URGENT - Solidarity with Nottingham University Occupation

[Fullyplumped]

Says it all.....

Yes, paying customers.

When I was little, way back when Knowing Me, Knowing You was top of the hit parade, I filled in an UCCA form and filled in a Scottish Education Department grant form and chose which Unis I wanted to go to and the next thing I knew I got a grant cheque and went and opened a bank account so I'd have money to pay my tickets for Freshers' week. I got maximum grant. I wasn't even aware that there were fees because the SED paid them.

That was a few years ago. Now people are a lot more aware of the costs and entering into higher education is an investment, not a natural progression for relatively few bright kids from secondary school.

The universities treated most of us like kids then. Now they are paying customers, and they are entitled to be treated like adults to whom promises are made which need to be honoured.

 

[untethered]

The universities treated most of us like kids then. Now they are paying customers, and they are entitled to be treated like adults to whom promises are made which need to be honoured.

Also, assessment is quite different on most courses than it was back in the day when you could do very little until your finals.

Now most courses have significant coursework requirements with deadlines throughout the term. If a student occupation means that lectures and seminars are missed it can have a real and direct impact on a student's grades. While I hope most universities would give allowance for such exceptional circumstances, the point still remains: universities are for teaching and learning. If you want to play politics, do it without making a nuisance of yourself.

 

[frogwoman]

at my uni there are constant disruptions and room changes etc, going on all the time. last year during my russian govt and politics module we could barely hear what the guy was saying because of building works going on outside. i dont really see how a sit in is any worse.

 

[Udo Erasmus]

University of East Anglia occupied:
http://ueaoccupation.blogspot.com/

 

[belboid]

students who are paying customers

ugghh.

As radical as tin of baked beans.

 

[Barking_Mad]

Curiously I noticed a legal notice on a lamp post this morning on the way past Leeds Uni.

Planning permission has gone in for 32 CCTV cameras in and around the Uni.

Maybe they know something.........

 

[Stella]

please forward as widely as possible:URGENT - vote for Gaza at the AGM this Thursday

from an email send to me by facebook

"URGENT - vote for Gaza at the AGM this Thursday at Strathclyde Uni!
To members of Strathclyde University Occupation - NOW!



please forward as widely as possible:

IMPORTANT: Please vote to cut Strathclyde's links with the Arms trade!

AGM of the Student's Association, 4pm this Thursday, Vertigo, Students Union Building Level 8

We need your help..Support our motion calling for an end to military ties at our University

see motions at http://www.strathstudents.com/pages...form_your_union/agm_2009/agm_papers_2009.html


*Strathclyde University is complicit in the war on Gaza and other world conflicts due to its research contracts with arms manufacturers such as BAe systems.

*In 2008 it was revealed that Strathclyde has the largest research links to the arms trade of any University in Scotland, with a minimum of £7.8 million received from arms manufacturers and military sponsors between 2000 and 2007. (1)

*During the recent student protests and sit-in more than 500 students and staff signed petitions calling for an end to military ties at Strathclyde, including contracts with Eden Springs, a water company profiting from the occupation of Gaza.

Now we ask the student body to vote YES to ending our Universities ties to conflict, at the Annual General Meeting of the students union.

BUT our sentiments of peace are being fiercely opposed by right wing students who are calling our protests undemocratic and illegal. We need 150 people there to defeat their narrow mindedness and pass our motion.

**PLEASE COME TO THE AGM WITH EVERYONE YOU KNOW AND HELP SHOW THE UNIVERSITY THAT WE DO NOT WANT A PART IN WAR****

Thanks so much in advance.

In solidarity with the people of Gaza, and all those affected by war on this earth.



Notes: (1) Rob Edwards, 'Revealed: the £28m that the military handed over to Scottish universities´. Sunday Herald, Feb 16th 2009. see http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.2461506.0.revealed_the_28m_that_the_military_handed_over_to_scottish_universities.php"

This is the link with the students' motion calling for an end to military ties at their University as well as that of those right wing students who are calling their protests undemocratic and illegal : http://www.strathstudents.com/pages...form_your_union/agm_2009/agm_papers_2009.html

* The vote is for tomorrow, please forward if you agree

** their facebook page : http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=59981964539

 

[moon23]

If I were at university I'd be demanding a refund for every session missed due to student occupations. Campus security and the police really need to get a grip on this.

It's basically just stealing from the other students who work hard to pay for their courses and are entitled to receive the education they've bought without disruption due to some students' childish and selfish behaviour.

