The First Student Delegation President: Alex Domin

Rector Jens Kreisel mentioned that the University of Luxembourg was still a “startup university” during his speech at the 20th Anniversary celebration. Just as the Alumni Network is starting up, in 2018 that was also the case with the Student Delegation.

As part of our alumni coverage of the 20th Anniversary, we caught up with the very first President of the Student Delegation, @Alex Domin, for a fascinating look at how it all got started, only a little over 5 short years ago.

Why did you run for the Student Delegation and how did you become President? 

At a certain point, there was a rumour that an election was going to take place for a brand-new Student Delegation and there would be an official person who was going to represent the students on the Board of Governors. I had done my master’s at Uni.lu and then started my PhD. As I was organising a lot of events, collaborating with many associations, and getting people to come to those events, I thought that I had enough motivation to go further and contribute on a more official level. That is why after completing the first year of my PhD I decided to run for the Student Delegation. 

Many of the fellow students from the associations that we were running events with also participated in those elections and some of them got elected for the Student Delegation as well. We all ended up in a room, I believe we were 5-6 of us, and this is where the fun started because we had to decide who was going to be the President. 

We each presented ourselves a little bit beforehand. Some were happy to just be a representative but not to lead the delegation and others wanted to become President. We had an anonymous vote where we each of us took a piece of paper, put the name or our choice on it (we could not vote for ourselves of course), and put it in a box. The Uni administration helped us to facilitate this process. That is how I got elected.

The very first Student Delegation 2018-2019

Did you have any specific goals as President? What did you hope to accomplish?

It was interesting because for the first time a student representative (the Student Delegation President) had an official vote on the Board of Governors, so that was very important. For the day-to-day business of the delegation, we were a startup so had lots of decisions to make. How do we operate? What are our goals? We collected some student feedback about what they thought should be changed and what do we deem appropriate, and used that to elaborate some goals and started to work on them.

One of the key issues at the time was the Luxembourg Learning Centre (LLC) opening hours. It is a spectacular place for the students and makes a big impression when they first visit the Belval campus, but at the time it was also just starting out and the opening hours were too limited. We reached out directly to the Rector and to the University’s administration and said that this needs to be changed because students needed to be able to work somewhere outside of their student accommodation or whatever housing they were renting. This was our first major accomplishment on behalf of the students, and the LLC hours were extended, including weekends.

What was the biggest challenge you faced as President and how did you handle it?

The biggest challenge was when the University wanted to turn the space where student associations were located into offices for staff. As you can imagine, the students were not very happy about it because they needed to meet somewhere and have space to run their associations and for different events. I would say that at the time it was a very big challenge for us because we were obviously on the side of the students and the administration listened to us. It was very nice to see, and this is exactly where the Student Delegation as the official voice of the students was really needed.

A Student Delegation meeting during the first year

What was your proudest moment or the biggest accomplishment as a President?

First and foremost, I have to say that everything that we accomplished was together as a team, as a Delegation, it was never my personal achievement but always an accomplishment of the Delegation itself.  Although I can not speak for other members, I am sure they would all agree that we were proud that we could stand our ground and we could have very mature discussions with the University administration.

There was a certain stereotype about the students before, that they only wanted to party and have fun, but we were very serious and I am proud to say that whatever we were deciding as a Delegation, I could represent at the Board of Governors as a common voice of ours.

The Board of Governors consists of experienced people some of which also represent the government, and so we were very careful in phrasing because we did not have that much time to present our case. I am still very proud that I was the representative of the Delegation on the Board and was able to influence the decisions that were being taken. I was also very proud to generally represent the students and help in fixing whatever problems they had.

What changes did you notice most during your time as a student?

The biggest change was probably the Belval campus, and I am not only talking about the buildings but the whole infrastructure, like the canteens, etc. That was a huge change. Limpertsberg and Kirchberg were the main campuses and no one would even mention Belval back in 2015 when I was a student.

For a research university, it is important that the infrastructure is there to inspire, and Belval campus has a very new spirit. You could see the transformation from a small university that just started its existence to the university that is going up in the rankings worldwide and also upgrading its infrastructure.

The second Student Delegation 2019-2020

What do you think makes Uni.lu unique and how would you like it to develop in upcoming years?

My wish would be to see sports facilities in Belval to help better develop the school spirit. We have a magnificent campus in Belval, and the most famous universities like Oxford, Cambridge and so on, have this spirit of the university, something that people identify with. One of the challenges that we had as a Delegation was that we were trying to come up with certain activities that would contribute to creating an identity for the University of Luxembourg. To me, this is a missing element, sports facilities in Belval. It could be for a university football team, could be a swimming team, could be a tennis team - anything that could help bring the student body together.

What makes the University unique is its young age I think. I am really proud to be a part of the University of Luxembourg, and at the same time, it is a very new institution and I could not imagine that a university could achieve so much in just 20 years in any other country. To me, that is really what makes it unique. The high standards and the high quality of education and research in a relatively small number of years of development.

Where was your favourite place to eat on campus?

I ate on all the campuses of the University of Luxembourg, and I have to say go to Food Lab has pizza and steak there which is just amazing! They really do a great job there. I bragged to my friends around the world that when I came to the university canteen, I could order my steak rare (or sometimes medium rare if I wanted) for a price that was very affordable to students. Not to forget the Food House (Restaurant de l'Université), they served my favorite desserts and starters there and the staff was amazing as well.