Law students ‘prioritised’ over Management peers in allocation of departmental facilities
Management students have complained that facilities have not been equally distributed in the shared building. Photo: Justyn Hardcastle
Management students have expressed anger over the “unfair” distribution of facilities in the newly built Law and Management building.
The joint departmental building, which was newly opened in October, was built to cater equally for students studying both Law and Management.
However, while Law students are provided with a lounge and study area and several smaller conference rooms, accounting for a large proportion of the space in the building, Management students have no specific space set aside for them to work in, aside from a communal computer room available to all students.
As first year Management student James Orme-Dawson stated: “The lounge is big and could easily be split into two as there is no area in the Law and Management building where we can work, only a small communal area outside of the lecture theatres.”
Further questions have been raised over the practicalities of this space and facility allocation in terms of proportionality. There are over 250 Management students in each year , whilst the overall number of Law students totals just 300.
Nathan Buss, a second year Management student, spoke to Nouse of his annoyance with the new building. “It is really unfair. The facilities for Law students are a lot better than those for Management students, and their needs are prioritised over ours, despite the fact that we both supposedly share this building. The computer rooms we are allowed to use are useless if we need a quiet place to read.
“I have a one hour gap between my lectures and there is nowhere for me to go. Heslington East is so far away from campus, or where I live, so it is just really inconvenient.”
Both the Law and Management departments were given the opportunity to influence the design and extent of their own space within the building when the initial plans were being drawn up.
However, it has been suggested that due to the new and developing nature of the course, the Department of Law deliberated more carefully over the layout and quantity of the space needed for those studying York’s law course.
“It is really unfair. The facilities for Law students are are lot better than those for Management students, and their needs are prioritised over ours”
Nathan Buss
First Year Management Students
In response to the complaints, Elizabeth Heaps, the Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Estates and Strategic Projects, said: “The building was developed to support the different teaching and learning styles of the two Schools. The Law school provision reflects a very specific set of teaching needs related to firm, clinic and problem-based tuition – akin to a science laboratory or the medical school context where specialist rooms are needed.”
She continued: “The atrium in the Law and Management building is designed to provide a social and learning space, with its coffee bar, primarily for Management students who are the majority users of the teaching space in the building.”
Heaps has confirmed that more furniture will be provided in the coming weeks.
Matt Martino, a second-year Law student, also commented on the superior facilities of his own department in comparison.
“Law has much better facilities,” he said. “We have an open plan learning zone, with student law firm group rooms. It’s an amazing facility, but only Law students have a keycard.”
YUSU Academic officer, Ben Humphrys, acknowledged this was an issue.
“The beauty of Heslington East is that it’s been designed collaboratively with users,” he said. “It’s worked really well in Law, with a specially designed space to enhance teaching in the department; we don’t want to jeopardise that.
“If it isn’t working out as well for Management we need to bring stakeholders together and focus on how the space can be used more effectively; moving departments to Heslington East represents a massive opportunity for the university and it can’t be wasted.”
Another second-year Management student, who preferred to remain unnamed, also commented on how these new facilities showed little improvement from previous provisions.
“Last year even though it was not purpose built for Management, the lecture halls were still adequate and at least if we wanted to work in a break we could go to the library.”
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Surely this article should be addressing the shortcomings of the management school rather than the success in forward planning and pragmatic decision making of the law school?
From a Law student’s perspective, this article is quite frankly ridiculous. There are numerous points which have been brought up without context or detail which actually shows it is not as biased as it suggests.
“while Law students are provided with a lounge and study area and several smaller conference rooms, accounting for a large proportion of the space in the building, Management students have no specific space set aside for them to work in, aside from a communal computer room available to all students.” Oh how I do wish we had a lounge, maybe we could crack out a few cocktails, stick on the mood lighting and put on some thematic music. The problem based learning area is, as the name would suggest to even the most intellectually challenged, a LEARNING area, it is not available for private study if the area is in use. What must also be added is that management students feel happy to enter via the none-locked fire exit, which arguably could ultimately lead to safety issues, and use the area which is designated not for their purpose. As for the other conference rooms, I am surprised to see the lack of reference to the countless seminar rooms which the management department use and are unavailable to law students!
Furthermore, this communal computer space, it’s yet again hardly surprising that bitter management students don’t bring up the fact that this is the only computer suite in the building and can be booked by management classes often leaving law students computerless for periods of time.
