StuPa Presidium

The StuPa Presidium is responsible for organizing the work of the StuPa. This includes the preparation of meetings by invitations and setting the agenda. They chair the meetings, take the minutes and represent the student parliament to the outside world.

The StuPa Presidium is composed of three members.

At the moment these are:

• Jan Henrik Schwede
• Niloofar Saghafi
• Noam-Nicolas Stahl

E-mail:sp-praesidium@tu-clausthal.de

Currently elected parliamentarians

Funding of events

The student body uses funds from all students to support events that benefit all students.

Who can apply for funds?

Everyone has the right to apply to the student body. Student associations, for example, may apply for funds for cultural events, but an individual student may also apply for support if he or she needs funds to implement a good idea.

What can be applied for?

Money can be applied for in two different forms - partial cost funding and cover funding.

Partial Cost Funding

This is the most commonly used option. Expenditures must be supported by receipts. The income is not taken into account. The money is therefore paid out even if the event makes a profit. The support can be paid in advance.

Cover note

This option is suitable for events where the income can outweigh the expenses. If you take in less than expected, a financial loss can be avoided with the cover commitment. However, for disbursement, all expenses must be documented with receipts and an overview of income must be provided. A payout before the event is therefore impossible.

If you are not quite sure what kind of financial support would make sense for you, please contact the AStA's financial director by e-mail. He will be able to help you quickly in any case.

Where can I submit applications?

Within the student body, the AStA, the student parliament, the student councils and the foreigners' council have financial means at their disposal.

Student Parliament

The student parliament is responsible for large sums of money. Funding requests for large cultural events, concerts, festivals, etc. that exceed a value of 500 € should be submitted to the StuPa. It is always important to include a clear cost plan and a description of why your event is worth supporting.

E-mail address for applications:stupa@tu-clausthal.de

AStA

The AStA can decide on applications up to 1 000 €. As with the student parliament, the requirement is that you must clearly explain why your event will enrich the life of the Clausthal student body.

E-mail address for applications:asta@tu-clausthal.de

Student Council

Each student council has a certain budget, which is spent on subject-specific matters. If your application concerns only one department, you should rather submit your application to the responsible departmental council. The AStA and the StuPa rather support requests that are designed for all students.

Foreigners' Council

The Foreigner's Council has a certain budget, which is spent on matters that especially affect foreign students or that promote communication between German and foreign students.

E-mail address for applications:auslaenderrat@tu-clausthal.de

Regional Council of the Studentenwerk OstNiedersachsen

The Regional Council of the Studentenwerk has an annual pot available to support local events. The Regional Council is particularly happy to support events by covering the rent for the Mensa. Of course, this is contingent on the event being held in the Mensa. Other items (such as materials) can also be requested from the Regional Council. However, the Regional Council rarely takes over entire events.

Please contact the AStA if you would like to submit an application to the Regional Council. We will take care of the application for you.

Not allowed: Double decisions

You cannot apply to the AStA and the StuPa for the same event. Either AStA or StuPa. An additional application to the Regionalrat, the Fachschaft and the Ausländerrat is allowed at any time.

When can applications be made?

It is always best to submit applications at a meeting. There are different deadlines for this. If you want to submit your motion to the AStA, you should do so 48 hours before a meeting. Otherwise, the AStA must first be convinced of the urgency of your request. Different deadlines apply to the Student Parliament. Funding requests for events exceeding €500 should be submitted via email to stupa@tu-clausthal.de at least seven days before the meeting. As a general rule, submit your application early! As a rule, events cannot be funded retrospectively. If your application cannot be dealt with at a meeting due to a formal error and no further meeting takes place before your event, this event cannot be financed.

Forms

For what you need to consider when spending money, see the information sheet Documenting Expenses.

For reimbursement of travel expenses, please use the Travel Reimbursement form. For digital entries, please save the form on your computer first.

We also have a sample claim form as a Word file and a sample expense report as an Excel file, including a fictitious sample claim.

