The protest that never was

The Students’ Union admitted failure in ratifying the promise of protest for lecture-free Freshers’ week which President Stuart ‘Tommo’ Thomson promised in his welcoming speech.

During his welcoming speech, President Thomson asked people who would vow in favour of a protest for a lecture-free Freshers’ week to stand up. According to the Union, an estimate of 1000 students stood up and supported the protest.

The motion of the protest, according to the Students’ Union Communication Officer Mike Pidgeon, was based on students voices gathered through informal visits at the residential halls. Many people complained about “missing out” opportunities in the first week due to essential academic commitments. This is especially true for some mathematics students, where tests have begun as early as day 3 of week 1.

The lecture-free Freshers’ week was also proposed to be intergraded with the international students’ orientation week in order to reduce ethnic segregation and promote the idea of “campus community”. It is hoped that new arrangement would provide more attendance to the Induction Sessions which President Tommo noted as a “complete failure” on the last Annual General Meeting (AGM). Pidgeon assured the Boar that the integration will not add strain on the international freshers’ already busy schedules since many needs of home and international students are mutually exclusive.

When asked upon the explicit achievements and future actions on the campaign, Pidgeon asserted the stand up at the speech was only the very first step of the campaign which provided a visible high profile signal.

Yet, Vice-Chancellor Professor Nigel Thrift was unable to grasp SU’s signal and noted “if [the stand up] was a protest, I misinterpreted it.”

The second stage occurred at the poorly attended AGM meeting on Friday week 2. The low attendance was partly due to a time clash with a mathematics test which prevented the potentially eager mathematics students to participate the debates.

Also, failing to reach a quorate of 101 attendances prevented the Union from translating any motions into policies. Nevertheless all 40 attendances unanimously supported the lecture-free Freshers’ week campaign.

Yet, at the current stage the SU “don’t actually have a policy” of resolution to the proposal and subsequent actions will take another “few weeks down the pipeline”

Pidgeon admits that the term ‘protest’ may be used incorrectly and ‘campaign’ will perhaps better describe the intended actions of the Union.

Nevertheless Pidgeon is confident on the eventual success of the proposal. He asserted that Tommo is the only SU President who has a seat in the university management board in the UK and noted representation will inevitably win change.