Change acceptance speech - election day

Helaas. We bedanken alle 182 mensen die wel Change in de universiteitsraad wilden, maar het machtsblok van de gevestigde orde bleek te groot om een zetel binnen te slepen. Wat rest zijn de herinneringen en de speech waarin we onze nederlaag accepteren - uitgesproken direct na de uitslag. Tot slot nog dit: burgers houdt moed, Change komt terug. Catch you on the flip side.

Change acceptance speech - election day

Ladies and gentlemen, worthy political adversaries,

First of all we would like to offer you our sincere congratulations with your remarkable election results. But allow me to discuss a different matter, for I have to come here to stand before you with a clear message; a message of change.

For decades this University has been ruled by a lack of vision. Now, we offer you an alternative. And when I say you, I mean each and every one of you. Because there are no students of the Faculty of Social Sciences; there are no students of the Faculty of Law. There are only students of Leiden University.

Now listen, and listen carefully, because the alternative we offer you is a gesture of reciprocity, and it should be rightly understood.

On the one hand the University offers to young men and women every freedom imaginable, and it should continue to do so. That means we oppose compulsory classes and restrictive study measures in all forms. The only thing we ask of you is to finish your Bachelor before you enroll in a Master, and to take an English language test. These are two small yet very important things. Two things we ask from international students, and so there is no reason, there is no reason why they shouldn’t apply to all students equally. We hold the truth to be self-evident that all students are to be treated equally. The criteria and demands the University sets should not be decided on the basis of the country where you come from or the language that you speak, but solely by the universal criteria for applying for this University.

On the other hand of the gesture of reciprocity are you. Ask not, my fellow students, what the University can do for you, ask what you can do for the University. It’s like Theodore Herzl wrote in ‘The Old New Land’: if you will it, it is no dream. But you have to work hard and show an entrepreneurial attitude. For entrepreneurs made this country to what it is today, and entrepreneurs will determine what it will look like in the future.

Therefore we call upon the University to facilitate entrepreneurship in the broadest meaning of the word. The library should be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Classes in entrepreneurship should be available. And together students and faculty should strive to make the academic community blossom again. To reclaim what was once lost: the academic community as a warm and stimulating environment for academic achievements. And again, this applies for everyone equally. We will not abide another century, not another decade, not even another year having to witness the misrepresentation of women among faculty. 138 years ago the late and great Aletta Jacobs paved the road for women to be able to study at this beautiful institute of higher learning. Now we must proceed on that road to the very end, where truly equal representation awaits at the horizon.

In conclusion: yes, we may have lost the elections today, but our campaign has ignited a spark in peoples’ hearts that will never extinguish. And so I am proud to stand here before you, and be able to say with full conviction:

Finally. Finally Change has come to Leiden.