Two years on the Board: Student representative Kevin Olesen looks back

Kevin Olesen has always been fascinated by power. He has always wanted to understand how it plays out between friends, partners, and political parties in the Danish parliament. He has always been drawn to the people who had the opportunity to lead others.

After two years as a student representative on the Board representing the Student Council at the University of Copenhagen (UCPH), he has also learned something. It is not just about having power, but also about understanding how to use it.

»As student [representatives, ed.] we have the same power as the others in the Board. But to use this power is the hard part. It takes a lot for two student representatives to convince the nine other board members about anything,« he says.

It all ended 1 January, when Kevin Olesen stepped down from the university’s Board. This is the occasion for the University Post meeting up with the 31-year-old student of the social sciences to learn more about student politics, the inner life of the Board, and his biggest achievements after two years at the centre of UCPH power.

Double pressure

Kevin Olesen has no doubts as to how to answer the last question: That University of Copenhagen quit its investments in companies with activities in Israeli settlements.

READ MORE: University of Copenhagen to quit investments in Israeli-occupied territories

»I think both the result and the process were the biggest victory, especially due to the way both I and the Student Council managed to collaborate with Students against the Occupation,« says Kevin Olesen.

The pro-Palestinian student activist group gained national significance when it set up a tent camp at the University of Copenhagen in May. The students issued six demands to senior management. One of them was that UCPH should drop its investments in companies on occupied Palestinian land. The group succeeded in getting management to concede to some of the demands, and left the camp after just under one month.

»The whole process showed that there is an incredible strength in having some people inside the room, and some outside. That activism is not the opposite of sitting in the boardroom and negotiating, and vice versa. That is why I see it as a victory for future collaboration with student organisations,« says Kevin Olesen.

Students Against the Occupation is perceived by some as a controversial group that, according to UCPH, has violated several of the university’s internal regulations. Why is a fruitful collaboration with a group like this the biggest victory of your time as a board member?

»Neither I nor the Student Council support everything that the Students Against the Occupation has done. And their methods are controversial at times, especially around the tent camp and the blockade of the Museum building. But on the issue of investments, and the cooperation we have had with them in this regard, I see broad support for this. Especially among students, who are our focus,« says Kevin Olesen.

READ ALSO: Student protesters blockade central University of Copenhagen buildings

Consensus democracy

While the collaboration with Student Against the Occupation produced good results, it was another conflict that took up the space at the Board meetings during Kevin Olesen’s time in office: The administration reform.

It was finally adopted by the the Board in June 2024, shortly before the summer holidays, and will mean that UCPH will cut DKK 300 million annually on administration.

READ ALSO: 300 million, expensive consultants, and upset guests: Here is the full University of Copenhagen administration reform story

There was no vote among the 11 members – six external and five internal – on its adoption, however. And no votes have been held on the Board during Kevin Olesen’s time there.

»I haven’t experienced it. Not even when we had to approve the new rector at the last Board meeting. It is done by showing resistance, and if you are so much against something that you cannot support it, then I am sure you can get it written into the minutes,« Kevin Olesen says.

Does it not deprive members of their power when there are never any real votes in the Board?

»I don’t think there are any of the things that we’ve handled in my time where it made sense – apart from saying what you disagree with something. If it is clear that there is clear support for something in the Board, then it also becomes very performative having to vote at all.«

Performatively or not, this is how democracy works. For example in the Danish parliament. And is it not important whether the minutes state that it is a unanimous board that has adopted something, or whether it states that, say, Kevin Olesen was against it?

»Yes, it can. But I also think that the UCPH board has previously had the experience that if you made too much out of the votes, there was a greater focus on the disagreements. And that made the cooperation worse,« Kevin Olesen says, and continues:

»At the same time, it is also about what will happen if you vote against an agreement. Because if you look at the Danish parliament, it is only those who are party to an agreement who help negotiate it. So if I vote against something in the Board, will I then be disqualified from being consulted on that issue?«

Knowing the enormity of the administration reform, according to Kevin Olesen, it was important that a unanimous board could debate the issue so that all aspects were taken into account.

»If a vote was held, there would be the risk that only the external members, who have the majority, would vote in favour. But it has been incredibly important for the whole Board that you have everyone included when you make these big changes,« he says.

Kevin Olesen emphasizes that he has been positively surprised by external members’ commitment to the Board work.

»They are typically people from the business community with high-level positions, and my prejudice was that some of them would constantly try to influence UCPH in a more corporate direction. But there is actually a wide representation among the external members, and you feel that people are there because they actually want something good for the university,« he says.

Political chameleon

It is no big surprise when a former youth politician gets involved in student democracy at university. But it is that Kevin Olesen, a former chairman of the centre-right Liberal Party’s youth chapter in Ringkøbing-Skjern, should represent the [leftist, ed.] Student Council.

»I actually voted for Conservative Students in the university election on my first semester in 2017,« he recalls.

His interest in student politics was awakened a couple of years later when Kevin Olesen, then a history student, joined the blockade of the Dean’s Office at Faculty of Humanities in 2019. The blockade lasted 38 days and ended with the students getting the faculty’s target plan changed, so that planned programme mergers were dropped.

This victory whetted Kevin Olesen’s appetite. It proved to Kevin Olesen that as a student he could help make changes and influence UCPH.

»I found out that a lot of my motivation for being at the university comes from doing student politics, and I have always believed that you should spend time on what you think is cool. So you can give lower priority to your studies, as long as you are still doing it,« he says.

From there, Kevin Olesen worked his way up the Student Council hierarchy, and at the university elections in 2022 he was elected to the Board.

He attributes his long student political CV to his ability to engage in many contexts with very different people.

»It’s great to be able to go from being part of a blockade or protest to the next day putting on your best clothes to sit down in the boardroom. I have become quite experienced in that game and can today talk to all kinds of people« says Kevin Olesen.

Can you call yourself a political chameleon?

»I think there’s something about that expression that gives the impression that you’re not honest. I really think I am. But when it comes to the fact that I can figure out how to talk to people, network, and fit into many contexts, then you probably can.«

Future egoist

At the same time as he becomes an ex-board member, Kevin Olesen is also stepping down from the executive committee of the Student Council and the board in the National Union of Students in Denmark. This will leave him with more focus on his studies from now on.

He won’t be quite done with his student political work, however.

»I still want to fight for students and want to improve other people’s study programmes. But I will be a bit more selfish in my choices. Many of my choices until now have been based on what is good for the Student Council. And somehow I feel that I have contributed my part to the organisation. Now I can more freely choose what I really want to spend my time on,« says Kevin Olesen.

He has been appointed to the Academic Board on Education Strategy, where he has a seat from 2025.

»There are a lot of things we’ve been working on concerning the administration reform in the Board, that now need to be implemented. And here the Academic Board on Education Strategy will play a key role in the education area,« says Kevin Olesen.

He has said goodbye to his boyhood dream of becoming a politician in the Danish parliament.

»Politics nowadays is too much about self-promotion and selfies, and less about creating political results. On top of this, you need to have an opinion on many more things than I feel is my expertise area,« says Kevin Olesen.

The insights he has got from his work in student politics he will use in other contexts.

»It could be really exciting to do political interest campaigning for people who don’t have that much experience in politics. Use this political chameleon ability. Now that I have found out that politics is so many places, my political experience can be used no matter where I end up.«