They should send the troublemakers down, without exception.

You selfish capitalist fuckwit, people are dying and all you give a shit about is the 'education' you have purchased. Your fucking lucky your even able to get an education, which is more than most people in Gaza right now could possibly hope for.

 

[Udo Erasmus]

http://indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/02/422336.html
Occupation at St Andrews University, Scotland.

 

[Fullyplumped]

You selfish capitalist fuckwit, people are dying and all you give a shit about is the 'education' you have purchased. Your fucking lucky your even able to get an education, which is more than most people in Gaza right now could possibly hope for.

I don't think Untethered is actually a student. Nice indignation and abuse, though.

 

[audiotech]

Curiously I noticed a legal notice on a lamp post this morning on the way past Leeds Uni.

Planning permission has gone in for 32 CCTV cameras in and around the Uni.

CCTV wouldn't have stopped the corrupt house manager there in around '95 ripping off students to the sum of £200,000.

Ooops, did I break my gagging order just then?

 

[Fullyplumped]

http://indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/02/422336.html
Occupation at St Andrews University, Scotland.

It's funny seeing the students in that big room all sitting on the good carpet in front of a circle of chairs. Is comfortable seating a boojwah affectation these days? I feel so out of touch.

 

[frogwoman]

maybe the chairs aren't comfortable - and maybe they just like sitting on the floor? its often more companiable that way.

 

[butchersapron]

It's funny seeing the students in that big room all sitting on the good carpet in front of a circle of chairs. Is comfortable seating a boojwah affectation these days? I feel so out of touch.

Kill your family

 

[Fullyplumped]

maybe the chairs aren't comfortable - and maybe they just like sitting on the floor? its often more companiable that way.

But it looks so scruffy. And what if you have sore knees or a bad back? I think they're being ageist. And probably other things-ist as well.

 

[Udo Erasmus]

BRISTOL UWE GOES INTO OCCUPATION:
http://uweoccupation.blogspot.com/

 

[frogwoman]

But it looks so scruffy. And what if you have sore knees or a bad back? I think they're being ageist. And probably other things-ist as well.

a lot of things can give you sore knees or a bad back. lol.

 

[obanite]

Argh, ignore function is so useless, I still see untethered's ridiculous fucking posts and they still wind me up

 

[Udo Erasmus]

'This is for the students who work three jobs to attend the school of their dreams. This is for the students in Gaza, whose university is destroyed and can no longer study. This is for workers in Abu Dhabi building our facilities with no human rights to speak of. We are a global university and our actions are connected to world events, whether we ... Read morelike it or not. It is our responsibility. We have voices. Let’s use them.'

New York University Occupied: http://takebacknyu.com/

 

[Udo Erasmus]

Occupation at Cardiff University, South Wales: Occupation in solidarity with Gaza and for and end to university investment in the arms trade.

Students this afternoon occupied the Shandon Lecture Theatre in the Main Building of Cardiff University, a programme of events, film showings & meetings will be kicking off, Full details to be announced shortly.

Details of the occupation will soon be at occupiedcardiff.blogspot.com

Rush messages of support and solidarity to [email protected]

 

[butchersapron]

This stuff has swept the nation

 

[kabbes]

This stuff has swept the nation

I'd be genuinely interested, butchers, to hear why you seem so riled by this. Or to be put right about you being riled. Either way.

 

[butchersapron]

I'm not riled in the slightest. We're just playing out an old argument in an appalling burst of in-joke smug comedy. Totally shit.

 

[kabbes]

Oh, fair enough. Carry on then.

I only asked because I'm never sure myself what to make of student protests. On the one hand, I think it's nice that these young people care deeply about the world and it's better that they think that way than the alternative. On the other hand, it is also true that the students themselves are often deeply embedded into and enablers of the very system that they are protesting about, which renders the whole thing somewhat hypocritical. And on the other other hand, it could reasonably be claimed that going to university is ultimately an entirely selfish act with the aim of expanding one's personal horizons, which means that by interrupting it you are hurting nobody but yourself.

 

[butchersapron]

That has been a constant contradiction of left wing organising in this country since the early 60s (it's different in the other european countries for reasons too complex to go into here). It's usually been settled (to the satisfaction of the left anyway) by hoping the good one grow up and join the party.

I think the dofferecne between the situation of being student in 1969 and 209 are so massively different as to make comparisions between the 2 very difficult.