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English to be official language of new PhD Association

The general meeting of the new Aarhus University PhD Association has decided that all notifications, meetings and minutes will be in English.

When the newly established Aarhus University PhD Association speaks for all the university's PhD students with one voice – for example to the university leadership – it will be English words which are spoken. This decision was made when the association was established on 24 October.
The meeting was attended by representatives from all of the university's four PhD schools, and one of those elected to the new board of the association is Adam Etches, from Science and Technology. He notes that PhD students take English so much for granted these days that the rules about the official English language might easily have been omitted from the statutes.
"We have around 300 international PhD students at the university, and we are all part of an international research environment. We therefore felt that a purely Danish context for the PhD association was inappropriate", he says.
Where do problems exist?
Adam Etches explains that the existing four primary PhD associations and the new umbrella association would very much like more international PhD students to be involved in the work.
"The aim of the new association is to build bridges, for example between individual PhD students and the university leadership. Much of our work is quite routine – broadly informing PhD students of their rights, or making suggestions for improvements to the university leadership if we become aware of particular problems groups of PhD students are facing. But if we never hear about where the international students have problems, we can't do anything to help. That's why we want them to be involved."
All meetings of the Aarhus University PhD Association and the four existing primary PhD associations are open. Contact people for the new Aarhus University PhD Association and the existing primary PhD associations are listed on the association's Facebook page, which can be found by searching for AUPA.