Committees: Standing as a Candidate and Voting

Students elect their members to the Senate and the faculty councils every fall, while the other status groups can vote for their representatives every two years. These elections also always take place in the winter semester.

The Senate and the faculty councils then set up their  committees and commissions in April or May.

The elections will take place as a face-to-face election with a traveling polling station or as an online election. The decision can be found in the election announcement in October.

The election announcement is published around one week before the election and is available on the university's homepage. It states when and where the polling station is open and, in the case of online elections, how to access the voting system.

In a list election, there are several lists for an electoral area (e.g. student group in the Senate). These lists represent, for example For example, these lists represent political groups or, in the case of school council elections, different institutes of the school. In a list election, voters only have one vote for the entire ballot paper.

In the case of majority voting, there are either several individual nominations for an electoral area or only a single list with several associated candidates. In this case, voters have as many votes for the ballot paper as there are seats to be allocated to the status group in the body.

The candidates themselves are responsible for election advertising. Information about candidates from the Student Government status group can be found on the Student  Government homepage. Candidates from other status groups sometimes address their election advertising directly to the members of their status group, e.g. in the form of flyers in mailboxes. e.g. in the form of flyers in the mailboxes. If there is no introduction of the candidates, it is recommended to approach them and ask for information. The election management cannot perform this task, as it is responsible for the neutral conduct of the elections.

You do not need to bring anything special with you. It is important that candidates have the right to stand for election to the committee, which students acquire when they enrol. As an employee, you must have worked for more than six months and at least half of your regular working hours.

Please note that the offices are designed to be held for the entire term of office (students one year, other status groups two years).

In order to be able to stand as a candidate for the elections of the Senate and/or your own departmental council, you must be eligible to vote for the relevant body. You will receive information on this in your election notification from mid-October.

You can either submit your own election proposal or be included on a list. There is usually a contact person who collects the nominations for the Senate or the respective faculty council. For students, this is done via the Student Government or the student councils.

The election proposal must be submitted within the specified deadline after being called by the election management (approx. 6 weeks before the election).

The elected and deputy members of the Senate and the Faculty Councils are announced in the election results, which are published on the day after the last election day. In addition, all elected and deputy members will be contacted in the weeks following the elections.

Depending on the committee, you will advise and decide on a wide range of topics and university matters, as some  practical examples show. You will also gain numerous insights into regulations and guidelines that affect the university.

You can find an overview of the responsibilities of all committees at the university under  Which committee decides what?

The committee work is free of charge. However, the work of students as elected representatives in a body of the university, the student body or the student union is recognized in another form: Up to two semesters are not counted towards the standard period of study in accordance with § 12 para. 3 no. 4 NHG in conjunction with § 12 para. 3 sentence 2 NHG. § 12 para. 3 sentence 2 NHG.

The workload depends on how many committees you are a member of, which tasks the respective committees perform and how often they meet. It is therefore not possible to make a general statement here. Current or former committee members will be happy to give you an assessment. Are you looking for contact persons? Please feel free to contact the appointed election officer.

The meeting dates of the Senate and its commissions and committees are always set in the fall of the previous year and can then be looked up in the meeting calendar of the committee information system from the end of the year.