A permanent ombudsman required

First, it’s is important to recognize the dual mission of the organization: one is a social mission, organizing events that help students experience different cultures, like the recent Indian Holi event; and the other is administrative, improving the lives of students regarding issues like housing and tuition. But no matter how ambitious, resourceful, and organized Diss is, they’re seriously hamstrung by two important facts: international students are only here for two years, and international students have no full-time representation at the university.

Many Dutch student organizations – like the Student Council or student associations – have full-time boards in which students operate as full-time employees. This means that there’s an entire team of students working every day, with compensation, on the types of projects that Diss members are trying to accomplish on a volunteer basis in their spare time, in addition to their course work and trying to maintain social lives. And let’s be honest, at 12,500 euros a year for tuition, the first priority of an international student is probably their studies. Jonathan Mugerwa, Diss’s chairman, confirmed as much in our recent interview, stating that there’s no international representation on TU Delft’s Student Council because international students prioritize their studies and aren’t particularly excited about spending an extra year in the Netherlands just to be on the Council.

Additionally, Dutch students might be part of the TU Delft community for six years, as opposed to the typical two year involvement of international students. This means that students can get involved in projects and issues over the long-term, which is important because lots of issues aren’t solved in a year or two. For this reason, organisations like Diss are better focused on the social part of their mission, bringing Dutch and international students together to learn about each other’s culture.

For the administrative issues – tuition, housing, insurance, grading, etc. – there should be a permanent ombudsman within the university’s International Office. An ombudsman is a paid, full-time employee that acts as a mediator between the students and the university. Crucially, an ombudsman would first and foremost represent the interests of international students. This would mitigate the two major problems any organization like Diss has: the ombudsman works full-time, is paid, and is here to stay, thus allowing the ombudsman to cultivate relationships within the administration and use those relationships to better affect change on international student issues. Organisations like Diss can still work to give a voice to students and help them get involved, but their work could be much more powerful if they had a permanent advocate within the university administration. TU Delft says that they’re serious about focusing on international students. If this is so, they should seriously considering changing the way that international student voices can be heard by creating an ombudsman.

Devin Malone, a second-year MSc student of industrial ecology, is from Anchorage, Alaska.

The boat week, known as the colloquium ‘Technology in Sustainable Development (SD)’, offers lectures, visits to SD sites, workshops and fun on a boat twice a year: in April and October, and conducted in English.
During the boat trip this past April, the main theme of which was ‘What is sustainability’, students learned about building materials, energy utilization in constructions and other sustainability issues in cozy cabins, while gliding over cold waters from Amsterdam to Utrecht and Rotterdam. They had heated debates and stakeholder conversations about complex systems and energy projects. During one of the workshops, students interviewed people on the streets, asking them about sustainable usage of water.

Spark Xie was a pleased participant of the boat week in April. “On the final day, we had to come up with strategies to convince the Dutch Minister of Environment to take our advice,” he recalls enthusiastically. “I came up with a rap song and sang it, which turned out to be a success!” However, Xie thinks it was a pity the group didn’t visit any sustainable energy producers.
Hellen Liu misses the delicious desserts on board, the evenings that inspired creative ideas about sustainability, and also the moments when everyone was standing on the deck with breeze, river, birds and sunshine.

Faridoddin Karimi found the boat week a unique experience because of the interactions with people in a small society on the boat: “One may not find another opportunity like this during their Master’s program.” Karimi however was not very pleased with the logistics of the trip: “It would be more convenient for students to board the boat in Delft instead of Amsterdam.”
For the coming October boat week, there will be new combinations of visits to SD sites, with journeys to explore sustainability and a week to experience crew life – all on water.   

tudelft.nl/tisd
tudelft.nl/bootweek