Council meeting minutes from 2025-07-25

minutes of the students' representative council for study programs of computer science

Math Prep Course requests funding

---- INTRO ------

Willy S. from math prep course asked on behalf of the Math Prep Course for some funding to support their events. They host events during their courses such as Quiznight, Gamenight, campus rally, volleyball tournament and more.

---- DISCUSSION ------

The math prep course has over 200 students taking part and they prepare new CS students for the type of math they will be introduced during their study. Things like doing proofs and other topics normally are not so focused in school. They are one of the columns supporting studying CS. The present council members were also very appreciating the efforts they do.

The CS FSR has supported them in the past in different iterations. In the past we supported them with 300€ (for some context, this is as much as one CS Breakfast event costs).
As far as it is now, that amount would be the same this iteration.

We agreed to also help them advertise the prep course though our social media.

We voted, if we want to support them again:

Yes: 7
No: 0
Abstaining: 0

---- CONCLUSION ------

The result of the vote will be forwarded to the FIS, since they handle our money.

We will advertise the prep course in the beginning of august through our social media.

Deans Lunch WS2025 — Begin of Organisation

---- INTRO ------

Every semester we organize the deans lunch were we get together with the deans office, administration, study coordination, prep school and more to talk about hot topics that need to be escalated to this level.

---- DISCUSSION ------

This time, organization will start early and we are already aiming for a date just after the semester started (late October/early November). There will be reminders about this in the internal groups. Plan in 3h.

We still need to decide how open this meeting will be. But we will collect topics openly via some feedback event before the meeting.

---- CONCLUSION ------

As this was just a small update, further notice will happen later in time.

New meeting time slot for lecture free period

---- INTRO ------

During the lecture free period the council normally meets on a two weeks interval. We discuss this again for this iteration.

---- DISCUSSION ------

Historically, we often searched for a better time for the meetings and currently today is the last date to have a scheduled meeting. So we need to decide when the next meeting(s) will take place.

Our internal poll was brought to attention and we will try to find a date internally.
This topic is just a reminder to make sure council members aware of this. We will publish the new meeting time slots once decided.

---- CONCLUSION ------

We will find a new meeting slot and will announce the change once decided.

No photo on new student card

---- INTRO ------

There will no longer be a photo on the student cards, this raises issues.

---- DISCUSSION ------

Yet another new exam period has began and lecturers are facing a new problem. In newly issued student cards there is no photo. This makes checking student’s identity harder as now a supplement ID with photo is required. Double the work and preparation for both examiner and examine all because of <insert student card issuing office here> “cheaps out”.

Technically, the student ID was never a proper means of identification, as the photos were not verified in any way. Which is why you are usually requested to bring a photo ID anyways (at least we always handled it like that). However this change removes the possibility for lecturers to be lenient if people forgot their ID/passport.

It does not seem like we can change this, since this is enforced by the university. A better angle to tackle this issue would be to voice our concerns to AStA and StuPa. We could also highlight this at the next deans lunch.

While the proffs will most likely announce this in their lectures (that you will need a different form of ID), we are concerned that students might mix things up and end up in exams not being able to take part. The idea was raised to warn/remind them again from our side.

---- CONCLUSION ------

We will forward to this issue to the deans lunch (once every semester), and in the next FSK (meeting of all student councils which happens every 4-6 weeks).

Also we will do a reminder for students before the next midterms and once again before the exams.

CIP Pool in a bad state

---- INTRO ------

The CIP pool in bioinformatics is now for all CS students. While this is generally great, with the higher usage there are now issues.

---- DISCUSSION ------

There is trash lying around like coffee cups, things plugged out and turning things off.
There could be a maintenance problems which contributes to this (not knowing how the monitors work). An admin that makes sure the cable are plugged in and looks after the room and that people using it behave. This should not be the job of the students council but someone being paid to look after this.

---- CONCLUSION ------

We will contact the next known responsible person in this bubble and try to solve this and if needed raise this issue to the deans lunch.

Student Feedback interview update

---- INTRO ------

We collected your (student) feedback during two events. This feedback was forwarded to the student quality bureau during an interview. This is a small update about this interview and what will happen next.

---- DISCUSSION ------

First off the content off the interview:

When asked what the purpose of this bureau is, we were told that the quality bureau was introduced during covid as a means of checking in on students. Now after covid they ask once a year every student council how students feel with a list of changing topics. The interview was a joined meeting together with the math council, planned for 60 min and took 80 min. The idea was to collect feedback which then will be put together into a document from them to look into when new study programs are planned as a sort of reference. We surprised them with our collected feedback, they promised to look into this but we also took the chance to voice some of the issues during the interview, so they are definitely heard.

We voiced some topics during the interview in person:

While we are not sure which of those topics are something the quality bureau is the right place to voice them, when asked how students feel, this still felt like the response to give. We forwarded with more attention the problems coming with the high semester fee, the stress and mental load students of CS experience during the first semesters to the point of breakdowns. Also the problems with exams and the anxiety coming from being unsure what to focus on learning. Longer building access and getting home late (Nachtbus). There was an issue with renting equipment (laptop) which took too long to solve, we also told them that there should be a better solution or fail safe. Problems international students may face with finding a job in SB were also pointed out.

We were asked for our experience regarding some topics:

The first one was if students with disabilities are threaded fairly with the needed support during exams and assignments. For example more time during exams and hand ins for our students who are neurodivergent came to mind here. If you need any help to be treated in the fair way you should be treated, do not hesitate to reach out (https://www.uni-saarland.de/en/administration/diversity/ksb/students/reasonable-accommodations).

We were also asked if there are known issues with racism and misogyny in CS. As far as we are aware of, there was recently only one case during a lecture which was brought to us and was tried to solve during the next lecture. Also to be completely transparent, we also did have some internal incident in the beginning of this semester which the involved persons solved together with AStA and the council members. Apart from this we are not aware of any other issues. If something happened to you or to your friends, do reach out! Either to us (directly or anonymous via mail), the AStA (https://asta.uni-saarland.de/soziales-beratung), or the uni instance (https://www.uni-saarland.de/en/administration/diversity/ksb/students/reasonable-accommodations).

Lastly we were asked if the density of exams are ok. We gave the response that during the first two semester it is tried to give days between each exam and that the corresponding people try their best in higher semester to avoid a too high density. But given with much freedom of picking you courses in later semesters, it becomes hard to avoid collisions. If something like two exams on the same day happens, it is not intended and a slip up, where the lecturer should be made aware of. Either directly or through us.

Lastly, what will happen now:

Collecting feedback once a year, to then store it in a file to be considered, does not felt to be enough to us. Therefore we pressured and asked for another meeting with the quality bureau after they had the time to go through our collected feedback document. They proposed to meet in 3-4 weeks to give everyone in their team a chance to read. We then will go though the issues raised and will find out who to address, who is responsible, if it is not the quality bureau. Once this meeting took place, we will update you again about the contents.

Apart from this, we think this way of directly exchanging and talking about problems you encounter while studying here while drinking some tea/coffee is an event we now want to keep and will repeat in the future. The next feedback event is planned to be held in the beginning of the next semester, when more students are at uni again.

---- CONCLUSION ------

We will meet again with the quality bureau once they had time to go through the feedback.

More feedback events are planned, the next one will be in the start of the next semester.