Skip Nav | Home | Mobile | Editorial Guidelines | Mission Statement | About Us | Contact | Help | Security | Support Us

World

Royal Holloway Occupied

Royal Holloway Anti Cuts Alliance | 24.02.2011 22:28 | Education | Public sector cuts | Social Struggles | World

Royal Holloway have OCCUPIED the Arts Building

Education is in a period of crisis. The cuts to the teaching budget, the prioritisation of STEM subjects, and the increase in tuition fees have devalued our degrees, changed students into consumers of university prestige and post-degree job potential rather than pursuers of education for its own sake, and reduced the valuable resources and contact hours that are essential to diverse and encompassing courses.

We have already conveyed these concerns to the university management, and invited them to take part in a public meeting before the end of the last term, which they failed to organise, or enquire about.

As members of the University Management team are attending the Universities UK conference on Thursday 24th February, we press those representing RHUL to deliver a clear message to other vice-chancellors and management. This is a vital opportunity to make the case against an increase in tuition fees and spending cuts.

As Principal Paul Layzell himself said “we can only speak with our actions”. Therefore we have decided to hold a sit-in. We wish to emphasise the importance of these demands, and reclaim the university space. We shall encourage an open-door policy, will not hinder any students or workers from their day-to-day activities, and shall put on a variety of academic and cultural events as chosen by those participating in the sit-in as a practical demonstration of what the university could achieve without the limitations of spending cuts, raised tuition fees, and a ‘marketised’ structure of learning.

We enclose our demands.

1. The management should open the university accounts and books, and make them publicly available for anyone to see. In the letter ‘A statement by Royal Holloway, University of London on the proposed changes to Higher Education Funding’ dated 24th November 2010, the management stated that “Whilst the college makes a modest annual surplus, this is used to invest in infrastructure such as the current projects to extend teaching space in the School of Management and to replace the Drama Studio” – we want access to the accounts and to be informed on the decision making process that led to these investments, and a projection of any future use of any annual surplus.

2. There should be collective decision making over key decisions, involving all members of the university – lecturers, administrative and support staff, workers, and students.

3. These decisions should be taken in open meetings, which consult the collective university body and operate democratically.

4. The management should release a public statement on the future of Royal Holloway in which they declare the future of funding, and discuss all reports and potential actions.

5. In the aforementioned letter, the management stated it was investigating the “better use of facilities by conferences and events outside term time, fund raising from former students and other donors, offering some of our programmes overseas, distance learning options and a modest growth in international students” – we want to know the developments made in these investigations, and how they would impact on funding at Royal Holloway.

6. We want to know what assessments the college have made regarding the impact of cuts and raised tuition fees on women, ethnic minorities, disabled students, international students and widening participation schemes, given that the management have already stated that “funding cuts threaten widening participation programmes and investment in the student experience”, in the abovementioned letter.

7. The management also claimed in this letter that “We believe in the public value of higher education” and that the “College and its trade body, Universities UK has and continues to lobby Government over the proposed changes to Higher Education funding. We welcome the College’s approach and wish to know the details of the college’s actions in lobbying the Government, and how they have linked with other universities, unions and pressure groups in campaigning against the cuts and the raise in tuition fees.

8. The management should be heavily lobbying and pressuring government not to hand down spending cuts: stressing that they will not make these cuts, redundancies and fee increases & prioritise spending on jobs and education.

9. Given that Principal Paul Layzell stated “we’ve been very clear here, you have a right to protest and no one’s going to stop you doing it”, and the conduct during the sit-in led Steven Bland, Head of Facilities Management, to convey to the Student’s Union that, paraphrasing, ‘he was happy with the way things had gone. He commented that the students were peaceful and polite and together with security have come to the decision that students can come and go as they please’, we push for no action to be taken against participators in the sit-in, whether lecturers, administrative and support staff, workers, or students. We also call on the management to speak out against those universities seeking to take legal action on other participants in sit-ins across the country, for example, at Birmingham University. We pledge to maintain the same level of courtesy, welfare preparation, and lack of disruption as during the last sit-in.

The Royal Holloway Anti-Cuts Alliance

Royal Holloway Anti Cuts Alliance
- e-mail: royalhollowayanticutsalliance@gmail.com
- Homepage: http://rhacc.wordpress.com

Publish

Publish your news

Do you need help with publishing?

/regional publish include --> /regional search include -->

World Topics

Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista

Kollektives

Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World

Other UK IMCs
Bristol/South West
London
Northern Indymedia
Scotland

Server Appeal Radio Page Video Page Indymedia Cinema Offline Newsheet

secure Encrypted Page

You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.

If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

IMCs


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech