The meeting has now ended.
Thanks again to the speakers:
Daniel Cooper, President of RHUL Students’ Union
Sean Rillo-Raczka (ULU)
Alan Bradshaw (RHUL Management Department and UCU/ SU Liaison.)
Vicki Baars (NUS LGBT)
and to Sarah Honeycombe, Vice-president Communications and Campaigns (SURHUL), for her contribution.
Vote on lobbying next Wednesday outside meeting: overwhelming yes.
Cooper: COLLEGE COUNCIL MEETS NEXT WEDS AT MANAGEMENT BUILDING. Details to be confirmed.
Meeting is coming to end, a heated debate.
Daniel Cooper: lobby outside college council meeting next Weds is needed. (5th October).
Student: we should be involved in college council meetings. The college believe some students’ freedom of speech does not matter.
Student: we need posters to announce to everyone who is responsible for the cuts.
People here want to know what the next step will be.
People are both raising questions here, and suggesting crucial ways forward.
The discussion here at the ‘Why Defend Education’ event is heated.
Honeycombe says that decisions are being based on numbers, and not on real people.
Honeycombe: “we have to target two sets of people, there are two sets of people making decisions at our university.”
Daniel Cooper thinks it will be a good idea to have a lobby outside the College Council’s meeting, this coming wednesday. He says that, “democratic structures are not known. Paperwork is hard to get hold of.”
Student: “who’s fault is it? Who is this them? Who are College Management?”
Honeycombe: “We are told that there will be an economic crisis in the future: it is not proven.”
One student maintains that there is no economic crisis that justifies these changes to departments.
Bradshaw: ” no economic rational has been presented.”
Sean Rillo-Raczka: “stand on the picket-line with your lecturers.”
Sean Rillo-Raczka feels that the students should sacrifice one day of education for the sake of supporting the teaching staff if they intend to strike.
Sean Rillo-Raczka: “strike action is difficult.”
Vicky Baars: “You should make it clear to management that what they are doing is affecting your education.”
Students within the room have mixed opinions about whether they should support teaching staff strikes.
Student: we should target management to stop lecturers going on strike.
Student: students should not support lecturer strikes.
Speaker: UCU are planning strike. Pensions are becoming worse.
Student: absurd situation where experienced teachers are being sacked in the name of money. How are we running our schools and universities? We should be educating, not making money.
RHUL makes double surplus. Average 2.2%. RHUL- 4%.
Craig Gent: money is stashed away for mergers, which never happen.
Reply: goes into central pot and is invested in stock market to make a return.
Student: where does profit go from university? (£23m surplus in last 5 years)?
*this may not be completely factual and is just a personal opinion.
Student: Computer science department is being made to support itself on undergrad intake. Funding level at 48K is pathetic.
Student: unis have fallen into trap of looking at everything monetarily. People of real value to society (the thinkers) don’t always do the best financially/fiscally.
SU President: academic departments are not always going to do so well. Philosophy department at Middlesex was closed. Cross subsidies being restricted.
There is no cross subsidy at RHUL.
SU President: College Council meeting on 29th June. There was an investigation into subject closures- 22.5 jobs are at stake.
Student: in management eyes we are consumers, not students. It is all about the money. How can we let a handful of people stand in the way of the will of thousands! We also need to fight student apathy and get every student on side. If we do, we can win.
Student: we need to take strong facts to decision makers: unis run at surplus. It is a lie to say departments like Classics are losing money. Management salaries are too high (£250K a year.)
Student: MP responsible for colleges of Uni of London, Nick Clegg.
Sean Rillo-Raczka: management don’t like embarassment, we need to show management that we are passionate.
LGBT representative: 14 out of 24 representatives on college council are externals: do we know the background of these people?
Student: what are formal channels of communication to decision makers?
Student: individually, we need to take action. Debate with your friends and keep everyone talking about the cuts.
SU President: where is democracy in university?
SU President: SU has voice on college council- 24 members, 2 student representatives, 4 academics.
Sean Rillo-Raczka: Don’t just think about college council on meeting, but into the future.
Chair is struggling to keep points on topic. Asks for discussion to remain on education, not about the merits and demerits of the capitalist system.
3rd year student: billion of uninvested capital being wasted.
3rd year: claims about state debt are lies.
3rd year: we live in society which tries to commodify every little thing. Privatisation of education connected to the failings of capitalism.
3rd year student: facebook campaigns needed to make students aware about attacks on education.
Bradshaw: we want group of people who can put coherent argument/protest outside college council meeting. WEDNESDAY 5th OCTOBER outside management building.
Student: what time is meeting?
Reply: meeting on Weds at management building will start between 3pm and 5pm- TO BE CONFIRMED.
Chair: asking for new points.
Teacher: even if you don’t go on Facebook, still take action.
Honeycome: check proposals, re post them: Twitter, Facebook. It is disgraceful that college thinks they can hide proposals from students (personal view).
Honeycombe: college did not provide the appropriate forum for discussion. We have to ask questions, the information is not readily available.
Honeycombe: I found out about the proposals on Facebook. But RHUL have suggested these things should not be discussed on Facebook.
Honeycombe: not many people know much about the college proposals.
Baars (LGBT:) we need to educate each other.
Student: all small changes need to be challenged. If not, education will become privitised.
Student: government is trying to sneak things under the radar with small changes.
Heated discussion is starting.
Teacher: this affects all subjects.
Student: we want presence at meeting to find out why the cuts are wrong. Students are REAL STAKEHOLDERS!
Student: college council is meeting on Weds afternoon at Management Building.
