History of our Association
SCG 1973 – 1989
The history of the association ORAS starts on September 15, 1973, when SCG (Studenten Centrum Groep) was founded from the political party CG (Centrum Groep) as a counterpart of AAG (Afdeling Actie Groepen) in the University Council. At that time, the WUB (Law on University Administrative Reform) was in force. The governance structure with this law was as follows:
- The University Council, consisting of 1/3 students, 1/3 academic staff and 1/3 supporting staff
- The Executive Board, executing the decisions made by the University Council.
As the time progressed, it became clear that the system, introduced in 1970, was inefficient and unwieldy. Additionally, amendments to the Act of Administrative Reform, gave the Executive Board more influence and power, creating a discontent in the University Council. This resulted in a lot of frustrations between council members and the Council and the Executive Board.
ORAS 1990 - Now
In 1989 SCG started losing votes and eventually ended up with only 4 seats on the council. In that period, the most of the party's occupation consisted of organisational aspects. Promotion, organizing the political campaign and finding successors took most of the effort leaving only little time for the political tasks. Fortuntately, an Intertim Board, lead by Ludo Bergkamp, investigated what had to change. They introduced a board and a political association that could concern themselves with party affairs, allowing the council faction to focus on their political obligations. To emphasize these changes, the name of the party changed to the Organisation of RAtional Students (ORAS).
Om de nieuwe structuur te benadrukken werd een naamswijziging doorgevoerd. De naam SCG werd veranderd in Organisatie RAtionele Studenten (ORAS). Rationeel en pragmatisch waren altijd al termen die binnen de partij gevoerd werden en nu kwam dat ook terug in de naam.
When AAG began to lose support about ten years later and the ORAS faction grew, it was decided to transfer the management tasks back to the faction. However, it turned out in 2012/2013 that the faction was not able to carry out all the goals of the association. ORAS missed so many opportunities to attract new members, for example, to bring the party to the attention of 'John Student', to propagate its vision and to get fresh input from students. A four-headed board (3 part-time + one member from the faction) was set up to achieve these objectives and also to ensure that the faction could focus more on the Student Council's tasks.
The current board (Chairman, Secretary, Treasurer and General Board member) is thus responsible for the association ORAS, but also organizes activities for the name awareness of ORAS (as an association and as a party).
