Sikkom’s Sword

Last Thursday, we discussed the annual report of the advisory committee on the introduction periods. While looking back at the past year, we wanted to speak about taking away board grants as a sanction.

As we’re discussing this report, Lijst Calimero wants to highlight a worrying trend: the use of the graduation fund as a measure to act against behavior of associations. The graduation fund isn’t meant for this. The fund is meant for compensating students that have a study delay due to their voluntary work for a student organization. These organizations contribute something meaningful to the student life in Groningen. They are the reason that people look back at a pleasant time here, in our city.
Student, sport, study or culture associations: they all connect students and keep the city alive.

The University reaps the benefits: because our city has a vivid student life, students from all over the country and elsewhere choose to come here. But these organizations need boards that spend a lot of time to keep the association running. And that’s exactly why the graduation fund was instituted: to compensate these volunteering students in some way for the extra costs they make. Mind you: associations don’t get a penny. Only the board members get it. Not for the activities these associations organize, but for the time and energy the students put into governing the organization.

That is the goal of this fund. However, the Board of Directors misuses this fund to take normative action towards associations, even though it was never meant for this purpose. Furthermore, the Board provides no motivation of its decisions to do so, which insinuates arbitrariness.

This is highly undesirable and make associations uncertain even though they behave formidably and have nothing to do with past year’s commotion. Lijst Calimero of course wants to banish the despicable behavior that we have seen the past years from our city. But we have the Municipality and the Public Prosecutor to uphold public order and criminal law, respectively. The University of Groningen doesn’t have to be the second police force of Groningen. Sikkom’s Sword hangs over many student organizations, even though this is highly unnecessary.

We remind the Board of the purpose of the graduation fund and ask them to be very careful in confiscating board grants. Don’t use them as a stick to punch with, but keep seeing them as compensation for the work these board members provide to the city and the university.