Campus Bulley » Who cares?
As I sit in my room overlooking St Lawrence Court in Halifax, probably the most apolitical college in the University, I can’t help but be struck by how pointless this all is.
I mean who actually cares about campus politics? The simple answer is effectively no one. I can name 22 off the top of my head. In alphabetical order; Asfahani, Bretts, Burton, Fill, Foy, Humphrys, Hutchings, Kinchin, Lacy (in theory), Leyland, Ngwena, Northwood, Powell, Rankin, Rose, Scott x2, Shanks, Taylor, Tyler, Walker and me. 22 out of 12000. A happy 0.18%.
The only reason why this select bunch really care are because they are campus politics. They have been accepted. The majority of them have stood up in some sort of election and won. The other five of us are therefore the opposition. It falls to a handful of journalists, Dan Taylor and Jason Rose to hold the union to account. That can’t be good.
So why don’t we care about politics at this University? It’s not like college politicians aren’t interesting people. Anybody who’s seen Ollie Hutchings in his short shorts this week (a sight that greeted me as I left the fees office this morning) will have something to say about him. Similarly why does Robert Powell from London insist on being called Roberto? Another curiosity. How many of the Dani Fill rumours are true? When was Dan Walker last seen sober? Has Joe Rankin hit puberty? These are all great questions, but no one cares enough to find out the answers.
Unfortunately I don’t have a solution to the problem. It wouldn’t matter if I did anyway, the only people reading this care about campus politics already. Or they just like me. Either way, I can’t see a solution. Maybe campus politicians need to get more exciting? Or maybe they need to find more ways to piss off 3rd years like the infamous summer ball decision.
Lets try and aim for a 1% interest rate this term guys.
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I hope you’re playing Devil’s Advocate there Jim. Hell, there are more than that who are actually elected. (I do actually wonder, including the YUSU committees, JCRCs, etc, what percentage of the student body are elected to political positions…)
Jim says this blog is supposed to be about sparking debate, so I’ll bite…
I’m a politics geek, and I know it, so is Jim, so is Dan Taylor, so are all the people mentioned in the article. But the reason I’m a geek is because I know that the results of ‘campus politics’ have a impact on most of my life at York.
I’d hazard a guess that the majority of students probably care about the results too, even if they don’t care about the process.
There are a number of problems with the way you’ve presented the argument; the assumption that the only people who care about ‘campus politics’ are the people that successfully stand for election as College Chairs or YUSU Sabbs is flawed; the 2500ish people who voted in the most recent YUSU elections pretty clearly must ‘care’ on some level, and this is in addition to the students that voted for people in JCRC, Society or Sports Club elections.
The issue is though, that turnout, whether in elections or elsewhere, is a pretty poor measure of the amount of people that ‘care’ about campus politics. And herein lies the problem. The oft repeated argument goes, that everything is politics, and the reason it’s often repeated is because it’s true.
Everything we do as students is in some way influenced by campus politics. Every week of term ‘political’ committees discuss and decide priorities, strategy and ideas on huge range of issues. Without a doubt, a lot of it might be seen as trivial, or only relevant to a certain (although very large) subset of students: event closing times, minimum pricing on alcohol, the colour of JCR walls & where the Graduation Ball should be held; are issues which students can (and do) opt out of.
But even if you were someone who solely attends lectures and writes essays, never talking to other students or eating or drinking on campus, then I’d argue politics is something you do care about, even if you don’t know it. Welfare committee debates how your exams should be marked and Union Council decides whether we should do something about lecturers arriving late. UGM’s affect what time the library should close, and when term starts.
The counter argument says that ‘YUSU/JCRC’s’ don’t actually do any of these things, ‘it’s the university that makes the decisions’, and in some cases that’s correct. But campus politics does have a definite, and proven impact. The library will close at midnight this Saturday, as a direct result of campus politics; we finally have a Union Bar, as a direct result of campus politics, and we’re still a member of the NUS as a direct result of campus politics.
