by DACrowe on Thu Dec 09, 2010 3:49 am
I'd definitely want to agree with Siena that it's commendable they managed to (and surprising they were able to!) find a block of time during which Lower Parliament Hall was not in use. If you were wanting a totally neutral reason to support the strike, university facilities are there for students to enrich their learning experience and apparently the people involved in the occupation find it rewarding in some way.
What I would say to 'Mumbler' though who seems to be the de facto voice of the occupation on the Sinner, and in so doing echoing some of what Spike has already said, the key to a good protest surely is that your aims are both relevant and achievable. You mention that one motivation for the protest is that the university's Chancellor is an MP and yes indeed he is, but he's also pledged (and... er... pledged again) to vote against the tuition fee bill, so if influencing him was the principle aim then congratulations you achieved your objective before the occupation even began.
I don't think it's unfair for Spike to call you on some of the odd things which appear in the list of the occupation's demands though as, after all, those are the occupations demands.
Let's briefly go through the list (with a bit of re-arrangment to make them more thematic)
No to raising tuition fees - I assume this refers to the raising of fees in England. As I said the MP for this area has already said he will vote 'no' and if you think he'll roll back on that issue having said it from the outset I'd submit that you don't know Ming (and you should, because he's lovely). So in far as this aim is achieveable it would seem better pursued by attending a rally somewhere the MP does intend to vote 'yes' or to abstain or to participate in the SA's letter writing campaign to them if physical attendance would interfere with your studies.
Widening uni access policy; scholarships last your whole time at uni, not just first year - No university opposes access; there is no conspiracy on the part of the university to promote the acceptance of underqualified students. Indeed the university has a vested interest in exactly the opposite. But a lot of time it's a question of diminishing returns. A scholarship system like the one you're proposing would be very expensive and the university's funds are finite, so proposing it while simultaneously opposing all cuts appears to be inconsistent practical terms. You can certainly make the case for scholarships to the university and there may be a form of financial assistance to low income students with regards to accomodation in the future, but again if you wish to convince people you have to make a case which appears to be in touch with the financial realities which this demand just on the face of it doesn't appear to be.
Investigation into High drop out rates of low income rate - I found this a rather disingenuous addition to the list. As seemed to be made perfectly clear at the Principal's open forum (which you can view online) the university /is/ currently investigating this and it is only through the investigation the university is conducting that we know this is the case. The upshot will hopefully be a targeted policy to deal with the key reasons for this drop out rate because as I said above and the Principal made clear at the forum the university has a strong vested interest in fighting this trend as it appears that those who do stay on tend to do better on average than students from higher income backgrounds (perhaps because they'd have had to work harder in order to get here).
No frontline staff cuts, No disproportionate targeting of any school or department with cuts - First I'm sure the university wouldn't deliberately engage in anything it considered to be 'disproportionate'. As I think Spike mentioned at lot of these budgetary facts are set by central government. So for example, in England, given the cuts have been to the teaching budgets for arts and humanities and not the sciences it's forseeable that the arts and humanities teaching will undergo greater cuts in university budgets as, after all, that corresponds with what the funds they get from central government are earmarked for. If the government in Holyrood after the next election decided to do something similar you could expect a similar outcome. But of course university finances are a complex business and departments aren't islands unto themselves otherwise the patents held by, for example, the Chemistry department wouldn't be effectively 'shared' with the rest of the university as it is. The university has a vested interest in keeping a fairly balanced base of subjects but obviously if cuts are made it may well be that it's sensible for the university to favour some departments over others in keeping with it's strategy to be a world leader in those subject areas. And example would be the amounts currently spent on philosophy and international relations which recieve levels of funding some might consider 'disproportionate' precisely for St Andrews to compete in those subjects at an international level. If it's a concern you have you'd be better advised going to the Principal's office hours than occupying Parliament Hall.
