Student participation in University governance: a critical review of the status quo at Roskilde University

If being critical is what our university and the Critical Edge Alliance (CEA) is about, then being heard as students is mandatory. The call for papers of the 2018 CEA conference asks for submissions on, among other topics, “Innovations in student participation or research experiences”.1 Inspired by this, we set out to take account of student participation in the university’s governance. Our motivation for writing this paper is to provide a critical review of how student participation in university governance - beyond simply being heard - at Roskilde University (RUC) takes place and is ensured at this point in time. Student participation can mean many things - from a lively student life on campus all the way to student politics and agency for the student body. It is important to point out that student participation within this paper is understood as the engagement of students in the universities decision-making process on both curricular and non-curricular topics (governance participation) and not as participation in class (academic participation). The questions we pose aim at the modes of student participation at RUC – the positive and negative aspects of it.