That’s where, sometimes, union officers have failed, when people don’t know they can have an impact. YUSU needs make sure they do. ‘Campus Politics’ isn’t important; issues, big and small, broad and narrow are. That’s what people care about, and that’s what YUSU officers and ‘Student Politicians’ should be talking about: the Campus Press needs to help them do it. The process doesn’t matter, what results from it really does.
I care about politics, and I think you do too, even if you don’t know it.
ME NO LIKE CAMPUS POLITICS – STUDENTS PLEASE SHUT IT AND DO AS TOLD.
ME SPEND YOUR CASH ON MORE HOLIDAYS NOW.
MUCH LOVE x
Student politics at York is so big, simply because so many of York’s activities are massively student led.
Other universities (and even unions) are filled with employees who hold all the power and provide everything the way they want to – York has found a fantastic way of getting so many people involved, and is well on its way to having a union that we can all feel a part of, rather than the faceless provider that other unis have.
In my eyes, what it boils down to is this – campus politics gets stuff done.
In the lead up to and in the first week of Spring term, hundreds of volunteers work thousands of hours to bring about a whole host of activities that serve to settle people in, and make coming to university a fully-rounded and exciting experience.
But aside from these RESULTS, student politics gives people opportunities to get to grips with big budgets, try event planning, and pick up those precious “transferable skills” that job interviewers love. Jim B – I’m sure you’ll pop this article in your portfolio, as will hundreds of other journos who’ve picked up some great experience of writing/reporting for and laying up a newspaper at uni.
So I reckon that essentially, campus politics is as much about the process as the results – and whether you get the valuable experience of running a committee, or editing a paper for example, or get the benefits of some of the exciting library opening hours and academic overhaul as Lewis mentioned above – then student politics has been worth it.
No – perhaps a lot of people don’t care, but those that do get a great deal out of it and for those that don’t – well they’re just lucky that there be politics geeks looking out for their best interests.
Alas, Lewis has me. It is well known that I am a big fan of campus politics. Lewis I think knows this even better than most, but it is obvious that to have a campus politics based blog I must be something of a fan or at least an enthusiast.
I should explain, indeed I should have in my first blog post, that what I write here does not necessarily reflect my opinion. This blog is designed, as Lewis so rightly put it, to “spark debate” and I like to think that that is what I am doing. Obviously I do not think that campus politics is a waste of time. It would make dedicating a year to being News Editor something of a pointless task. That said, I do believe that opinions and issues raised in the blog are common in the student body, which is why it is important that I get such great responses.
Both Lewis and Zach have answered the question I posed, who cares (about campus politics)? The answer given seems to be everybody, once you think about it. Every student at York relies on campus politics, and it affects their life in some shape or form. This is an opinion I largely agree with, and I think both of our antagonists are aware of this. It might be worth pointing out in case any readers are unaware that Zach Pepper is a former college chair, so an ex-campus politician.
The question I now ask, something I feel Lewis has raised and which I will discuss in my next blog, but please feel free to discuss it here first, is; why don’t people realise that they care about campus politics? And more importantly, what can our campus politicians do to get themselves better well known, their work appreciated and their importance understood?
One word: visibility.
That’s what student politics is about and that’s what YUSU should try to improve.
In a recent poll, the one that revealed the high level of dissatisfaction with YUSU, there was a number of students who apparently did not even know that we now have a SU bar. Note that they were interviewed in the Courtyard. And as Lewis said, many students will indeed benefit from the extended library hours. But how many of them actually know that this was a result of hard work from the part of their Union?
As for the rest of the Union’s services, the fact of the matter is that most students just take them for granted – not because of ungratefulness, but simply because they do not know how much their officers have to work to keep them running. And even those who do know still think that elections don’t really make a difference. The most common attitude among students is that there’s only so much one can change as an officer, that student politicians are essentially only trying to fill in their CVs and that it is all just a big popularity contest.