And Nathan Buss, what planet are you on?! You have an hour gap in your contact time, how about spending less time moaning and more time doing work, had you actually thought a bit more sensibly into your department’s move to Hes East you would have thought about this as an issue, furthermore, you would have surely realised you might not have had this wonderful space which you seem to want so much. Why are you not questioning your department rather than the law school, they, as this article correctly states (for a change) had a lot of input so they should be to blame, not the fact that the law school took a bit more time and thought in working out how they will use the space. Life’s unfair, this isn’t, you cannot suggest that the law school should halve the space it has apportioned to it’s students to study and learn in purely because your department didn’t put enough thought in to provide facilities adequate enough to meet your high standards.
As for the final comment, if the facilities were just as good last year then I’m fairly sure that the law students wouldn’t mind you going back, removing the management students who sneak into the pbl area, speaking on handsfree and skype whilst others stay silent and do their work, clogging up the printer with job after job before getting bored and leaving a huge queue and trail of paper in your wake. It’s not a problem with us, it’s more a problem with your department.
Why do students studying a minimal input degree require a “lounge”? Is it not understandable that students studying an intensive degree such as Law should be given more space than one that involves around one to two hours of contact time a week? I know students currently in their third year of a management degree who listen to the lectures via the internet and don’t venture to the department except on the odd occasion. So why, when funding is getting tighter, should they be given better facilities when other students studying for more intensive degrees in other departments have to make do with the library for study space?
At the risk of sounding childish, this is very much the rise of the green-eyed monster.
Based on what the Law Lecturers have said, when the building was being planned, the Management team were more than happy to allow us to have that space. However, now the building is done – the Management students are looking over the fence and seeing the grass is greener.
No one from Law is at fault – blame your Management department for not setting aside space for you to have comfy sofas.
The PBL areas were designed for law students, and the plans were accepted by the management department. If anything, the management students should be angry with their department, who have screwed them over in exchange for larger offices. The law space is for law students, as it was always decided.
This is a ridiculous argument – “It is really unfair. The facilities for Law students are are lot better than those for Management students, and their needs are prioritised over ours” – It is not unfair, it is what you (as a first year) signed up to when you joined and it is not our fault that you can’t take over all of the law area as well.
Management have already made attempts to take over the pre-agreed law clinic area. Perhaps they should give up a bit of their office space for the students, and perhaps the students should realise that it is not the law departments fault that their department is so inadequate.
pull the violin out…
I hardly think the management school will have their case taken up by Amnesty International any time soon. The law course at York is advertised as and was designed to be a collaborative system and the ‘lounge’ area is a reflection of this. 90% of our workload is done in groups, hence a monopoly on the conference rooms. On the other hand, we share our lecture theatres with Computer Science and TFTV students so we’re hardly denying our facilities to other students.
Law benefits from being a comparatively small course and logistically there’s no way the first floor lounge area could accommodate hundreds of management students. They should take their plight up with the management school, go to the library or use the foyer area on the ground floor.
Ugggh?????….me confused by big words
Just be happy you got some new facilities!
So where do people expect the Management students to work, if, as the article states, they don’t have anywhere to work?
“So where do people expect the Management students to work, if, as the article states, they don’t have anywhere to work?”
In the library maybe?
Maybe the study rooms across campus?
Maybe the New Study Building near the Charles?
In their study bedrooms?
In a computer room?
In the study spaces in all campus bars?
I think that I could help Nouse to make a list of things that Law students have that are better than their Management “peers” (they’re not really our peers, are they?).
Here goes:
- Study facilities
- Lecturers
- Career Prospects
- Sense of Humour
- IQ Level
I’ve spent literally seconds compiling this list, I bet there’s hundreds more. Please Nouse, write an article saying our lecturers, for example, are better than theirs so we should share them too.
As has been pointed out by too many people to count, the Management staff had the opportunity to plan their space so their students could maximise the building. They succeeded in getting what they wanted, therefore what the students want isn’t deemed important. Maybe the staff should have asked the students what they wanted prior to putting in their plans. Us Law students were kept firmly in the loop on the development of the building so our voices were heard, your staff have failed you.
Suck it up, Management. Throughout life your neighbour will have things that you want, use this experience as a learning process.
PS, when revising this learning process, please don’t use our rooms. Thank you.
Management is piss easy, you don’t need to study. We are superior!! Muwahahaha
So campus map expects anyone at hes east that has an hour or two between lectures to walk to the main campus and back, when we have a brand new building that should be able to adequately accomodate management students.
Easiest solution, is to make more efficient use of the various seminar rooms and convert some of them into private study areas.
At no point have i ever seen every seminar room in use at once.
If you can find 3-5 rooms, each able to hold 20 people, then that’s 60-100 private study spaces, and problem pretty much solved.
Here’s my suggestion for management students: why don’t you manage with what little your department secured for you
oi oi oi
The Law school specifically designed the area for law students. I went into the computer science department today to use some computers, but couldn’t… because the computers were specially designed so that only Phd computer science students could log on.
