After the principal presented her programme to the University Senate, BEA representatives wanted to take advantage of the meeting to take the needs of the collective they represent to the candidate and her team. The ideas that were all over the meeting were those of further a Universitat that has to be "Democratic", Valencian, Sustainable, Feminist and Inclusive."
As part of the electoral campaign for the elections on 1 March, and with the aim of listening to all the groups in the university community, on the evening of 22 February the candidate held a meeting with the spokespersons of the Student Union of the Agermanats of the Universitat de València.
Mavi Mestre was accompanied by Ernest Cano, Isabel Vázquez, Adela Valero, Esther Alba, Helena Rausell, Pilar Serra and the delegate of the principal for students, Manuel González.
The BEA presented the candidate with a document containing proposals structured into four main areas.
One important block was that of measures aimed at deepening the democratic nature of the Universitat. In this area, they proposed reducing tuition fees, especially for second and third-year students, an objective that, as Mavi Mestre pointed out, has not ceased to be raised with the relevant government institutions. Transparency, measures to increase student participation in university life and the recovery of some outsourced services were also addressed.
Another area was sustainability, with measures such as the reinforcement of public transport to the campuses, a subject on which Professor Mestre explained the conversations held with the City Council of Valencia and the Generalitat Valenciana. It was also proposed to recover the water fountains in the faculties, especially in the aularis, which were removed because of the pandemic, as well as the need for actions to make the campuses more humane, particularly Tarongers, where an immediate competition of ideas is already planned.
Furthermore, both the current Vice Principal Esther Alba and the future Vice Principal for Sustainability, Cooperation and Healthy Living, Pilar Serra, announced, in response to the request to increase the number of spaces for students, the objective of creating open areas on campus to do some physical activities. In this regard, the Principal highlighted the role that the Lluís Vives area will play and insisted that it is a space for students and asked them to fill it with proposals, events and projects.
With regard to feminism and inclusion, the students called for more actions to raise awareness of any kind of harassment. Helena Rausell, who will be the Vice-Principal for Equality, Diversity and Inclusive Policies, answered some of the questions that arose, also related to the integration of people with disabilities, and highlighted the important work done by UVdiscapacitat and the fact that we are the Spanish on-campus university with the most students with disabilities.
When asked about specific cases that could constitute harassment, the candidate for Principal was very clear about her total and absolute commitment to carry out the necessary actions to respond to any type of aggression and discrimination.
The student spokespersons also demanded the gender perspective to be incorporated into the study plans.
Lastly, and in the area of a Valencian Universitat, the BEA proposed to go beyond the model of lines and opt for a multilingual model. While stressing that the plan to increase teaching in Valencian at undergraduate level has been completed, they demanded that a plan to increase teaching in Valencian in Master's degrees must be put in place, as planned. The current Vice-Principal for Studies and Language Policy shared the multilingual approach, which has been the aim for some time now, and explained some of the initiatives that are underway to improve the distribution of languages in the Bachelor's degree and to introduce multilingualism in Master's degrees.
Throughout the meeting, different members of the candidacy team present at the event, and in particular Vice-Principal Ernest Cano, encouraged the BEA representatives to talk to the vice-principals and put their proposals to them on a regular and continuous basis, not only during the campaign. As representatives of a key group for the Universitat, he said, there must be a fluid relationship with the Principal and her team because we need the vision of the student body and because you are important to encourage student participation in the Universitat.