Organizer liability insurance

For events, e.g. in the refectory, an organizer's liability insurance is required so that the organizer is not liable with his money in case of an event.

In order that not every organizer has to take out an insurance himself, the AStA offers its insurance for you. In order to use this insurance, you have to fill out the form "Veranstalterhaftpflichtversicherung " one week before the event. After the AStA has approved this, the organizer may go to our insurance and register the event. It is important that this is done before the event.

Here you can find letters published by the StuPa in the past about current topics concerning the student body

Statement to the FZR regarding the open letter on the internationalization strategy

(Sent to the central student council on 25.01.2023)

On 28.07.2022 the StuPa decided on an open letter, which criticized the internationalization strategy of the presidency of the TU Clausthal. While there was a lot of approving feedback in terms of content, which strengthened us in our assessment, there was discomfort among some, especially because of the choice of language. We would like to respond to the criticism we received. The goal of the StuPa was and is to express itself as clearly as possible and not to soften the intention by using too soft wording. With this goal, unfortunately, other misunderstandings have arisen. Among other things, the open letter stated: "This means that the proportion of foreigners is likely to rise sharply once again. Extrapolating the commitment to non-student activities further, we can assume a complete collapse of social and cultural life at the university." In no way should the commitment of foreign students who volunteer be belittled. Regardless of origin, there are students who are heavily involved. Events such as the international cooking club contribute to the enrichment of student life in Clausthal. We are grateful for every engagement. As StuPa we stand for a cosmopolitan university, where everyone who wants to can get involved.

Open Letter of the StuPa on the Internationalization Strategy of the TU Clausthal

(Decided on 28.07.22 at the 4th regular meeting)

Dear presidium of the TU Clausthal,

in long debates the internationalization strategy was discussed in the student parliament of the TU Clausthal. This causes great concern to the democratic and parliamentary representation of all students of the university. We do not consider this course to be purposeful. We are very critical of the internationalization strategy, which aims to offer all Master's programs (only) in English and to design Bachelor's programs in the higher semesters in English as well.

This sets a wrong focus, which does not take into account the profile of the TU Clausthal and its socio-cultural and geographical structure. Although the prestige and the possibilities to deepen one's studies at the university attract foreign students, this has shifted to the extent that the ease of admission is often the reason for attraction. Location advantage has often been downgraded from educational quality to student visa.

Already, the proportion of foreigners at Clausthal University of Technology is over 50%. The classes of 2014- 2017, which still show different ratios, will soon finish their studies. This means that the proportion of foreigners is likely to rise sharply once again. Extrapolating further the commitment to non-study activities, we can assume a complete breakdown of social and cultural life at the university. The prestigious student council of mathematics and computer science could not be filled for the current budget year, because no (!) applicants were found. The student parliament currently has only 13 out of 17 seats.

The Green-Voltage Racing has disbanded. The two student pubs, which are run as clubs, have massive problems acquiring members. Many other student clubs are on the verge of disbanding or have already disbanded. A strategy that attracts foreign students at the expense of domestic students would therefore be a severe blow to student life and probably an end to many institutions here.

If the university wants to establish itself as an "international" university in a small town without a train station, it must also be asked what locational advantage exists here that can make this venture a success. The connection of the university is modest. A semester ticket would not change this. Clausthal-Zellerfeld is located in a low mountain range surrounded by forest. Even the surrounding small towns do not significantly improve the cultural offerings. The surrounding cities can be reached in about two hours by public transport. This means that the common student is forced to rely on the offers of the small town of Clausthal-Zellerfeld.

In the Federal Republic of Germany there are other locations that offer studies in English, where a foreign student can get along much better. Contrary to what one might think, studying in English or partly in English is not a locational advantage for domestic students. Today, the common high school graduate is confronted with Anglo-Saxon to a considerably greater extent than 20 years ago.

