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The reform of the UZH Senate has cleared the final hurdle. At its meeting on 25 November, a large majority of Senate members approved new Organization Regulations for the body, strengthening the Senate’s voice on issues of university-wide importance. Until now, the Senate’s most significant task was in suggesting professors to the Board of the University to be elected to the offices of President and Vice President. The Senate, which is made up of all professors at UZH as well as delegates from the UZH representative bodies (Stände), can also issue statements on matters relating to any area of the university.
The new regulations provide the Senate with three instruments to introduce topics that its members consider important. The most important of these is the right to submit postulates. By submitting a postulate, the Senate can instruct the Executive Board of the University or the Extended Executive Board of the University to review a particular topic and report back.
For such a postulate to be included in the agenda of a Senate meeting, it requires the support of a certain number of Senate members; these can be either professors or delegates of the UZH representative bodies. At the moment, this number would be 39, but as this number depends on the actual number of professors in the Senate, it will very likely change (see box). If the postulate is approved by a majority of the Senate, it is submitted to the Executive Board or Extended Executive Board.
“However, the postulate is not a motion,” says Thomas Gächter, the lawyer and member of the Senate working group who helped the reform pass through the voting process. “This means that the Senate can’t instruct the Executive Board to implement measures resulting from such a report, for example. These decisions remain with the Executive Board or the Board of the University.”
According to Gächter, this is because the Senate is not actually a parliament, but a “qualified co-determination body”. This co-determination is further strengthened by the Senate’s right to request information from the Executive Board or Extended Executive Board on certain aspects of their activities. Such requests also require the support of 39 Senate members, as do requests to include specific items on the agenda at future Senate meetings.
These opportunities enable the Senate to discuss major university issues that its members consider important. “With the reform, we have decided to give the Senate an active voice in university-wide matters,” Thomas Gächter says.
The Senate’s role is further boosted by the creation of a management. This body consists of the President, who chairs it, and the two professors who represent the professorial staff on the Board of the University (at present, Oliver Diggelmann and Mireille Schnyder). They are joined by Secretary General Rita Stöckli and up to two additional members of the Senate who may also be elected to join the management.
The reform of the Senate was initiated by President Michael Schaepman, who in November 2020 set up a working group for this purpose in response to criticism from Senate members that the Senate’s voice wasn’t heard enough in matters of university-wide significance. Some Senate members had also voiced their concern that in various elections, only one candidate had been proposed by the Board of the University.
Over the past few years, the Senate working group and its various members have been addressing the role and future of the Senate. Two surveys were carried out in 2022/2023 to gage the opinions of Senate members, and various organizational models were compared. The measures that have now been incorporated into the Senate’s new Organization Regulations were developed based on the results of these evaluations. The aim of the reform was to increase the Senate’s opportunities to have a say in matters of university-wide importance and its role as a forum for discussion. A final report that summarizes the work of the Senate working group will be published in due course.
President Michael Schaepman sees the final outcome as beneficial for the entire university: “We have successfully sharpened the Senate’s task profile and determined its responsibilities in a broadly supported process. The reform strengthens an important pillar of university self-administration and thus improves the governance of UZH as a whole. I look forward to the Senate’s forward-looking interventions!”