What is a Student Representative?

The Student Council is the body comprising all student representatives. The Council meets roughly once per month to discuss all issues which are relevant to the student body and to convey those issues to the appropriate organs. These meetings also provide an opportunity for the student reps to become informed about what is going on at SISSA, and to cooperate and effectively organise a coordinated response to whatever problems might arise.

The Student Board is made up of the President and Vice President, and the student members of the Senate, Board of Directors and Evaluation Unit. It is the executive branch of the Student Council, and handles the day-to-day management of the student reps and their activities. It is responsible for enacting the decisions of the Student Council and can be considered the Council’s “leadership group”. The members of the Student Board are sometimes (informally) called the ‘big reps’ because their positions involve heavier workloads and greater responsibilities than the other reps.

The head of the Student Council is the President. They are responsible for transmitting the requests of the Council to the Director, convening Student Council meetings, and submitting an annual report on the activities, issues and concerns of the Student Council and the student body to the School Council. They are also responsible for the general organisation of the activities of the Student Council. The Vice President assists the President and takes over their duties when the President is indisposed.

The President and Vice President are elected by the Student Council from its members. While any representative is eligible, it is a convention that the members of the Senate, Board of Directors and Evaluation Unit are not selected to be President to prevent them from being overworked.

The Academic Senate is one of the governing bodies of the School (along with the Board of Directors), and is broadly responsible for deciding School policy. As such it can be thought of as the beating heart of SISSA politics. The Senate meets roughly once per month, and the members discuss and decide upon every issue that affects the School, from the very big to the very small, relating to general and strategic planning and managing educational and scientific activities.

For some recent examples, the Senate drafts the rules that regulate life in the School; decides on partnerships with other institutions; is partially responsible for extending PhD and post-doc fellowships; selects members for most committees; decides whether to renew expired contracts; approves the addition or removal of PhD courses; buys new equipment to stream classes online; and determines the rearrangement of the tables in the garden. As should be clear, the Senate proposes, debates and votes to decide upon every aspect of the future of SISSA.

The Senate is composed of two student representatives along with the Director, the Area coordinators, four representatives of the professors and one representative of the postdocs. Since discussions currently take place in Italian, a good knowledge of the Italian language is required.

The Board of Directors is one of the governing bodies of the School (along with the Academic Senate), and is in charge of developing the strategic directions of the School, checking the financial/economic management and sustainability of activities, and implementing the guidelines and policies indicated by the Senate.

In particular, on the opinion of the Senate, it also approves the various annual financial statements of the School (bilancio di previsione, bilancio d'esercizio, bilancio consuntivo) and their amendments; approves expenditures on scientific materials and equipment; adopts the provisions relating to contributions for students; determines the structure of the managerial and administrative & technical staff and decides recruitment policies; manages the School buildings and spaces and decides upon improvements; ratifies conventions and agreements with other institutions and companies; ratifies job announcements and stipulates contracts for teaching activities.

The Board of Directors is composed of two student representatives along with the Director, two external members, four professors and one representative of the administrative & technical staff. Since the Board of Directors is a legally vested body, its members are entitled to be compensated for their work, and so the student representatives are paid for each meeting they attend. Since discussions currently take place in Italian, a good knowledge of the Italian language is required.

The Evaluation Unit is the body that supervises all of SISSA's various processes (accreditation of doctoral courses, transparency checks, etc.). It also helps prepare (with the Student-Professor Joint Committee) and analyses the annual Questionnaire and discusses the results with representatives of both the students and teaching staff. The student representative in the Evaluation Unit actively takes part in these processes and suggests improvements/indicates problems which are subsequently communicated to the other bodies of SISSA as appropriate.

The Area reps are the first point of contact for the majority of students having issues. They sit on the Area Council for their Area (Mathematics, Neuroscience or Physics) where all the important matters concerning that specific Area are discussed. There is one representative per PhD course (‘course reps’), though the Mathematics and Physics Areas require more student reps to meet quorum than there are courses, and so also have ‘supplementary reps’. For all practical purposes, the supplementary reps have all the same responsibilities as course reps and typically no distinction is made between them (they just act as a second course rep for their course).

You will meet your representative(s) at the Student Council presentation at the start of your PhD course.

ARDiS is the regional agency devoted to providing financial assistance to students, and it is responsible for providing e.g. canteen and bus pass discounts. The ARDiS Representative will sit on a round table together with the Regional Assessor for Instruction and members of the local administrative staff, and so a very good knowledge of the Italian language is required.

The CUG (Comitato Unico di Garanzia, sometimes called the ‘Committee for Wellbeing’) is the committee in charge of ensuring equal opportunity, promoting of the wellbeing of personnel, and fighting against discrimination at SISSA. It is responsible for guaranteeing gender balance in committees and events. It takes care of the wellbeing of the students by overseeing the psychologist service, and moreover deals with discrimination, bullying, harassment, etc. within the community. The student representative in the CUG takes part in all the processes involving the CUG such as selecting the psychologist and requesting improvements to services from the Academic Senate. The representative on the CUG is chosen from the Student Council.

The International Students’ Representative is responsible for representing within the Student Council the interests of all foreign students at the School in matters which are unique or especially relevant to foreign students, as well as trying to address those issues where possible. They are also the person foreign students should go to if they have problems related to bring a foreign student, e.g. the permesso di soggiorno, residency, language difficulties, etc. The International Rep is the only student rep which does not sit in an organ of the School outside the Student Council.

The Quality Assurance Unit is one of several organs designed to maintain SISSA’s high quality, along with the Evaluation Unit and Student-Professor Joint Committee. The main task of the PdQ is to oversee and coordinate the various quality assurance organs and interact with the various administrative bodies as necessary. For example, if the Evaluation Unit needs information, the PdQ assists obtaining it, and likewise, if some problems are identified by the Evaluation Unit and provisions are taken in response, the PdQ is supposed to decide whether those provisions sufficiently address the problem or not. The body meets relatively infrequently and the representative is chosen from the Student Council.

The School Council is an advisory body consisting of all the School’s professors as well as representatives of the students, postdocs and administrative & technical staff. In particular, the students are represented in the School Council by the student members of the Academic Senate,Board of Directors and Evaluation Unit along with six dedicated School Council representatives for a total of eleven student reps.

It is the School Council’s duty to discuss the Director's annual summary of the scientific, didactic and financial activities of the School and provide guidance for future lines of action; examine the annual report submitted by the Student Council; formulate opinions, based on the proposals of the Academic Senate, on the activation, modification or suppression of Scientific Areas or of other structures, to be submitted to the Board of Directors. The School Council is also responsible for electing the Director, and plays an advisory role in the recruitment of professors and researchers.

The School Council generally meets at least once a year on the invitation of the Director, or whenever requested by at least one third of its members.

The Student-Professor Joint Committee monitors the educational offerings, the quality of teaching and the quality of the services provided to students by the academic personnel. It is also primarily responsible for the annual Questionnaire. It consists of three representatives of the professors (one from each Area) and three student reps, one from each Area and selected from the six dedicated School Council reps.

In addition to the organs listed above, SISSA maintains various committees and subcommittees to monitor various issues, oversee policies, plans and activities, and provide recommendations to the above organs. These typically involve a student member, who need not be a student representative but is welcome and encouraged to report to the Student Council when appropriate. See the Committees page for some especially relevant examples.