No announcements of budget allocation outwith of academic year - This is a good idea, but obviously this is something the SA has been heavily pushing for after the announcement about the library project funding was made outwith term time. I'm not sure to what extent the occupation would further the case for this in a relevant way. It would seem more productive to make a sensible and measured case for the need for the university to properly engage with its student representatives in order to maintain good relations with the student body (which are obviously necessary for St Andrew's continued success given the importance the 'student satisfaction rating' has in the current rankings systems).
Complete financial transparency on the part of the University, No further staff cuts until transparency - This seems a mix between the achieved and the redundant. So the University's finances are public record as a registered charity (or so I understand) and the only aspect which hasn't been (again, so far as I understand) has been the fundraising figures, which again is something the SA has been pushing for following the library project incident given how much of the projected spending on the library was supposed to be coming from fundraising figures. What you can be sure is that given the extent to which her reputation is built upon her successes as a fundraiser and relies upon that trend continuing, the Principal is highly motivated to work with fundraising.
Student involvement in decision making areas (i.e. Court and Senate) - Again, of course, this is something the SA is pushing for and again I'm really not sure the extent to which the occupation if it presents itself as picking a fight with the university will promote that goal. The university is far more likely to engage more closely with student representatives if it sees them as constructive interlocutors with shared concerns (student welfare, access, the continued prestige and success of the university etc); which is one of the reasons we can be glad they're dealing with Owen and Siena.
No commercialization of teaching - I'm not sure what this means. I mean... when I taught last year I was paid for it. This seemed a good system to me. I'm not sure what you're talking about in so far as this 'demand' is seperate from the first one about tuition fees. What I would say is that vague and diffuse demands do nothing to help your overall cause and should be avoided. What would be the circumstances under which you would consider your demand for 'no commericalisation of teaching' to have been met?
No caps on students from any geographical areas, No accepting of ‘overseas-fee bribes’ from British students to gain University places - I find this pretty disingenuous again. The source from this, I'm fairly sure, comes from remarks made by the Principal at the open forum. Perhaps I'm feeling a bit of personal bias here as she gave the response which mentioned it to a question I asked her about the University's lobbying priorities. The current caps on student numbers from Scotland is (a) not the University's policy but Holyroods and (b) not something that the University supports in fact it actively opposes it. St Andrews spends a lot of money (unnecessarily, in a manner of speaking) each year in fines for exceeding the quota of students it is permitted to take from Scotland. Again, this is something the Principal made very clear at the Open Forum. I was interested in learning what the University might be lobbying for as obviously Higher Education financing is an issue which is going to come up in the Scottish elections this May, so I was wondering if they would be pushing for a graduate tax as NUS Scotland will be. The answer I was given (if I recall correctly, you can check the video) was twofold; (1) the lobbying organisation the University is part of hasn't decided what it's position will be and (2) St Andrews, given it considerably outperforms the other Scottish universities in league tables, is lobbying for greater financial autonomy of the universities to pursue alternative sources of revenue. One example given to this would be the ability to charge domestic students the overseas student rates when the cap on student numbers imposed by Holyrood had been reached. So, the Scottish government limits the number of domestic students who can attend the university. An option being floated is that for people who apply in excess of that cap, who meet the academic requirements for admission but are turned down in any particularly year, if they are able to pay at overseas rates will be given the option to do so. The money gained can then be used to fund projects such as the kind of scholarships you're talking about above or the accommodation subsidisation I mentioned; from the impression I got from the brief conversation I had with her afterwards, using this new revenue to further improve the university and promote access for low-income students is something the Principal feels strongly about and while you might have concerns about the creation of a two-tier system so long as there are controls in place to maintain high academic standards of admissions the gain in the ability of the university to promote access seems worth it when the 'cost' is allowing students who wouldn't otherwise have been able to come here because of limits put in place by the Scottish government to do so.
That said, I hope your occupation goes really well and you enjoy yourself, though I'd question the extent to which 'success' is possible given the stated aims makes it hard to see how any quantifiable success might be determined to have been achieved.