and implements the operation of the student union. That means that the ones in charge of the actions and decisions are the students themselves! To support the students in all this are the student union’s staff and you learn quickly by doing.
What does the Representative Council do?
Just like the Parliament of the Republic of Finland decision-making body for this countries administration, the Representative Council is the highest decision-making body in the student union. The Council e.g. approves the documents prepared by the Board, decides on the action plan and the budget. At the organizational meeting the Council will elect a Chair and a Vice-Chair among themselves to lead the work. On top of this the Representative Council elects Chairs to the Board and members. One of the tasks of the Council is to supervise the Board’s work and the Board itself is doing more hands-on kind of work.
This year the Representative Council has elected one representative to the HAMK’s examination Board and accepted both the action plan and the budget presented by the Board. By getting involved the Council students get familiar with the organization activities, and have a possibility to meet a lot of great people along the year.
How often the Council has meetings?
The Representative Council has three regular meetings during the term of office – organizational meeting after the election, a spring meeting, and an autumn meeting. And then the council has meetings if necessary. The Representative Council of 2022 will probably have 6 or 7 meetings in total by the end of the year. Usually, the meetings are held face to face at the campus, but some meetings can be online too.
What skills are needed?
Do you need to have some special skills to be able to run for Council? Well, we can guarantee that you don’t have to be able to do cartwheels or other circus acts. It’s enough that you know how to use Office 365 -platform and you can communicate via email, WhatsApp, and Teams. A genuine interest in promoting the interests of students and the Student Union is also desirable. The official language of the Representative Council is Finnish, and it is desirable for students who stand for election to know at least the basics of Finnish language.
Electoral Alliances and Rings
If there are a groups of students that want to stand for election, it is possible to form an electoral alliance and join forces in promoting the things that are important for you. The electoral alliance may include a maximum of as many elected representatives as possible, in this case maximum of twenty-one (21) candidates.
Are you interested?
More info about the election can be found on HAMKOs website from this link. behind the Elections button, you can find it also behind this link. Also some terms are explained in more detail on the website.
If you wish to stand for election, you can do it via HAMKOs website and you get there by clicking this link.
If you have more questions or need a helping hand at standing for elections or making an electoral alliance or wish to have a conversation with this year’s actors, you can find the contact information at HAMKOs website.