Student body at the University of Bern

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Student body of the University of Bern
(SUB)
legal form Public corporation
purpose Student body , student representation
Seat Lerchenweg 32, 3012 Bern , Switzerland
founding April 9, 1925
Website www.sub.unibe.ch

The student body (until the beginning of the 1990s student body , thereafter and until 2018 student body ) of the University of Bern ( SUB) is a Swiss student association . The SUB was founded in 1925 and acts as the official student representative of the University of Bern .

Legal basis and membership

The legal basis of the SUB is Articles 31 and 32 of the University Act of the Canton of Bern: These provisions declare the SUB to be a public corporation with its own legal personality. In principle, all students at the University of Bern are automatically SUB members from their enrollment . Students who do not want to belong to the SUB can opt out by notifying the university management in writing ("opting out"). However, only a few make use of this. The membership fee is CHF 21 per semester.

tasks and activities

The SUB represents the interests of the students towards the authorities of the canton and the University of Bern. It is responsible for student participation - at the university level through the organs of the entire student body (student council and board), at the technical level through the student councils belonging to the SUB. The Association of Swiss Student Unions , to which the SUB has been a member since it was founded, is responsible for representing interests in national and international matters .

The SUB offers its members various services, namely a housing and job placement platform and a legal advice service. In terms of culture, the SUB organizes the Unifestival / Campus Festival once a year on the Unitobler premises as well as several smaller cultural events; Upon request, she supports cultural activities of student groups. A number of free entries are available to SUB members for external cultural events, but also for BSC Young Boys football games . Further cultural activities and festivals are carried out by the individual student councils. The SUB has not published its own newspaper since 2015, instead it has signed a service contract with the independent student magazine “bärner studizytig” (bsz): The SUB supports the bsz financially and ensures that it is sent to all SUB members. In return, the SUB Design a few pages with your own content in each «bsz» issue.

The SUB's social fund supports students in financial need with grants and loans. The SUB has traditionally been strongly committed to gender equality at the University of Bern; since 2001, together with the Department of Equality at the University of Bern, it has offered the mentoring program “Womentoring” for female students interested in a doctorate. More recent engagements concern students with children, LGBTQIA + students and racism at universities. Finally, the SUB and its student councils generally support students in everyday campus life, for example through events for first-semester students or exchange students.

organization

The SUB's student parliament is the 40-member Student Council (SR). This is elected every two years in direct electronic elections in a single constituency (i.e. without separation according to subject area) according to the proportional system . Bern's student policy is shaped by party-affiliated and ideologically oriented student groups, which is unusual for Swiss universities. In principle, the student council or a certain number of SUB members can submit certain decisions to all SUB members; either by calling a general assembly or by using an initiative and referendum to obtain an electronic ballot . In practice, however, these opportunities for direct democratic participation are only rarely used.

The governing and executive body of the SUB is a seven-person, collegial board. The board members are financially compensated. The SUB board has employed several part-time employees, the majority of them students.

The subject-specific student representatives, the student councils, are (unlike, for example, at the University of Zurich, but similar to Basel and Freiburg) also designed as organs of the SUB. Membership in a student body is tied to that in the SUB - a student body is therefore formed by all SUB members who study a subject. The student council members each elect their own student council, who runs the current student council business. The student councils are financed from general SUB funds in accordance with the resolutions of the board of directors and the student council.

history

After several earlier attempts to create an overall student organization had failed, the SUB was founded in 1925. Initially she focused on practical services for students at the University of Bern . In 1927 an "Office for Student Aid" with a loan fund was set up to support needy students (this is where the social fund originated). The SUB brokered work for students, was active culturally and from 1932 published the newspaper Berner Student . She got the university to open its first cafeteria in 1942. Before and during the Second World War , the SUB supported intellectual national defense . After the war, the SUB began to broker apartments, founded a "film club" and increased its international commitment; To this end, it maintained its own international office to provide information on travel and exchange opportunities. During the Cold War (especially during the Hungarian popular uprising in 1956 ), it condemned repression against students and academics in the communist Eastern bloc in resolutions and expressions of opinion ; she created a fund for needy refugee students, which later went into the social fund of the SUB.