The irony here is that this has effectively become a self-fulfilling prophecy, as the less people care the more unrepresentative their Union becomes. Many people do not even take the time to read the candidates’ manifestos, they just dismiss them all without even taking the time to listen to what they have to propose.
I think that in order to change this attitude, YUSU should try to advertise its successes more and completely re-evaluate its relationship with students.
In my opinion, the quality of representation we get is directly proportional to the level of student participation – this is an issue where there’s no room for complacency. There’s nothing to be proud of about elections where 80% of students don’t care enough to vote. And UGMs that become Union policy with only a couple hundred votes in total are nothing more than signs of a dysfunctional democratic process.
Thankfully, it is now the job of the Democracy and Services officer to address these issues. Lewis will have a lot on his plate next year, but I am certain that he is more than up to the task. My 2p worth on how we can improve YUSU can be summed up in the following sentence: open up, be visible, engage with students.
The only way that students will start caring about student politics is when we manage to convince them that it matters.
How did the GSA folks not make your 22? Not even Tom?
I don’t think we should be too worried about the lack of interest in campus politics. Compared to the apathy felt by most of the country to national politics, York students’ indifference is nothing!
We make such an amazingly huge deal out of student apathy, but as Anna points out York isn’t really that bad… An increased visibility on YUSU’s part would obv be helpful, but I very much doubt that it would drastically reverse a trend that is deeply anchored in student tradition.
Let’s face the facts, apart from those directly involved in “politics” (whether it be at a JCRC or YUSU level) and those reporting it (us, the overactive student media) the remainder of the student body just can’t be bothered. so what?
http://www.nouse.co.uk/2007/11/23/tell-someone-who-cares/
Anon, you too forget the ISA folk!
Think your own blog is a gd example of student politics, some people will visit this page, read it, ignore it, comment on it, share it or even twitter it . Whatever you do ur part of the debate and I know Nouse love their stats so jim get chris to dive into google analytics and give us a hit count and bounce rate etc, I’ll recalculate some figures for ya.
York has one of the best levels of participtation especially when it comes to election time. However we can always do more to improve on our achievements and visibility is one angle we can, do, and will improve on through time.
Rankin’s hit puberty?
“Many people do not even take the time to read the candidates’ manifestos, they just dismiss them all without even taking the time to listen to what they have to propose.” ~ George P.
Bitter much?
As someone very disengaged with student politics for the first 2-3 years of my undergraduate degree here I guess I’ve been on both sides of the fence at one point or another. I think the issue is not so much one of indifference about student politics but more a presumption that “someone else will do it”. I’m sure most students care about the fairness of exams as much as I do because it affects us all but the outcome is all they care about. They don’t care how it happens or who makes it happen, only that it does. Come election time, the differences between candidates’ policies are often either points that the victor will steal and use anyway, or minor points that do not affect the majority of students (particularly those who live off campus, which most of those voting will be doing by the time their candidates take office).
In my eyes, the most important jobs a union does – the representation to and lobbying of the university and the support provided for students – would get done with almost equal outcomes and efficacy no matter who is in office, hence the attitude: “someone else will do it”. There’s also the case of students being excluded from office because of their studies. For example, there’s no way the average undergraduate electronics student could hold down a position as the chair of a JCRC AND continue to perform well academically, no matter how passionate they are about student politics.
The union is already very open (I don’t know about JCRCs/HCSA), with all its minutes and meetings open to all members. The thing that Lewis and Tim really need to work on is student engagement in UGMs so that they are more representative and hold greater weight, but as Tim already said, York has some of the highest levels of participation in student politics in the country; it’s a tall order.
I found it a little bit funny that the related posts on this article are fairly similar, and going back over a couple of years. Must be a recurring theme at Nouse.
Yay, the algorithm works correctly?
Richard, this is a problem that every candidate has to face, not just myself
And it is one of the reasons why visibility is so important.
