Find the speech delivered by our president during the academic year opening ceremony of the year 2024-25.
Let us re-enchant the university together for an inspiring future. This is the theme of this academic year.
Before we turn to the future, let us take a moment to reflect on the past year.
Last year, we started it in anger, an anger justified for many reasons. Student precariousness, expensive and unsanitary housing, sexist and sexual violence, the advancement of higher education towards an elitist and meritocratic system. And many other reasons.
We managed to transform this anger into a positive force, mobilising hundreds of students for their future. This had not happened for years.
Together, we have won many victories thanks to various mobilisations among them:
- The landscape decree, although we did not obtain what we wanted, the reform still allowed us to save a large number of students for this academic year.
- Or the supervised internships in psychology and clinical orthopedagogy. We managed to obtain a postponement while finding enough internship supervisors and improving the conditions of these internships, all in a single mobilisation.
Thank you, thank you to all the female and male students who mobilised and made these victories possible for the entire student community.
- Other victories have been achieved through collaboration, whether with the vice-rector's office, the various bodies of the university, and many other partners. Notably: The inclusion of sexist and sexual violence in the disciplinary regulations and the creation of a single regulation including a chapter dedicated to SV.
- The strengthening of the Together unit in accordance with the recommendations of the Tulkens report.
And many more.
Thank you to you too.
That is why we are starting this year with confidence.
Confident because we know that students have an impact and a voice that must be heard. And if that is not the case, we must make it heard.
We, students, are the citizens of tomorrow, and we have the right and the duty to participate in the re-enchantment of our university and even our society, to create an inspiring future for everyone.
Confident also because it is a year of change, new government, new rector, new vice-rector for student affairs. So it is the time to start on a good foundation in this year of the university's 600th anniversary.
Confident also because we know that collaboration is possible, and if it is not, mobilisation works.
Confident again because we know that whatever happens this year we are ready to face it, all together and united more than ever. Our strength is and will always be our number, our cohesion and our solidarity.
Many challenges remain to be addressed to re-enchant our university:
- The issue of housing, linked to the increasing student precariousness.
- The landscape decree with the reform that will probably be reformed or abolished. That is why we want to be able to collaborate to find a solution together. A solution that will not be taken against the students.
- Sexist and sexual violence where there is still a lot to be done.
- As well as the refinancing of higher education. The proposal of the community policy statement to move to an open envelope is positive, but it must not depend on the perceived quality of each student. A repeating student should not be considered as less qualitative and therefore lead to lesser funding. This could lead to many negative effects.
This list is not exhaustive.
Re-enchanting the university to build an inspiring future will require a lot of effort, but together, nothing is impossible.
We, students, are ready to make these efforts. And you, ladies and gentlemen?
Thank you.