In 1954, the Bern University Act stipulated that students at the University of Bern are compulsory members of the SUB. In 1955, Veronika Schneeberger was the first woman to preside over the SUB. In the 1960s, the SUB professionalized its job and housing agency, opened its own stationery shop and in 1964 hired a full-time secretary for the first time. While the SUB used to be more bourgeois, it has now become more left-wing liberal and has increasingly advocated university participation in debates about university reforms. In 1966 the concept of “political neutrality” in the statutes was replaced by that of “party political independence” and the previous assembly of specialist delegates was converted into an elected student council. From 1971 the SUB published the weekly calendar with event announcements and university policy briefs WoKa .

With the election in 1972 of a largely left-wing board with a neo-Marxist program, the SUB began to see itself as an inner-university opposition. The student participation in university committees was in the 1970s, the central point of contention, against the resistance of the university and its faculties. In 1974 the situation escalated when the police violently ended protests, which is why the SUB demonstrated publicly, whereupon the university relegated the SUB president for a year . In 1975 the SUB founded the Legal Assistance Service (legal advice service since 2015) and the Student Book Cooperative a year later. The SUB also campaigned against a numerus clausus , for the second educational path and a better scholarship system . To this end, she launched the cantonal Bernese people's initiative Uni for All, an initiative for democratic higher education (rejected by the electorate in 1982). From the 1980s onwards, feminist and ecological concerns increased.

The SUB's new course resulted in increased conflicts with the authorities. Among other things, the SUB was deprived of its financial autonomy in 1973, which caused long-term financial problems. A definitive financing solution could only be found at the beginning of the 1990s by setting the membership fee of CHF 21 per semester, which still exists today. Internally, too, the SUB in the 1970s and 1980s was characterized by violent political conflicts, which were mainly (but not exclusively) fought out between left-wing and middle-class students.

The 1990s were shaped by the struggle for equality and, in particular, against austerity measures. With the Universities Act of 1997, on the one hand, the possibility of leaving the SUB was created, and on the other hand, student representation in all university bodies was enshrined in law for the first time. The SUB has been organizing womentoring since 2000 . The Bologna Process and digitization shaped the SUB's higher education policy commitment in the 2000s. In the early 2010s, on the other hand, the focus was on adapting offers and services.

Publications

Magazines

The Bern student was the official organ of the student body at the University of Bern. It was published 7 to 12 times a year. Volume 2 (1934) was published with a special issue. The 1955 and 1956 editions contained a literary supplement, Collected: Prose Pieces and Poems . Successors to the journal were: SUBstanz (1983), at the same time still as class 51 of the Bernese student , then Neue Substance (1983–1984), later Extra WoKa (1984–1986) and from 1986 (until 2014) Unikum . The Bern student appeared (at least) quarterly; Numbering: Volume 1 (1932/33) - Volume 50 (1982):

  • Berner Student: official organ of the student body of the University of Bern. Bern: Genossenschafts-Buchdruckerei / Paul Haupt, 1932–1982. Volume 1 (1932/33) - Volume 50, No. 6 (1982), quarterly publication. OCLC 605697771

Successor magazines to the Bern student were:

Monographs (selection)

  • The student body in self-portrait. Bern 1973.
  • “Housing situation of students in Bern”: a comparison between 1988 and 1992; empirical study by the student body at the University of Bern (SUB) . Bern: SUB, 1992. OCLC 75336688

literature

Archive sources

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ www.sub.unibe.ch/de/Ueber-uns
  2. ^ Canton of Bern: University Law (UniG), Art. 31 f. Retrieved October 13, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Canton of Bern: University Ordinance (UniV), Art. 40 Paragraph 3. Accessed on October 13, 2019 .
  4. ↑ Student body of the University of Bern (SUB): Service contract for the publication of the SUB medium. (PDF) Retrieved October 13, 2019 .
  5. ↑ On the whole: Student body of the University of Bern (SUB): Student body of the University of Bern (SUB). Retrieved October 13, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Student body of the University of Bern (SUB): Student Council. Retrieved October 13, 2019 .
  7. ↑ Student body of the University of Bern (SUB): Important questions about the legal status of the student councils. (PDF) Retrieved October 13, 2019 .
  8. ↑ a b c d Julian Marbach: A short history of the SUB .
  9. ↑ Source: Swissbib