All Student Meeting receives low turnout

The second All Student Meeting (ASM) of the academic year was hosted in the atrium on Monday 13 May.

Motions proposed at the event, which was chaired by Oliver Rice, included matters such as passive smoking on campus, the company Atos, solidarity with other universities and women’s representation in democracy.

Cosmo March, Democracy and Development Officer at the Students’ Union (SU) admitted that the ASM could have been more well-advertised, and that he was not expecting a high-turnout during Term 3 because students are “busy with exams”.

Around 60 students attended the event, with numbers dropping to around 30 as the evening progressed. The quorum for the meeting intended to meet a target of 236 students, which equals one percent of currently registered students.

The first motion was proposed by Chris Drake, a policy which would make the University reinforce its no smoking rules in areas where it is perhaps not monitored as strongly, for example, on the library bridge.

Health risks of passive smoking were discussed and there were no speeches against the proposal.

The second motion concerned the speed limit on Library Road.

It was proposed by Charlie Hindhaugh and Miguel Costa Matos, who noted the dangers of the current situation on Library Road. During lecture periods the road is treated as a pedestrianised area, and the unsafe speed at which some vehicles travel could cause serious injury on collision.

The proposers called for a 10mph speed limit and clear signs along Library Road. Matos said: “We need this speed limit to protect students from unnecessary death and harm.”

The pair also proposed that module choices at the University need to be enhanced. It was noted that there is not enough choice of ‘low-CAT’ modules (those of 6, 12 or 15 CATs) and that the ability to ‘over-CAT’ (take extra modules to allow students to only accept their best marks) is only limited to certain departments.

James Entwistle, Education Officer at the SU who announced he is to resign on June 7, commented: “Faculty representatives need to ensure that the difference between 12- and 15-CAT modules is substantial.”

Matos said: “Students have been fighting for this for decades, and it needs to be achieved in the near future.”

An indicative vote showed that the majority of the room was in favour of passing this motion.

The next motion of the evening debated whether to add company Atos to the SU boycott list, which has been accused of causing unnecessary death amongst disabled people.

The company caused outrage when they recruited in the Atrium on January 23 during Disability Awareness Week. It was claimed that this violated safe space.

Some students were unhappy with the motion, saying that this brought into question the issue of boycotts, which was debated strongly at the last All Student Meeting on January 28.

However, there seemed to be a consensus amongst all present that the motion for a boycott should be passed.

The issue of women’s representation was proposed by Warwick SU Postgraduate Officer Anna Chowcat and seconded by Yolly Chegwidden, Warwick SU LGBTUA+ officer. The debate proved the most contentious of the evening, last for over thirty minutes.

The motion proposes having a weighted quota to ensure that half of the NUS National Conference delegates were women.

The motion to support the campaign by Warwick Anti Sexism to remove Moo Bar’s sexist wallpaper, was proposed by Ben Sundell, who described the “racist and sexist” wallpaper as “quite frankly vile.” There was no debate on this issue.

The issue of the rights and working conditions of postgraduate tutors was submitted by Miguel Matos. He proposed amending  the SU’s policy of Postgraduate (PG) sessional tutors to mandate the Education Officer and Postgraduate Officer to encourage trade union membership by PG tutors.

One of the changes to the policy stated: “That trade unions can help postgraduate sessional tutors in justly improving their working
conditions and compensation.”

A postgraduate student said of the proposal: “It’s lovely to be told by undergraduates what postgraduates want.”

There were three solidarity motions debated, the first with the University of London Union, the students’ union for the colleges of the University of London (UoL), which the UoL administration plans to close.

The next was a motion of solidarity with Monash University in Melbourne, Australia in which Warwick University has assumed increasingly closer links with as part of an international partnership.

The motion stated: “the exclusion of democratically elected staff and student representatives from Monash University Council is unacceptable.”

The final solidarity motion was ‘Solidarity with Maxwell Dlamini’ which stated: “former President of the Swaziland NUS, now Secretary General of the Swaziland Youth Congress, was detained last week and has been charged with sedition (actions that are deemed to tend toward insurrection against the government) for organising an “elections meeting.”

If passed the Warwick SU Sabbatical Officers will be mandated to write to the Swazi ambassador expressing their concern over the situation. There was no debate on this issue.

There was an emergency motion submitted Supporting Aisling Gallagher, a student representative at Queen’s University Belfast Students’ Union (QUBSU).

Hiten Shah, Warwick SU LGBTUA+ officer, who proposed the motion, stated that Aisling Gallagher voted for ‘pro choice’ policy, despite QUBSU having a neutral stance, and is now not allowed to stand next year in elections.

A student asked the question whether Shah would be proposing this motion if Gallagher had been supporting a ‘pro life’ policy, to which Shah stated he would as he believed in democracy.

Voting is now open on the SU website until 12pm on Friday 17 May.