The Uni­ver­si­ty of Tech­nol­o­gy Com­piègne is home to some 4 500 stu­dents reg­is­tered for engi­neer­ing, bachelor’s or pro­fes­sion­al degrees, master’s degrees and doc­tor­ate cours­es. They now can refer to the very first Stu­dent Life Mas­ter Plan, enti­tled the “Stu­dent Life Improve­ment Mas­ter Plan». Its strength: a co-con­struc­tion approach that puts stu­dents at the heart of the reflec­tion and draft­ing of proposals.

pro­pos­als. The mas­ter plan for improv­ing stu­dent life is the result of a gen­uine con­sul­ta­tion between stu­dents, UTC staff and var­i­ous local stake­hold­ers. The actions pro­grammed by this plan, cov­er­ing a 5‑year peri­od 2024–2028, are based on three main themes: feel­ing good in mind and body, liv­ing well and ful­fill­ing one­self with­in one’s envi­ron­ment and hav­ing a trans­for­ma­tive and tran­si­tion­al stu­dent expe­ri­ence look­ing ahead to their future pro­fes­sion­al lives.

«It took over a year to draw up this plan, based as it was on an inven­to­ry of the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion and brain­storm­ing work­shops with, as “pilots”, stu­dents who were asked to think and dream big around five ini­tial themes (being well in mind and body, liv­ing well togeth­er, liv­ing well at the UTC, being well sup­port­ed and liv­ing well in one’s envi­ron­ment). This led to a series of ambi­tions and con­crete actions, such as facil­i­tat­ing access to care by strength­en­ing the med­ical pres­ence via shifts for health pro­fes­sion­als such as speech ther­a­pists, occu­pa­tion­al ther­a­pists or neu­ropsy­chol­o­gists. Or set­ting up a one-stop shop, staffed by stu­dents, to pro­vide per­son­alised assis­tance with admin­is­tra­tive for­mal­i­ties. But we also need to recog­nise stu­dent com­mit­ment by cre­at­ing a new ‘asso-élite’ course for high­ly com­mit­ted stu­dents, and include the exist­ing ITC ‘elite’ cours­es (sport, music, asso, entre­pre­neur­ship) in the diplo­ma sup­ple­ment,» explains Véronique Hédou, a lec­tur­er and research sci­en­tist in applied math­e­mat­ics at UTC who has been in charge of stu­dent life for ten years.

. The ‘green’ thread of the plan: ecological transformation and social commitment

The eco­log­i­cal tran­si­tion and soci­etal com­mit­ment (TE&ES) is also a cen­tral con­cern for the UTC, its staff and its stu­dents. This is why TE&ES is a trans­ver­sal strate­gic axis, an inte­gral part of all of the institution’s mis­sions, which are research, edu­ca­tion, inno­va­tion, stu­dent life and cam­pus life. «Our devel­op­ments and choic­es are viewed through this major prism, so it is nat­u­ral­ly present in a large num­ber of actions in this Mas­ter Plan. We have cho­sen to make it a com­mon thread, an inte­gral part of all our actions». Mon­i­tor­ing and imple­ment­ing the Plan will there­fore require a great deal of work. Some­times via their asso­ci­a­tions, some­times via their elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives, the stu­dents will have to work along­side the UTC depart­ments to make the Plan a real­i­ty. It is a tool­box of ideas that should ensure that all those involved in stu­dent life who want to take action will not be bored for at least the next four years.