Plus, law students were being taught in a logg cabin/temporary structure for the past two years, in anticipation of THIS new building and all it’s specially designed qualities.
The law school clearly has the best management team in the university….
Honestly now, there’s no reason for people to be holier than thou about this. The comments just make a lot of students sound like they think they’re god’s gift to the world.
The lack of a study space is a concern for management students. I am not advocating that law students should be deprived of any space. Maybe it is a problem with the management school organisation. I must admit as a student, along with probably everyone else commenting, didn’t have any personal input into how the space would be used, despite many claiming how intelligent they are in forward thinking about this.
The computer rooms, the seminar rooms, and the lecture rooms – the areas deemed in the comments to be hogged or used almost exclusively by management – are centrally bookable. Priority does go to management and law, as they are resident in the LMB building. Same goes for the Physics department in the Physics building, the Chemistry department in the Chemistry building.
Having dispelled that fiction, now back to the point. It is important for all students to have ready access to a study space that is convenient. On Monday I have a lecture from 9-10, then another at 2-4. This leaves me 4 hours where I can be found in the ground floor computer room, but have on one occasion been booted out by a class in there. All I want to do is sit down, read my books, take notes, and get some lernan done – like many other students.
There is supposed to new study space in the hub, but going in there it was pretty deserted – like much of Heslington East it seems to still be lacking furniture to actually sit down and study.
I can’t see why we can’t have some solidarity here. It baffles me why when one department has failed to provide sufficient study space and the students complain, that students of other departments turn out with an infantile “Haha! In your face!” rather than saying actually, yes – all students should have access to decent, quiet and convenient study spaces. We all pay the same fees to the University, and we are all students of the University whatever degree programme we’re on. Reading the comments on here though, maybe that kind of higher thought process does not occur for all students based in the Law & Management Building.
Grow up. You’re all university students now, sort this out properly instead of like children, quite frankly, it’s pathetic.
What is the diiference between management and law students?
140 UCAS points
Look, what we all want is just to get some goddamn ‘lernan done’
Whats lernan?
No, sorry, this is a problem for the management department. This ‘Haha, in your face’ mentality is what happens in life. Get used to it.
You cannot afford tuition fees = haha in your face
You cannt afford accommodation fees = haha in your fase
you went to a state school = haha in your face
you want me to write you a reference? = haha in your face
This is the general mentality of York. Get over it perhaps?
ps. haha, in your face.
You do Management, why spend those free hours studying when you could just go have a pint at the Courtyard or go home and sleep?
This is a blessing in disguise people
Having spoken to the management (not the course) of the building and those who designed the study spaces I thought I would clear a few points up.
The law students have the use of the learning centre as it is integrated into their teaching model, unlike the management school model who require more teaching and seminar rooms. This is a fact.
However the lack of seating and other working environments is an issue, and one which is being sorted by both management and law administrators. For example there will be delivery of more seating within the foyer, the use of the Hub will soon become available, and planning application for conversion of a room into management study space has been submitted. This all takes time!
The fact is the building is brand new, and many other issues must be resolved first- such as leaking windows and guttering – before the petty squabbles between management and law can be resolved.
Unfortunately for Law it appears that you are not using the learning centre to its full potential (as your cobra cards can be monitored) and I suggest that it is not unreasonable to allow other students to use the room when it is not being used. However management students are not to use this as an excuse for somewhere to have a chat and a cup of tea, it is solely for the use of studying.
And thats that….
p.s. for those law students who think they deserve or have better than management students – grow up. Both courses are difficult and both departments are ranked very highly – and I speak having studied both law and finance.
i’m not in the management department, or the law department, but oh my god how cruel are these law students commenting?!
this article did not have provocative quotes from management students, personally insulting law students; this article never implied management students hated law students; this article was COMPLETELY fine and was just acknowledging the poor decision making that led to a completely imbalanced building.
there is really no need to go on and lay into management students. they’ve worked hard to do what they want, you’ve worked hard to do what you want. just because the typical offer is 140 UCAS points beneath yours, it doesn’t mean the students did not achieve AAA. it means they chose a course with lower grade requirements. maybe because they were worried they couldn’t achieve AAA and surpassed expectations, maybe they genuinely love management?! it’s not your place to judge and get off of your high horses. you’re nasty people and if you’re this judgmental now, i dread to think how you’ll be when you’re representing people in the future.
As a law student, I’d like to acknowledge that not all of us hold such views of Management students. I’d like to think that the comments posted by the Law students above are done so in jest, dangling a carrot that some of you have bitten.
