The University Student Council (USR) wants the implementation of a code of conduct to be hastened. In a letter, they call on the Executive Board and the Works Council to come to an agreement. ‘We are missing a feeling of urgency.’

Tim Hofman was dumbfounded when he found out one and a half weeks ago during a Q&A at Radboud Rocks that Radboud University does not have a code of conduct yet. ‘That’s the issue’, he responded on a packed Pieter Bondam square. ‘That means that you don’t instruct the person in power how not to abuse his power.’

Actually, this code of conduct should have been in place a long time ago. In November last year, a first version of the code of conduct was submitted to the works council for approval. The Works Council rejected the document. An amended version was again strongly criticised in April, after which its introduction was postponed again.

The code of conduct is now on the agenda for the last employee participation meeting of the academic year. If the Works Council does not agree once again, the introduction of the code of conduct will be postponed until after the summer break.

Forms of conduct

This is reason enough for the University Student Council to step up the pressure. Two weeks ago – shortly before Tim Hofman’s lecture at the university – the students sent a letter to the Executive Board and the Works Council, urging them to reach an agreement quickly. “With this letter we want to show how important this subject is to us. A good code of conduct must be drawn up quickly,” the USR members say in the letter.

The student council members are in a difficult position, because, contrary to the Works Council, they do not have a voting right when it comes to the code of conduct. ‘And that while the document also concerns us’, says chair of the USR Rizka Simons. The code of conduct should, for instance, include rules about the way teachers and students interact with each other.

‘The board is responsible for creating a code of conduct’

The letter should mainly be seen as an appeal to the Executive Board, Simons explains. ‘The board is responsible for creating a code of conduct that the Works Council can agree to. Nevertheless, the discussions between the board and the Works Council could have been better. The Works Council also has a part in this.’

Not good enough

The Works Council understands the students’ wish to have a code of conduct quickly, three members tell Vox. ‘We want that too, but the most important thing is that it is a good code of conduct’, says Works Council member Peter van der Heiden. ‘It is not the Works Council that holds things back. We read the Executive Board’s proposals from the employees’ perspective and then comment on them. Repeatedly, too little was done with our comments and no good document resulted from it.’

So what needs to be changed in the content of the text? ‘The draft text lacks a basis, a larger plan’, explains Works Council member Paul Nelissen. ‘Who do we want to be as an organisation and as a community? What are the relationships like among ourselves? What are safe and unsafe situations and what are the core values we all agree on? In addition, the current text talks too much about commandments and prohibitions and not about normal manners and ways of communicating. That is still missing in the whole picture.’

‘The code of conduct has had a false start’

The Works Council members do acknowledge that the dossier has been delayed. ‘The code of conduct has had a false start’, says Van der Heiden. ‘As the Works Council, we did not want to be involved in drawing up the regulation, but afterwards we did have an opinion on it. The Executive Board did not like that – but that is, of course, how it should be.’

After that, the new vice-president Agnes Muskens still had to be familiarised with the dossier. ‘It’s a bit like Murphy’s Law: everything that could lead to delay, did lead to delay’, says chair of the Works Council Amarins Thiecke. ‘I understand that this must be frustrating for students. It would have been easier if they had also had the right to agree. We have no conflicting interests in this matter.’

Nevertheless, the Works Council members are confident that the code of conduct will be approved before the summer recess. ‘We have had good, constructive discussions lately’, says Thiecke. ‘I think that the text is now ready to be discussed and that at the final meeting we can consider whether we can give our consent.’