I’m a current RMA student in Archaeology, having completed my bachelor’s degree at Leiden in 2022. In those years, I’ve seen many different sides of the faculty. I’ve seen both a passionate academic culture that I really love, and severe issues in matters such as student wellbeing, diversity and inclusion, and communication between administration and students. I believe that these are issues that we can work on to create a more positive working and studying environment. Working as  teacher for two years has also given me a thorough understanding of educational practice that I hope to use to strengthen student voices at the faculty. I have worked to help students transition from high school to university settings, and provided study support for students with mental health issues- experiences I hope to use to improve support for students at the faculty, ensuring a happy and equitable educational environment for all.

The past year in my position to the Faculty council, we focused on the Cultural Change, inclusivity and communication with our student and faculty. While these pillars of interests are always present in our meetings, the problem that define this and the coming Council is the governmental budget cuts; an unfortunate reality threatening directly the structure of our BA and (R)MA programs. The past year the Council and I have been working with the Board to maneuver around the cuts by still providing quality education to our students and an enjoyable environment for our staff.

Having experienced my early adult life in this faculty, I want to help this community by addressing its problems through practical policy making. Our ambition is to provide a healthy academic environment with diverse and quality education for all. In this current Council I have addressed the communities complaints on the lack of and/or expressive field school opportunities, providing students the thesis supervisors of their choosing, and discussing ways of making higher education more inclusive. If elected, I promise providing my time into tackling upcoming problems as best as possible.

I am Lucas Pascarelli, an international Research Master student. I did my Bachelor here at Leiden University as well, and over the 4 years that I have been here I've seen many changes and developments within the faculty. I also spent two years on the board of L.A.S. Terra, and have been a student mentor to some of the first years this year. Through these experiences, I've been able to see what works, what needs improvement, and where changes need to be made in our faculty. I'd like to continue making connections across the faculty, and to contribute more to implementing the changes that need to be made, and this is why I am running for a position on the Faculty Council.