I have a lot to say about the rest of your post, but unfortunately I also have revision to do, so I’ll have to leave it for another time. Another GSA/ISA pub crawl perhaps.
any one who can wear shorts that tight has to be interesting.
Ollie Hutchings is a shining beam of style on an otherwise bland campus.
Yep, last week. Good times.
It boils down to quite a lot of people actually care, many of whom are in some way involved in ‘campus politics’, but by no means do they form a majority.
But, as suggested, every student is in someway a stake-holder and should be interested to some degree, because so much gets done or decided by ‘campus politicians’ and the ‘political process’ they work within (the quotation markers denote my dislike of this pretty pretentious phrasiology).
You will never find a community in which 100 per cent of people are engaged and interested by ‘politics’ in some form. I don’t think we should worry that York isn’t such a community. In reality, again as stated already, York is really quite engaged at many levels – be it voting, blogging, candidacy, YUSU Sab’ing or petitioning. We should be pleased that York is as involved and interested as it is, while still trying to engage more people; because so much really is done by ‘campus politicians’ that has an impact on every student.
… whether or not I have reached puberty is another matter, that I’d hope only my nearest and dearest were concerned with. It’d be a sad reflection of the quality of people at this University if they were concerned more by the personal than the work done by ‘campus politicians’.
I take qualms with your assumption that the disinterest in campus politics is a ‘problem’ and needs to be solved. It’s not a problem as far as I see it; the majority of students don’t see it as particularly importantly and certainly don’t believe it affects them, me included. Instead, their focus is diluted between national interests (political party affiliation, Amnesty International, etc) or social ones (societies, socialising, relationships). Mostly, they’ll only care about the structure of the university when it directly affects them – most notably with their degree course. Students are far more likely to be opinionated and interested in what they’re learning and how they’re learning it, rather than a few specific YUSU policy changes that they never knew existed in the first place.
And yet, despite all the talk of student politics, how often are stories written surrounding the various academic study boards for each subject? These would obviously have a bundle of their own controversies and decisions, each of which is far more significant to students than YUSU representatives.
My assumption, both as a student and super-duper Vision-editorial opposition, is that students care about loads of stuff, and we should accept their preferences, not force ours upon them. If students would rather accept that their tenure at university is temporary and place higher priorities on enjoying it rather than politicising the fleeting details, then attempting to make them interested in campus politics is a moot point.
The first rule of media is to understand your target audience. If you’re not doing that, you’re only writing for yourself (and your CV).
Oh mr Burnham…
1. <>
- economics department story anyone? Which Vision subsequently decried (unsuccessfully) as sensational.
2. <>
- Though certainly you have tried, have you not? In fact as I recall it was more along the lines of incompetent slander that had implications for all under the media charter.
3. <>
- Unless the rest of campus is keen on scatology, I would reduce the number of ‘stories’ you run on where students have crapped.
Perhaps this is why Jim chooses to discuss the matter in his blog, as opposed to in an article?
As a blog writer he is, technically, writing for himself (and most definitely for his CV), as demonstrated by the thousands of bloggers that discuss all matter of crap, that most people couldn’t care less about.
Blogging is about making a provocative comment, and then allowing us plebs to battle out our opinions underneath them.
Anna,
I wasn’t taking a swipe at Jim; I actually quite like this article. Consider my comments directed to the print edition.
‘Campus politics’ is one of those strange generalizations which gets thrown around a lot.
I think it’s to be expected that there’ll always be a lack of interest when it comes to the internal workings of YUSU for example, as it’s often hard for the student body to see how decisions on this level will effect them (especially when some decisions are made with future incoming students in mind).
On the other hand the recent summer ball location vote (brought on at short notice by support from large numbers of students [over facebook]) shows that the student body is more than willing to get involved when they can see ‘political’ decisions directly effecting them.
(I could probably explain my point better but I need to get back to revision lol)
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Oh and for the record I’ll be sober until my exams are over… Then I’m gonna get all Hasselhoffed out.