SAM

Associations Friday is back! Tilburg has a lot to offer with its rich student life. We dare you to promise: Everyone can find his or her place here! With numerous organizations, clubs, foundations, student-, study- and sports associations there is something for everyone. How do you find out "your place"? The most important thing is to get out there. Give it a chance, go to an open day/evening and find out what suits you! You may need some patience, and it may take a while, but once you 'get it right', you are going to have the time of your life. To make the search a little easier, we introduce a Tilburg 'association' every week. In this way, we try to lay the foundation for you. On our site, you will always find an overview of all the associations. 

This week we sat down with Noortje (President) and Tessa (Vice President) of student group SAM. You will most often find this blue-colored group on campus around the annual student elections. However, this is not the only time SAM is busy. No, throughout the year they work together with Front Group to make your voice heard in the university council! So if you ever have a question and/or remark about the daily activities at the university, SAM is one of the parties you can turn to. They vote and think along in discussions that take place at the university, but they also bring in their own initiatives. Besides these activities, SAM is also active on a more informal level. They regularly organize get-togethers and can be found at almost every CoBo (constitution drink). Curious about the activities and initiatives of SAM and how Noortje and Tessa see the university in a few years' time? Read on below!

WHAT IS SAM?

"Basically, SAM is a political group in the university council. The university council is a high decision-making body at the university, where different parties come around the table. Those different parties get to help decide and vote on certain big issues at the university. Together with Front Group, we have 9 students on the council. Matters that are discussed there vary from budgets to strategic plans. In addition, we can bring in our own initiatives. We look at what is going on among students and what they are up against, which we then take to the council."

"In addition, SAM is also an association. We have 9 different committees and we organize different activities for our members. Anyone can become a member of SAM, after which you can be as active as you want."

WHAT DOES SAM FOCUS ON?

"SAM basically targets the ambitious student. We are under the assumption that every student is ambitious, and wants to make a good effort in their studies. SAM tries to focus on all students by focusing on the quality of education and its facilities. We are committed to every student who wants to develop further."

WHAT ARE SOME OF YOUR INITIATIVES?

"As SAM, we have implemented initiatives in the past. Some are still in progress as well, but we are confident that they will be in place soon. Some of the initiatives that are already in effect are: Longer opening hours at the library; Paperless is more; A symposium to look at student housing, from which came an agreement with the municipality that several student housing units will be added over the next few years; The welfare day, because student welfare is a pretty big topic and therefore we think it is extremely important that students feel good about themselves. In addition, we are working on: Peer-to-Peer support groups; Anonymous examinations; Distribution of free menstrual products; A collaboration with Amnesty International against sexual abuse and lunch lectures, where a company comes over and students can get to know the company during lunch."

WHAT IS THE INFORMAL PART LIKE AT SAM?

"The image people have of SAM is that it's boring and that it's only about difficult pieces. On the contrary, it's very social. You have contact with all the associations within the university. That means you have drinks, CoBo, or some other social activity every night. That ensures a lot of contact with others, you get to know a lot of new people and that is super fun!"

WHAT DO YOU THINK THE UNIVERSITY WILL LOOK LIKE IN 10 YEARS?

"I think that's a tricky question. Very frequently, a lot of things change. You can see that the university is now working on digitization, because during the pandemic, of course, a lot of work was done in that area. They now want to get the best practice out of it. Blended learning (a combination of digital and physical education) will be used more often. There are a lot of cool construction projects coming up. The sports center will be expanded, but there will also be more study places and classrooms. All in all, things are going very much in the right direction and the university will grow very much."

IF YOU WERE ALLOWED TO CHANGE SOMETHING WITH UNLIMITED FUNDS, WHAT WOULD IT BE?

"There's really a lot that pops into my head right now," Noortje laughs. "To name one thing, there will be a family doctor already for students soon, but what would be really cool is if that family doctor were actually on campus."

"In addition, there are a lot of problems with housing. So if we did have unlimited funds, it would be really cool if we had housing on campus, just like they have in America," Tessa says. "Preferably with a very large skyscraper! There is also room for improvement, especially in housing for internationals," both girls add. "This is what we are working on. It is and remains a long-term problem and really needs a sustainable solution. It is nice for them to know that they have something 'fixed'. We think that's important."

"A lot of students, especially international students, will appreciate being able to really have their life on campus, with others. International students are sometimes in trouble because they can't find a home. If that could be solved by having more facilities on campus, that would be super."

HOW IS YOUR BOARD STRUCTURED? 

"There are a total of seven of us on the board, with four full-timers and three part-timers. It's a diverse group of positions."

"It's 'fun' work," they laugh. "You have a lot of pieces that you prepare, initiatives that you think about carefully, you really have your duties involved, but most of all it's still a lot of fun work. You get to be very much your own function, because you get to choose your responsibilities according to your interests. So not everything falls under a function, but they are separate little projects that you can assign yourself."

HOW ARE THE PREPARATIONS FOR THE ELECTIONS GOING?

"That's a little uncertain right now, because we don't know if it will be offline, or online elections. We're hoping for elections that happen physically, because that gives sociability and a nice atmosphere on campus. Of course, it has to be possible to do that responsibly. So we'll have to wait and see. We have already started promoting the possibilities of a board position at SAM. In addition, we are continuously looking at what we want to achieve in the coming years."

If you are curious about SAM, then take a look at their website.