The Student Council
The Student Council
The Student Council is the highest decision making body in the Student Union and consists of a maximum of 20 regular members and 20 substitutes who are elected by secret, proportional elections every Autumn. The Student Council has a presidium which consists of the president, vice president and second vice president. The Student Council has members both from Helsinki and Vaasa campuses and the distribution of members depends on the votes in the election.
For the mandate period 2021-2022, 16 ordinary members and 10 deputy members were elected in Helsinki, 4 ordinary members but no deputy members were elected in Vaasa and one deputy member is independent. This means that 20 ordinary members and 11 deputy members were elected to the Student Council. However, 5 ordinary members have been replaced by deputy members, who have gained status as ordinary members, which means that the Student Council until 31.12.2022 has 20 ordinary members and 5 deputy members.
The Student Council’s most important duties include deciding the budget for the Student Union, the Student Union fee, the business plan, and making the other big, strategic decisions for the Student Union. Furthermore, the Student Council elects the President of the executive board and approves the rest of the board members. The Student Council oversees the board’s work and also elects the Presidents of all the SHS Committees. The Student Council also handles any motions that a minimum of 10 student union members have signed. The Students Council meets roughly once a month throughout the school year.
The meetings are open for all members of the Student Union, which means that everyone is welcome to attend the meetings. The meetings are always in both campuses (Helsinki and Vaasa). Every year the members of the Student Council from Vaasa come to Helsinki for education days and the inaugural meeting, and it also is a tradition that the members from Helsinki travel up to Vaasa to have a meeting and join the Pampas Nationaldag event.
As a student union member, you can best influence Student Councils work and decisions by candidating at the Student Council Elections. You can also influence on following ways:
● Vote at the Student Council Elections (pre-voting 17-21.10.2020, election days
22-23.10.2020)
● Contact the Student Council member you voted for
● Contact the Presidium of the Student Council
● Collect a signature of at least 10 student union members and send in a motion – Student
Council will take the issue up in their next meeting.
In case you have any questions, opinions or feedback – don’t hesitate to contact the president or anyone else from the presidium. We encourage all student union members to actively follow up the student council’s decisions (summaries and protocols can be found at shs.fi) since many of them affect SHS members. We hope that the coming year will consist of open discussions via which we can work for an even better student union. SHS catch-phrase is “Finland’s most fun Student Union” and I want everyone to feel like that is true and I want everyone at the student union to work with this in mind.
We want to emphasise that the Student Council meetings are open for all the student union members. You are more than welcome to come and listen to the discussion and the decisions what happen in the meetings. The time and place (Helsinki and Vaasa, in 2021 even online or hybrid) for the meeting you will find at shs.fi at least 10 days before the meeting.
Hopefully we’ll see you and hear from you during the upcoming year!
Best Regards,
Emma, Emilia and Sofie
The Student Council Presidium
Student Council members for 2022-2023:
Regular members (electoral union):
| Ida Havunta (Helsinki) |
| Selma Lumio (Helsinki) |
| Tobias Holmberg (Vaasa) |
| Cecilia Dahlberg (Helsinki) |
| Emma Lindvall (Helsinki) |
| Rasmus Gustafsson (Helsinki) |
| Emilia Winqvist (Helsinki) |
| Julia Therman (Vaasa) |
| Mia Klemetti (Helsinki) |
| Anton Mattsson (Helsinki) |
| Emil Creutz (Helsinki) |
| Johannes Lövdahl (Vaasa) |
| Emma Joutsila (Helsinki) |
| Pia Blomqvist (Helsinki) |
| Sofie Eriksson (Helsinki) |
| Jesper Rajakangas (Helsinki) |
| Emilia Sparf (Vaasa) |
| Akseli Ahvenainen (Helsinki) |
| Richard Helsingius (Helsinki) – from 1.1.2023 |
| Noel Rönnberg (Helsinki) – from 1.1.2023 |
Deputy members (electoral union):
| Oskar Eskman (Helsinki) |
| Jonatan Stenberg (Helsinki) |
| Ellen Lönnqvist (Helsinki) |
| Hampus Nordin (Helsinki) |
| Valtter Kivinen (Helsinki) |
| Aliisa Lundén (Helsinki) |
| Adeliina Parikka (Helsinki) |
| Jenna Lampinen (Independent) |