Power to the masses! (sorta)

Got handed an intriguing leaflet on campus yesterday. Seems there's a bunch of people not happy with the current direction the university is going. No surprises there. The group call themselves 'Reclaim The Uni' (at least, that's what their Facebook group is called), claim to represent both staff and students and their objectives represent quite a broad spectrum of lefty ideals. The interesting thing is that they seem to be operating independently of the usual student and trade unions.

I'll start by saying I'm not setting out here to deliberately undermine them. Quite the opposite in fact; the only reason universities get away with not paying attention to their students nowadays is because of the rampant apathy. Firebrand, politically active students seem to be a dying breed. But then again, some of the stuff is already sounding a little misguided.

Last week, a bunch of them (they claim 300 plus, the MEN puts it at 200) occupied the Arthur Lewis rooms and came up with a bunch of demands to hand to Alan Gilbert. Sounds a bit romanticised to me, but let's see those demands:

"These demands were democratically decided by students inside the occupied Arthur Lewis Building during the 'Reclaim the Uni' demonstration on Tuesday 22nd April 2008."

The leaflet I saw yesterday definitely used the word 'consensus' somewhere. They could do with being specific there because they'll need to disassociate themselves with the whole mob rule thing.

"The President / Vice-Chancellor (VC) will write a monthly column about the goings for the student newspaper Student Direct, that will also be published on the University of Manchester Student Union (UMSU) website. The President / VC will also be interviewed by Student Direct, using questions sent in by students, once a semester. The current public Q&A session that the President / VC takes part in once a semester will be publicised to staff and students by the University. All staff are welcome to attend."

Not a bad start. That sounds like a good idea and one that Alan Gilbert will probably lap up because he loves to play the part of being on everyone's side. In fact he has already met this challenge head-on (in his own way), albeit in the MEN rather than Student Direct. Presumably because more people read the MEN. It remains to be seen how far that will go, but I heartily approve of any movement in that direction.

"Student and Staff must have representation on all steering panels, including Building Design. Staff and Student must have input into the selection of the new President / VC."

Now we're already getting iffy. Some steering panels warrant input, some don't. The building design one is a daft example; the buildings were designed long before the current crop of students showed up. They also went through a consulting process (at least ours did) but the vast majority of staff that weren't directly affected didn't actually care.

"All 1st year Course Welcoming lectures must include a talk on avenues of student participation in University decision-making processes and explain what the '2015 Vision' and 'Capital Plan' will mean practically – i.e. building plans; department moving plans; axing of course module options."

Like that's going to happen. That's akin to a union making the demand that all new starters must attend a seminar entitled "why management hates you". Although I think the students could probably be kept more abreast of project 2015 in general.

"A minimum cap of 12 hours per week must be introduced for face-to-face contact hours. Courses with more contact time must not use this as a reason to cut hours.
Online and Distance Learning are only to supplement this cap – they are not a substitute for contact time. Core modules must have non-online learning alternative options so as to be accessible to all students."

I can't claim to agree with all of the changes made to teaching recently, but ultimatums like this don't help. Each one should be judged on its merits because every course is different.

"The Personal Tutor system should ensure that all students have a one-to-one contact at University. Students must have good access to health and disability support staff. "

OK, can't fault them on that one.

"An end to staff cut-backs now. And an end to dependence on Temporarily Contracted Staff."

Someone from the support or 'academic related' staff must have been responsible for that one. They've got a lot to gripe about (with good reason for the most part) and morale is pretty low. But it doesn't change the fact that this is a stupid demand; it's not as if there have been any compulsory redundancies and Manchester uni is one of the best in the country for issuing permanent contracts. You have to have at least some temp contracts; that's how you stay flexible.

"Stop investment in and from unethical industries, including the arms trade. Investments must be made transparent and open to Staff/Student discussion. The Freedom of Information Act must be respected."

FOI is a no-brainer. It's the law and there's nothing the uni can do about that. The ethical investment demand has no chance of being met however. Besides the fact that the demand is very ambiguous (who decides what is and isn't ethical?), the university likes its unethical money too much. Animal rights activists besieging the Stopford building was a common sight when I was an undergrad. It didn't achieve anything then and given the size of the new life sciences faculty, it sure as hell won't now. And like it or loathe it, the arms trade is a very profitable engineering sector in the UK. The north campus union building is named after the man who invented the bouncing bomb, for Pete's sake.

"The resources of recently closed libraries must be re-instated. In future, new library buildings should be built before the old ones are closed."

Sounds a bit Scargill-esque that one. I don't think the libraries should be cut back if they're actually needed, but someone needs to make their case before they make demands like that.

"Increase in use of University-based talent, such as in-sourcing from the Architecture Department. This increases Student participation in University decision making."

Nice idea, but could be a recipe for disaster if anyone tries to enforce it.

"The University will join students and staff in our fight for a free education. The President / VC will be open in their support for a free education."

Fat chance. Alan Gilbert was brought in to pragmatically work within the system that the government and research councils handed down and he's not about to jeopardise project 2015 by rocking that particular boat. He may pay lip service to it, but I doubt there will be any real pressure.

To sum up, there's a real mixed bag of stuff in there, some nice ideas and some plain daft ones. But still, anything that gets the staff and students more involved in the running of the uni has to be a good thing and I think Alan Gilbert probably intends on meeting them at least partway with this. The big caveat, of course, is whether they can maintain the enthusiasm. It's all very well the university putting things in place so that voices are heard but if no-one actually gives a fig, it won't amount to anything. I guess we'll see on that one.