As many Law students will appreciate, the study space that we do have can be extremely crowded at peak times, such as the gaps between our lectures. When you get three years worth of students in such a small space (approximately 300 people study the course, although I’m sure there has never been, and never will be, a time when all these people are in there) it is difficult to use the space for studying anyway.
The main concern of us Law students is that this space is genuinely opened up to Management students, in which case there could be hundreds of people in a small area and no one will be able to concentrate, as it is not intended to have a library atmosphere anyway.
Whilst I appreciate the unfairness of us having a designated study space and Management not having one, it’s not really our fault (nor is it yours) but the fault of whoever planned the building of your department. As I mentioned earlier, our area would not be usable to hundreds of people, and then we both suffer.
There are further areas in which the building (and new campus generally) could be improved, for example the computer room issues that have been raised in previous comments (I too have tried to use the Computer Science building and failed miserably to login!) and hopefully these issues are taken into account as well.
It seems like all this article (and the comments provided) has done has drawn a divide between the two faculties which doesn’t help anything. I hope there can be a genuinely helpful conclusion for Management students which doesn’t involve the sacrifice of our terrific facilities, from a purely selfish point of view.
I’m a 3rd year Management student and I am a realist.
1) For those Management students getting upset with Law students picking on them saying their degree is better/harder than theirs I say stop having so much pride. We all know Management is a 2nd string(semi micky-mouse) course similar to Sociology, Psychology, Philosophy, TV and Theatre, Sports Science etc compared to that of 1st string courses such as Law, Medicine, Physics, Economics etc.
Simply put Management is the degree people do if they don’t know what degree to do.
Having said this, despite my opinion of the difference between the subjects there probably shouldn’t be a difference in facilities/funding.
2) Personally I have not needed to use any space to do work in at the Management building(that’s not because I don’t do any work, I do at least 2 hours reading and 3 hours on essay work a day)….it is due to the fact I live in a house with a desk and I have 2 working legs enabling me to walk to the library if I wish.
3)These insignificant points out of the way the main thing I wish to say is have you not got more important issues/problems/stresses in your life to think/worry about rather than “my course building at the university I go to for 10 weeks at a time is spatially inadequate”….?….. I know I have.
The reason that this article has caused so much uproar amongst Law students is because, although a couple of people feel it isn’t, this article is clearly trying to assert a fact that we, as law students, are being prioritised.
This is wrong. Fact. We are utilising space given to us by our department. Our remarks and comments above are admittedly at times puerile and juvenile but I’m almost certain they are in jest as is suggested.
Law students are all proud to be members of YLS and will back it to the hilt. The small number of students has meant increased cohesion and a greater sense of community and belief in the law school and the constant support and excellence it has delivered us both in terms of pastoral care, academia, management and obviously facilities provision. Why then should it be wrong for us to take such a stance against an article which is derogatory towards something we take pride in?! Ultimately YLS students will back up their department as a whole, a pick on one pick on us all mentality which I find admirable and would be good to see in other departments at the university.
At the end of the day, the article was very provocative and did not tell the whole story. Management students should be taking up their issues with their department, not looking for another department and their students who have acted legitimately in an attempt to use them as a scape goat. Your department have failed you. Nobody else can be blamed.
And as for the department being responsible, i’m sure most management students will agree with me here that none of the lecturers i have spoken to(or ones that mention it in lectures seminars etc..) regarding the situation had any input on it whatsoever, and are just as irritated by the situation as we are.
Whoever in the management department it was who actually did put the (lack of) effort in to designing the space has some serious questions to answer IMO.
I spoke to a management lecturer over a few pints of Old Rosie last night and he told me he sold his students down the river for a keycard to get into the Berrick Saul Building, cos that place is, and I quote, ‘full of smash birds’.
The Management school is a load of ****! Simples!
To the disgruntled scientist et al. I am a Management Postgraduate student and one of several hundred. Granted some undergraduates have an easier ride but that is true of a number of subjects and I don’t believe that arrogance is justified with regards to what entails ‘putting in a lot of work’. I have more contact hours per week than an undergraduate in Chemistry, Physics or Maths and our work requires continual communication and contact between students. The failing likely lies with our department but you really do speak out of line by questioning whether we need the space. A large proportion of our work depends upon group effort and we have no designated space for achieving that. To be honest, I don’t really care about that as we have found a few nice places we prefer but I do detest the arrogance and self-indulgent egotism of those who question the requirements of the subject as a whole. Crawl out of your own behinds and realise that other people work hard too. Don’t go joking yourselves that your subject area is somehow a reflection on a higher intellect, greater workload or commitment to academia because clearly your lack of insight and ability to think in an open-minded fashion really doesn’t support it.