The VSSD students union intends to expose painful issues through a ‘screwing over action’

The TU Delft VSSD students association works for TU Delft students in several different ways. Through its ‘We are screwed over action’, the union draws attention to decisions that negatively affected students last year.  During drinks, meetings and on campus, the Board members actively asked people to tell them which decisions had had the most negative effects on students. They selected five issues from among the responses that will now have a chance of winning the prize for the biggest ‘We are screwed over action’ of 2024.

• Closing ‘Het Lagerhuysch’, the ME Faculty bar.
• Continuously delaying the opening of a hotline for students to report social safety incidents.
• Teaching rooms at the EEMCS Faculty that are not accessible for students with physical disabilities.
• Closing the student association Nova’s SooS.
• The lack of students in the educational cutbacks taskforce.

Award ceremony

The VSSD will make the ‘winner’ known in a few weeks. “We will choose one person or institution that will win the prize. We are not yet saying what the prize will be, but we will hand it over in person. We of course hope that it will be accepted,” says Sam de Jong, the Secretary of the union.

• Also read the interview with the Board of VSSD: ‘It is important for students to show they oppose the cutbacks’

What can be done better

By doing this, VSSD hopes to create more awareness. “We want to show the obstacles that students face and what can be improved at TU Delft and at the universities of applied sciences in Delft. We want students to know that we are paying attention to this. Of course we also hope that this action will bring about some changes. One simple example would be to deal with the accessibility at the EEMCS Faculty as this is simple to address.”

Not everything goes wrong

Fortunately some things are going well. TU Delft and the students clubbed together in their battle against the long-term study penalty and TU Delft has taken good measures to make social safety open for discussion with its recent campaign on campus. “We do not only work on the things that do not go well, but you sometimes need to talk about the painful issues to bring about change,” says De Jong.

Do you want to stay up to date on the action? Then follow VSSD on Instagram (@vssd_studentenvakbond) or visit vssd.nl.