Concerning UTN's support for Vice-Chancellor Eva Åkesson

20 February, 2014

Last week news broke about the confidence crisis within Uppsala University's management. In connection to this, the Student Unions of Uppsala University issued a statement to show that they have confidence in Eva Åkesson as Vice-Chancellor. Today Uppsala University's Board have a meeting where the issue will be discussed further.

Last week news about the confidence towards Uppsala Universitys Vice-Chancellor Eva Åkesson was highlighted. Several people in the university management had signed a letter in which they require the Vice-Chancellors resignation. The letter raised criticism against Eva Åkesson's suitability as a Vice-Chancellor, although it dit not elaborated further. On February 12, 2014 clarified Uppsala Union of Engineering and Science that we have confidence Eva Åkesson as Vice-Chancellor of the university. Eva Åkesson has done an excellent job for the students by paying attention to student culture and listen to students' opinions .

During Eva Åkesson's time as Vice-Chancellor, many decisions have been made that benefit undergraduate and postgraduate students of the Faculty and the rest of the University. Among other things, the University has decided that the education allowance for PhD students will be phased out and that the university is investing 2 million SEK on active student participation.

We would like to emphasize that our support to the Vice-Chancellor is about her work for us students. The information available today about the criticism has been scarce, therefore we can not comment on her total work as Vice-Chancellor.

Today, February 20, the issue will be discussed by the University Board. Hopefully the members of the board will get a clearer picture of the situation and may make a decision on how the matter should be handled with the University best in mind.