It’s time to put power politics aside
When Anne-Marie Canning took up the YUSU Presidency last year, she spoke emphatically about her desire to improve relations between the Students’ Union and the University.
She has since ensured that relations between the SU office and Heslington Hall have remained relatively amicable, and when Tom Scott took over, most assumed that this closeness would remain for the sakeof the student body.
Langwith Bar was designated as entirely student financed and run, and no one from the Vice-Chancellor’s office objected when Matt Burton, Services and Finance Officer, applied for a 24 hour license for late night events, or so he thought.
The subsequent explosion has shown exactly why students and University executives will never understand each other: because they never listen to what the other side is saying. Relations are now at an historic low between YUSU and the University. One can only imagine the look of fright on the poor clerk’s face as Pro-Vice-Chancelllor Jane Grenville ran into the York City Council building on Friday, just two minutes before the final deadline for licence applications. Eyes bulging, veins protruding from her neck, a seething Grenville slapped down her objection, cursing Burton, screaming wildly for justice.
The issue at hand is about two different agendas rubbing up very uncomfortably against each other. No one likes chafing. The University wants to keep costs down, and passing on Langwith bar’s overheads to YUSU must have seemed like an excellent idea at the time. They could forget about the running of Langwith JCR, and carry on planning conferences with a little less interruption. The acquisition of Langwith was a coup for YUSU too, allowing them to offer prospective students a temporary Student Union before Heslington East provided the real thing.
The current situation shows the Union has rather more power to wield than they always remember. There will undoubtedly be red faces and much wringing of academic hands this week, as the University work out how exactly Burton made them look like incompetent amateurs in front of the couple of thousand new students who may not have been aware of this unfortunate fact until just now.
The outcome to this debacle can be predicted with a fair amount of confidence. It is expected that YUSU will see the loss of a 24 hour licence as preferable to the loss of Langwith as a student bar altogether. I envisage that Burton and Scott will give in to her ultimatum, the insomniac alcoholics among us will remain thirsty, and tensions will cool slightly, from boil to simmer, in the metaphorical pot of University-student relations.
Do not be fooled by a period of calm, however. There are and will always be officers who take more initiative than expected, people in power who aren’t paying attention to their inboxes, and journalists hanging around to ask all the awkward questions.
But then again , the minutes of YUSU meetings never really say anything worth reading, do they?
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