Press release 12 November 2019
For immediate release
The two-day General Assembly of the National Union of University Students in Finland (SYL) will be held at the FellmanniCampus in Lahti on 15–16 November. The General Assembly wields the highest decision-making power in SYL and elects a new President and six Board members for SYL for next year. The General Assembly also outlines SYL’s goals and operations for next year and updates SYL’s policy paper, which is the guiding document for all of SYL’s advocacy work. All 14 student unions are represented at the General Assembly, and the student unions represent approximately 130,000 university students. The student unions appoint a total of 139 regular representatives to the General Assembly. The total number of participants is nearly 300.
The plenary session starts on Friday at 9:30 a.m. and continues on Saturday at 10:30 a.m. The election for SYL’s President will be held on Friday, and the new Board will be elected on Saturday. We will inform the media of the election results as soon as possible. There are two candidates for SYL’s President this year: Tapio Hautamäki (AYY) and Laura Wathén (HYY).
There are currently eight candidates appointed by the student unions running for the SYL Board’s six seats. The candidates for SYL’s Board are: Anna Oksanen (ÅAS), Paula Karhunen (HYY), Nikolas Bursiewicz (JYY), Frans Cederlöf (AYY), Paavo Antikainen (TREY), Teemu Virtanen (OYY), Johanna Pohjonen (TYY), Jenni Tuomainen (LYY). Candidates may be nominated until the elections take place at the General Assembly. You can learn more about the candidates on the SYL website at https://syl.fi/en/for-student-unions/the-candidates-for-the-president-and-the-board-of-syl-2020/.
The media is welcome to follow the General Assembly on both days.
The preferred time for interviews is during the lunch breaks (Friday between 12 noon and 1 p.m. and Saturday between 1 p.m. and 2 p.m.) and after the end of the General Assembly. For requests and inquiries regarding interviews, please contact SYL’s Communications Adviser (siiri.nousiainen@syl.fi, tel. 041 515 2228).
You can follow the live stream of the General Assembly on SYL’s YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/sylvideot. The hashtags used on social media are #SYLliittari and #StudentsOfFinland.
More information:
Secretary General Eero Manninen, tel. 045 631 7145.
President Sanni Lehtinen, tel. 044 906 5007.
During the General Assembly, we recommend you to contact our Communications Adviser Siiri Nousiainen, tel. 041 515 2228.
You can reach us by email at firstname.lastname@syl.fi.
The General Assembly documents can be found at https://syl.fi/en/for-student-unions/general-assembly/
You can also find the more detailed schedule in the online documents.
