University policy (EN)

On this page you will find two topics:
1. how is the student representation organized?
2. how is the faculty organized?
You can also see where we are involved as a student association.

The best way to explain university politics is through the student representatives and their activities. We would like to introduce those to you below.

You will get a good overview in this video:

The Student Association represents all students of the Department of Biosciences at the TUM School of Life Sciences. It participates in student co-determination and self-administration and thus represents the study-related interests of its members. If you would like to know who is currently active in the student association, please visit our “members page”.

Student Association General Assembly (FVV)
Once every semester, usually at the beginning, the student association plenary meeting takes place. This is where we active members inform all those interested in our student association about what happened in the previous semester and what is coming up in the current semester.
All lectures should be canceled during the FVV so that everyone has the chance to attend. If a lecturer does not cancel a lecture, please let us know.

Student General Assembly (SVV)
The student assembly also takes place once a semester, usually shortly after the FVV. This is where members of the FSR and AstA Executive Board provide information on what is happening in the wider university policy and student context. The plenary assembly is for all WZW students and takes place almost simultaneously at all TUM locations.

The representatives of all WZW student associations meet regularly in the SCW to exchange ideas. What is currently happening in the respective student associations? What's going on on campus? What events are coming up?
Activities such as parties, the university election or Freshers' Days are planned together and implemented on campus. Here, too, all information and problems from the university policy committees are incorporated. Perhaps the SCW is best described as the WZW state parliament in terms of university policy.

Further information about the SCW can be found here:  https://www.sv.tum.de/rstv/startseite/

The Fachschaftenrat meets every 3 weeks and is the highest inter-faculty student body (i.e. only students and no TUM employees take part). In terms of university policy, it is the parliament of all student associations. Each of the TUM student associations sends one or more representatives to the FSR to represent the student association. The FSR board is made up of students from a wide range of disciplines. Each board member is responsible for one or more specific areas and often represents the students in other university policy committees.

The heads of the various departments (e.g. mobility department, diversity department, event technology) also take part in the meetings.

Many different things are decided and discussed in the FSR. These include the admission of student groups as university groups, the allocation of funds to student associations (e.g. for student association weekends, setting up student association rooms) and the semester ticket.
The Executive Board and the speakers provide information about their work and the representatives of the student associations report on what is currently happening in their student associations. In order to be allowed to vote on behalf of their student association in the FSR, the representative of the student association must be officially elected as a student representative in the university election.

The School Council is the highest university policy body at the WZW, bringing together students as well as professors from the various faculties and representatives of academic and non-academic staff. Our dean also takes part in the meetings.

In this council, there is a comprehensive exchange about the current study and research situation. It decides on general teaching matters (e.g. degree programs, fields of study and teaching assignments), habilitations, the granting of teaching licenses and the appointment of professors.

As only 4 student representatives from the 6 faculties sit on the School Council and are therefore allowed to make decisions, the election of representatives in the university elections is always particularly important. If the candidate from our student council does not receive enough votes, no student representative from our student council has the right to vote in the School Council and we cannot have an active say!

You can find out who sits on the School Council here:

https://www.ls.tum.de/ls/ueber-uns/gremien-beauftragte/school-council/

The Study Grant Committee discusses and votes on the allocation of funds for our study programs. This includes, for example, new equipment for internships, money for excursions or tutors. We students are allowed to discuss and vote on what the money should be spent on.

Are you wondering what actually happened to the evaluation of the study programs? They end up here. The Quality Management Circle discusses the evaluations and how to implement the suggestions for improvement. But also how evaluations can be better organized in the future and how to approach professors who have not done so well.
The circle is made up of the same members as the study grant awarding committee.

All Bachelor's and Master's students of Biology and Molecular Biotechnology belong to the Department of Biosciences. It is part of the TUM School of Life Sciences, which is the largest faculty at TUM with over 90 professorships.

In total, there are 6 faculties at the WZW and thus 6 student associations:

• Fachschaft Agrar- und Gartenbauwissenschaften
• Fachschaft Ernährungswissenschaft
• Fachschaft Forstwissenschaften & Ressourcenmanagement
• Fachschaft Landschaft
• Fachschaft Brauwesen und Lebensmitteltechnologie
• Fachschaft Biowissenschaften