‘Yantai’ behind closed doors

The spatial sciences faculty council wants to decide whether they will give their consent to Yantai or not behind closed doors.
By Peter Keizer / Translation by Sarah van Steenderen

According to chairman Erik Meijles, the council wants to hold a confidential meeting about Yantai ‘in order to have a proper substantive discussion’. ‘It’s my experience that when there are people in the audience, some members feel like they can’t say everything they want to say’, he says.

After the summer, the RUG will officially apply with the Ministry of Education to set up a branch campus in the Chinese city of Yantai. Prior to that application, the faculty councils for science & engineering (FSE) and spatial sciences (FSS) have to give their consent to the programmes the faculties want to provide in China from 2018 onwards.

Democracy

The FSS faculty council wants the meeting in June to be confidential to prevent staff and press from hearing their considerations. ‘I don’t think it will interfere with the democratic state of affairs at the faculty’, says Meijles. ‘As I said, people speak more freely without an audience present, and that is important for certain subjects.’

Whether any members of the faculty council asked to have the meeting behind closed doors is a question the chairman will not answer.

In principle, meetings held by faculty councils – which consist of both students and staff – are public. They can be held behind closed doors if a quarter of the total number of members asks for it or if the chairman deems it necessary.

Dutch

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