Teacher: I’m getting frustrated about people talking about how annoyed they are. they should act !
Teacher: how do we mobilise everyone in college?
Teacher: students want to study languages and learn a language from scratch.
Teacher: we should discuss how we are going to mobilise teachers, departments and students.
Teacher: too many students per personal adviser.
Teacher in school of modern languages: once Italian goes, I lose my job. We should discuss how we are going to include all subject areas, even the ones that aren’t affected directly.
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We need to send message to young people and get them on board with their ideas.
Sarah Honeycombe (SURHUL) is now speaking. She will be co-ordinating the ‘Defend Education’ campaign.
The floor has now been opened-up for general discussion.
Cooper firmly believes that education is enrichment for our lives, it is the liberation of our minds.
Cooper thinks that perhaps the government doesn’t want an educated youth.
Cooper: we need to recognise education as a public good.
Cooper: the cuts are making student politics more important. We want to create lots of little “bangs” across the country. We need to take it to a national stage.
Cooper: this is just the start of it, really.
Cooper: The SU is a place to defend rights.
Cooper: there are very few collective organisations for change run by students, for students.
The speakers have come on! Music has, unfortunately, interrupted Daniel Cooper’s speech. Craig Gent has gone to investigate…….
Cooper: how do we respond?
Cooper: Youth unemployment is a waste of creativity. We are creating a ‘lost generation.’
The Orbital would like to state that many of the views shared today may be in progress. Many are still forming their opinions about the cuts, and about whether or not we really should defend education.
Cooper: This is a political system that has forgotten about us. The value of higher education is being forgotten.
In America, the main obligation of the universities is to its shareholders, not its students.
Cooper: The government want a sector that is Americanised. For profit.
Cooper: What the government are doing is giving businesses a leg-up to allow them into the sector. They are opening a door that will be very difficult to close.
Subjects are being told they are not worthy.
There is an abolition of funding for humanities.
There are 80% cuts at RHUL.
Students must face the attack on the foundations of society.
Up now: Daniel Cooper (SURHUL)
Sean Rillo-Raczka: “why defend education? Because it is transformative.”
It is important that we as students reach out to those in need.
We as students need to be a part of the movement against this “crazyness.”
Outside London child poverty is increasing. Incapacity benefit is being cut.
There is a crisis happening across this country.
Sean Rillo-Raczka is looking at the wider picture. Housing benefit is also being cut. This will increase poverty.
Rillo-Raczka: reality is masters of universities are very well paid, chairman of governors are super rich. UNI IS BIG BUSINESS, which is not healthy.
Reports show that elite institutions have not been fulfilling their wider participation criteria.
Rillo-Raczka: entrenched inequality in Oxbridge will get worse.
Rillo-Raczka: government want degrees to focus on financial benefit in future jobs too much.
Rillo-Raczka: cuts will ensure money making polytechnics.
Rillo-Raczka: cuts mean that students will be forced to vocational qualifications .
Rillo-Raczka: trusts like Harvard may result with many super rich students and no place for the middles classes who cannot afford fee. This if we allow the government’s cuts.
Rillo-Raczka: lecturers are shareholders in a business(uni)- this is wrong. Birkbeck?
Rillo-Raczka: if we want change, we cannot rest on our laurels.
Rillo-Raczka: white paper is attack on unis and promotes harmful privitisation.
Rillo-Raczka: what happened last year (protests) shows that we need to think about the future.
Rillo-Raczka: student movement shows that young people aren’t apathetic.
Sean Rillo-Raczka (ULU) is now speaking
we may seem extreme but unless we take a real stand, education will be finished!
Bradshaw: unless we understand challenges, we are heading for disaster!
We want to restore the lost values of education!
We must not fall into the trap of defending all parts of the uni blindly.
Bradshaw: real uni is nothing less than the continuing cycle of reason itself.
Real uni is state of mind and rational thought!
Bradshaw: real uni should be not tied down to buildings but true, deep, thinking.
Bradshaw: real uni is not a material object
Learning outcomes for modules are nonsensical!
Bradshaw: what sort of uni doesn’t care about eradicating boring education?
Bradshaw: students have lost their natural curiosity, are students being educated or administrated?
Bradshaw: shame on us for creating a system like this !
Bradshaw: education is not original, too predictable to students.
Bradshaw: are we defending education or post education?
Bradshaw: large attendance for tutorials where attendance is monitored, attendance not even 50% in lectures.
Bradshaw: too many boring Powerpoint presentations to students who will never have contact with their professors/lecturers.
Bradshaw: education today is indefensible, it has become corrupt. We should restore integrity and joy to education.
He part of the RHUL management department.
Alan Bradshaw is now speaking.
Baars: cuts not exclusive to LGBT students , ripples of effect based on your identity.
Cuts to enrichment will affect Student Unions heavily, harming social events and volunteering opportunities for LGBT students
Baars: post code lottery could result if cuts go through.
Courses mainly taken by women are most at risk whereas subjects like engineering are not.
Baars: 70% of budget cuts announced will affect women.
Vicky Baars: student counselling, mental health and health and well being services could be at risk.
Vicky Baars is speaking about the negative effects that a reduction in financial support will bring to LGBT students.
Now speaking: Vicki Baars (NUS LGBT.)
The room is filling up here at the SU.
Speakers tonight will include Daniel Cooper (SURHUL), Sean Rillo-Raczka (ULU) and Vicki Baars (NUS LGBT.)
Updates will be brought to you this evening by Lauren Keen and Alex Pegler.
