Starting on 13/12/2010, a group of students calling themselves ‘Hull Students Against Fees & Cuts‘ (HSAFC for short) occupied part of Staff House as part of ongoing protests relating to the increase in the maximum rate of tuition fees (amongst other things). I went there to find out more about the occupation, the group’s goals and more. I also managed to get an interview with Chris Marks, the spokesman for this group. You can find links to both parts later on in this post.
The occupation
Photo taken by David Morris (Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike)
The room they occupied is one of the conference rooms on the first floor of Staff House. This particular room is used frequently, making it an ideal place for an occupation.
Having banners on the outside of Staff House also provided a much-needed piece of additional advertising, which would potentially attract more students to their cause. The group also adertised this activity using Facebook and Twitter. In addition to these methods, they also produced leaflets that gave students plenty of information about the activities and goals. Using multiple methods of advertising – both electronic and non-electronic – is good, but I think they could possibly do more. I only found out about it because of a phone call from a friend yesterday. More people handing out leaflets on campus would be a good thing and increasing their online presence would also be beneficial.
Photo taken by David Morris (Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike)
The photo above was taken between 1pm and 2pm yesterday. As you can see, there wasn’t that many people in attendance, which obviously reduces the effectiveness. It’s an indicator of why more advertising is needed. I talked to Alex Humphreys (one of the protesters) and he said that more should turn up later as some were in lectures at the time. I found out afterwards (after I had left) that more had turned up. Whilst it’s good that the students want to put effort into their studies, it lessens the effect of the protest. It’s also worth noting that people from the University Press Office and the student newspaper (Hullfire) were also there at a time when there were low numbers.
One of the posters on the wall listed the group’s demands (this list was also replicated on the leaflets and their blog):
- VC to issue statement condemning attacks on education
- Uni to agree to not increase tuition fees
- Uni to release a statement condemning the cuts of the local Liberal Democrat Council
Although it wasn’t on the list, they also stood in solidarity with those who were campaigning against the cutting of the Education Maintenance Allowance.
The first point is an interesting one. HSAFC hasn’t defined ‘attacks’ in this context. If there are to be cuts to funding, a Vice-Chancellor could (theoretically) be against that. Any VC is unlikely to use the word ‘attacks’ though and, as of now, there has been no statement issued by the University of Hull Vice-Chancellor (Professor Calie Pistorius) or any member of the Senior Management Team.
The second point is unlikely as tuition fees are a good source of money for universities and a number of Vice-Chancellors have supported increases. In fact, a number of VCs were on the panel for the Browne Review. Also, anything like that would have to be discussed over a number of meetings. A university would not make a rushed decision about increasing tuition fees.
The final point is another one that hasn’t been clarified anywhere and is one that the university aren’t going to do anything about straight away.
On some of the walls off the occupation room were a selection of posters and one of the whiteboards listed the groups and institutions that they were in solidarity with:
Photo taken by David Morris (Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike)
So, why is solidarity important? Many students will be more concerned with what happens to them and their friends. If the group, e.g. is in solidarity with the Save EMA campaign, would all members support that? EMA is no longer relevant to them unless they have younger relatives in college, or relatives who are considering going to colege. However, you will note that many of the groups/institutions on there are universities. This makes solidarity much more relevat to those involved.
Another point worth noting is the fact that it’s nearly the end of semester one (December 17th) and the university will not have any students on campus. This reduces the effect of their campaign dramatically and I doubt any detailed responses are going to be given to the occupiers befre the end of semester.
The interview
Yesterday, I recorded an interview with Chris Marks. This is part one and this is part two. One notable thing is that although there has been some focus on the Conservative party, he believes both them and the Liberal Democrats should have equal amounts of criticism (I aksed him a question related to this as it was Vince Cable who was one of the main architects of the policy and it was a large amount of Liberal Demcorat MPs who broke the pledge that they signed).
Union Council vote
At present, the student union at the University of Hull do not support the occupation (officially). A vote which took place at their Union Council last night to support the action was defeated by three votes. Clearly, this was a narrow margin, but an unfortunate one for the campaign. Ten voted to support the action, but 24 were eligible to vote, which meant it didn’t get the 50% required (information provided by Jonathan Chambers on the HSAFC Facebook group).
Summary & Conclusion
At the moment, the occupation is still taking place and their is no sign of it ending (until the end of the semester). The lack of official support from the student union is unfortunate for them (I say official because a number of present and former executive officers are members of the Facebook group and have sent messages of support), but they have still caught the attention of the media and several more students. Hopefully this will remain peaceful and with any luck, they may get something from the Senior Management Team. It may not necessarily be the response that they want though.
So, what do you think?