Even more tends to lead to a defensive attitude. Although it is clear that there is no way around the lingua franca of the 21st century in the academic world, this competence is already implicitly assumed. To demand even more than necessary is not exactly met with approval by Generation Z. Especially since the offer to study in English is not yet available. Especially since the offer to study in English is already massively expanded in the higher education landscape of the Federal Republic and Clausthal offers no location advantage for this clientele in comparison to these universities.

Certain courses of study at the TU are very well received by foreign students. Mining and petroleum engineering are very popular. So the old core competencies of the former mining academy are still explicitly in demand.

Learning German mining in German still has a high value. But apart from that, there is no longer any explicit location advantage. What does the TU offer that you could not study in Braunschweig, Hanover, Hamburg, Berlin, Aachen, Dresden or Munich? The only difference is that you don't "have" to study in Clausthal!

Furthermore, the universities of the Federal Republic are only so popular in other EU countries because no tuition fees are charged here. In times of tight budgets, however, this may change in the long run. In Baden-Württemberg, tuition fees for EU foreigners were introduced under a Green state government. In Saxony, it is up to the universities. In Bavaria this is planned straight. Should this also happen in Lower Saxony, then there would certainly no longer be so many EU foreigners interested in studying at the TU Clausthal.

But even if the internationalization strategy were to be successful, the state of Lower Saxony would finance a location whose skilled workers would only indirectly benefit the Federal Republic. And who are also more inclined to leave the country because of training in English. In particular, the need to learn German makes a major contribution to the integration of foreign students. Because with the knowledge of the German language at the end of the study the interest increases to remain in Germany. Many EU foreigners are interested in the development of their home countries. And who could deny them this? The structural problems of the Clausthal location, which the State Audit Office has already noted several times, would only be intensified.

There is also the question of how the bachelor's degree programs would be made more attractive to foreign students by gradually switching from German to English in the higher semesters. This is because there would still be a need to learn German in order to be able to follow the courses in the first semesters. A similar problem arises for German students: those who want to study in English do not want to study four semesters in German first, and those who want to study in German are deterred by the English semesters in the Bachelor's degree. The internationalization strategy must therefore necessarily also fail in success, because it has lost sight of the given socio-cultural and geographical factors.

We see the weakness of the location as a possible advantage. The university has very much in its essence something of an American College Town. This could be used as an advantage. Small-town life with a focus on student life can also be very attractive. There is a clientele and a niche for this in the German-speaking world. This could be nurtured and cared for. This would also require further integration with the student associations. A possible guaranteed dormitory place similar to a college would be an idea. The location Clausthal has potential, but not as an international university (small)-Dublin of German format in the Harz.

For this, the small town and rural high schools would have to be addressed. The necessary program has already been initiated. We welcome this extraordinarily. Various committees of the student body were and are ready to support the effort financially and with personnel. However, such networking work takes time. And just there not much has happened in the last years. Already in the next small town the TU Clausthal is not present. The damage caused by passivity takes many years to heal, time that the university may no longer have.

We, that is the student parliament of the TU Clausthal, the democratic and parliamentary voice of all students of the TU Clausthal, therefore ask to reconsider the internationalization strategy of the TU Clausthal.

With kind regards and Clausthaler "GlückAuf!"

Presidium of the Student Parliament

Jan H. Schwede Philipp A. Schütze Amir Sahari

Open letter of the StuPa to the presidium of the TU Clausthal about the mask duty

(Published on 10.05.2022)

Dear Presidium of the TU Clausthal, As representatives of the student body we ask you to refrain from a mask and distance obligation. We see no reason in the current infection situation to enact regulations beyond the legal minimum. After two years of Corona, normality should finally return, including seeing the faces of fellow students again. FFP2 masks also offer considerable self-protection, so that anyone who wants to can protect themselves. We therefore believe it is necessary to follow the initiative of the federal government for more personal responsibility. In addition, we are critical of restricting access to public buildings through regulations such as a mask requirement. Instead, we would welcome a request to wear a mask at the entrances to buildings. We hope that you will honor our request for the sake of the students. The Presidium of the Student Parliament