Participation, a nice word suggesting that you get to participate in a decision-making process. But what exactly does it mean to serve on the University Council, or on other participatory bodies such as the Service Council or the Department Council? Klabbers smiles: “We have a very boring task: to monitor boards. But we can do more than that, and we do. Together with the administrators, we determine the university’s policy. But our job as monitors is and remains important too. Sometimes things can go wrong when universities don’t obey the rules, including legal ones. There might be a good reason, but in those cases it’s important to have a participatory body that asks the right questions and determines just how wrong it is for a university not to play entirely by the rules.”

Before the reader starts to think of wild west scenes, Klabbers cites an example that illustrates his statement a bit better: “Department boards need to have a strategic plan for their department. Even if they have such a plan, it isn’t always put down in writing, which is why it isn’t always shared with the department council. Or take the recruitment policy, for example, which has so many rules HR requires you to follow. In some cases, people deviate from these rules, but you have to be accountable when you decided to do so. If not, there’s the risk of favoritism and nepotism. In those case, we can try to monitor, provided that the administrators give us the information we need. In short: an important task.”

Robert van der Drift, managing director at the department of Mathematics & Computer Science, made a statement about this once that Klabbers remembers all too well: “If the boards don’t provide you with the necessary information, it’s impossible to monitor. The question then becomes: if a board does things it needs to withhold and be nontransparent about, should it be doing those things in the first place?”

Shortage of new candidates

Every year in December, voters get to elect new members for the various councils. The University Council has nine staff members and an equal number of students members. On the Department Council, that ratio is five/five. If there aren’t enough candidates, or barely enough, the elections are called off and the seats automatically go to the candidates. If there still aren’t enough people to fill all the seats, those seats remain vacant. This could have negative consequences when a council is asked to vote in favor of something. “It’s important to have a properly functioning controlling body that has the broad support of voters. If we don’t have good candidates, voters have less of a choice and we can't monitor the board as well as we want to. That is why it’s essential to have a fully occupied council, and to have a spare list as well, because council members sometimes give up their seat or like to switch. When the number of candidates is equal to the number of seats, or slightly below that number, you can’t have an election, which means that we can’t vote, there is no focus on who is elected on the council and as consequence, the quality deteriorates.”

“Fewer people are signing up, including students,” Klabbers says. And he would know: he has been active on participatory bodies since 2010. “I would be in favor of a Recognition and Rewards system for participation. Sure, there are regulations that provide University Council members with support, such as the one that says that departments are entitled to money to recruit someone else to carry out some of your tasks. Or you yourself receive financial compensation. In practice, however, we see that those compensations don’t always cover the number of hours you need in order to successfully carry out your tasks. At the same time, financial compensation for administrators is only increasing. In my view, if you compensate administrative bodies, you should also compensate participatory bodies. After all, responsibilities have increased on both sides.”

Empathy required

Klabbers was once personally motivated to join a participatory body. “I found myself in a position at some point where I thought to myself ‘surely, this can’t be happening?!’ Partly because of that, I believe that defending the rights of others is important. At the university, they teach you to think for yourself, and that results in independent individual thinking. We need to make sure that we don’t take that too far and that we don’t lose sight of others.”

Can anyone join a participatory body? “Most importantly, you need to think strategically. In other words: about something higher than yourself. You need to think about the university’s interest and the future. Sometimes, it’s tempting to keep thinking about the past, for example about that time when you disagreed about certain decisions for personal reasons. But you need to be able to leave that behind. And you need to empathize with the people you represent as well as with the people on the board you’re supposed to monitor. But you get a lot in return, no matter how much of a cliché that is," Klabbers says with a smile. “You can really make a difference for the people you represent. And you learn a lot about the university and the processes that take place here. In addition, you get to know a lot of people, something that can be useful later.”

Proud

Klabbers: “Recently, a student and teacher delegation from the University Council discussed the topic of social safety with the deans of four departments. That’s important, because teachers who are under pressure can create an unsafe atmosphere for students. This is an issue we have to raise with the departments.” Klabbers is proud of all the things he and his colleagues achieved so far. “But don’t forget about the students, who managed to put sustainability on the Executive Board’s agenda. And we employees keep reminding HR about social safety and work pressure. That’s not always fun, but this topic is too important to forget about.”

Interested in joining a participatory body? You can send Martijn Klabbers a message.