Back in December, staff and students at the University of Hull witnessed an occupation of part of Staff House. It was a form of protest against the proposed increases to tuition fees and the cuts to Higher Education funding. As plenty of people pass through that building, it could be considered a wise choice. The presence of banners on the outside of the building also increased the visibility. The occupation was peaceful and gained some weight with a petition filled with signatures. It ended with a march around the Hull campus and a promise to re-occupy at the beginning of the next semester (with no people on campus and the university effectively closed down over the Christmas period, it would have been nonsensical to try and continue during that time).
This week saw the start of the re-occupation. Once again, it has been peaceful, but there has been a few developments and changes to the original list of demands. You will find details about all that in this post.
Photo taken by David Morris (Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike)
Locked in
The first development was, in my opinion, a bizarre one. At 6pm on Monday February 7th, the re-occupation began. However, it got off to a bad start as the University security decided to lock the room occupied by Hull Students Against Fees & Cuts (HSAFC). It’s bizarre because the first occupation was peaceful. At no point did anyone show any signs of aggression. The group frequently conversed with relevant university staff to maintain an important link. There was absolutely no indication that the situation would be very different this time.
Fortunately, the locked-in period ended the next day. I hope the University apologise at some point for what was clearly a poor decision on their part.
Demands
If you go to this post (one of the three I did about the occupation in December), you will see the original list of demands. There weren’t many, but it was clear what HSAFC wanted. Unfortunately for the group, not all of their demands were achieved.
Now there is a new list:
- Open the books – publish university finances
- An open debate with the Vice Chancellor – topic: education funding
- Publically condemn the cuts
- Refuse to raise fees
- No staff redundancies – maintain existing working conditons
- Security work given to University staff – no private contractors
The first point is easy to achieve. However, it also demonstrates a lack of research. The university already publishes it’s accounts and is required to by law. Those documents can be found here.
The next point can be achieved relatively easily. The Vice-Chancellor is currently holding open discussions with staff about refreshing the strategic plan. A single meeting with a group of interested students shouldn’t be a problem. Once a possible attendance has been estimated and a date and time arranged, a room can be booked. Then it is just a matter of publicising the event. It would be an ideal opportunity for the Vice-Chancellor to (at least try) get his message and interpretation of events across.
I am skeptical about the next point. This was a demand that was in the original list and the Vice-Chancellor issued a response, but it didn’t answer the question directly or provide any great detail. As very little has changed since that response was issued, his views are unlikely to change.
The next point is unlikely to happen. The University is a business. In an ideal world, fees would not be increased. However, with funding cut in certain areas (particularly in Arts), the university has to do something and the only way is to raise fees. The Strategic Development Unit (a part of the University) have been developing several models to work out suitable fee levels. The maximum would drive too many away and the minimum might not generate enough income.
The fifth demand would be achievable in an ideal world. However, if modules and courses are cut due to low numbers, the number of hours that certain staff work will be reduced. Without enough funding, staff making the lowest contributions might have to go so that departments remain financially viable. However, if the fee levels are set correctly and enough income comes in, the number of possible redundancies goes down.
I cannot see security arrangements changing either. It isn’t necessarily the biggest cost area.
Wave
This post on the Occupied Hull blog mentions an event involving Vice-Chancellors discussing fee increases on February 24th. HSAFC calls for a wave of occupations on that day. This could happen and would be noticeable. However, as Universities have failed to change their opinions over fees despite existing occupations, will a wave of additional occupations be effective?
Referendum
The most recent post on HSAFC’s blog mentions a Union Council meeting that took place in Hull University Union on February 7th. A motion that HSAFC put on the Agenda was passed, which means supporting the occupation will now be the subject of a referendum. Unfortunately, at the time of typing, the minutes from the meeting were not available on the student union website, but details of the motion that show what will happen now are on Occupied Hull:
- Issue a message on the front-page of HullStudent.com supporting this occupation
- Make available £300 for use by the occupation
- Write a letter and urge the Vice Chancellor to do the same, to the Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police for their actions on the demonstrations on the 9th of December 2010.
It is a source of frustration for HSAFC that the student union do not already support their actions as numerous other student unions support the respective occupations. However, there was supposed to be a vote about this at an EGM in December, but a lack of apathy demonstrated by the students meant that it wasn’t quorate. As there has been a break between semesters and the publicity of the occupation outside of their room has been reduced to a few banners, I am not certain whether the upcoming referendum will be quorate either.
Summary & Conclusion
Once again, I applaud a group of students for standing up for what they believe in and making their voices heard. As I have said before, this type of action isn’t something that you see much of nowadays. However, I feel that the closure of the campus for Christmas has dramatically affected their momentum. I doubt that levels of apathy will have been reduced amongst the student population and some of their new list of demands are unlikely to be met.
So, what do you think?