MISCELLANEOUS

We hope that our priorities and the various objectives and measures we associate with them have made it clear that we attach great importance to the well-being of staff and students. It is incredibly important that we can all enjoy working with and learning from lecturers/assistants/tutors etc. who are enthusiastic about their role.

With this in mind, we have a few miscellaneous points below that we consider important enough to give particular mention.

• We are convinced that there is still great progress to be made when it comes to catering. The restaurant, for example, should really invite people to enjoy eating there, rather than there simply being no other option. That’s why we’re going work together with Umami and the dining committee to see how we might drastically improve quality and supply while making serious improvements to sustainability (in terms of supply, waste, and so on).

• We already have options available regarding sports, music, and culture, but we would like to further expand on these. Given the coronavirus circulating worldwide, it may have to wait a while, but these kinds of activities bring people so much closer together. We’d like to see that happen for staff, students and both groups together. It would also be nice if the UHasselt could take part in interuniversity competitions more often, or we could perhaps create our own interuniversity competitions (in strategically chosen disciplines, of course).
  

• An increasing number of government bodies, companies, television stations and newspapers, etc. now employ an in-house ombudsperson. This is a single point of contact who tries to resolve reported complaints, problems, and annoyances related to the organisation, or at least to bring them to attention where necessary. It would seem that we are without one and it’s time for that to change. We already have ombudspersons for students and PhD students, but there the issues revolve more around exams, guidance, personal conflicts, and suchlike. This would instead be intended for complaints about the functioning of the organisation.

• You, staff and students, regularly have ideas and suggestions for improvement, in many different areas. Ideas and suggestions for which you may not always know who to approach. We would like to gather these (normally anonymously, unless you indicate that you would like to be contacted to provide clarification, for example). That’s why we’re starting an ‘Ideas/Suggestions/Improvements box’ where comments can be collected. This already exists for PhD students, but as far as we know it is not available more broadly.