CUSU Council Michaelmas 2

or, "The one where we realised domestic students can mess up proof-reading as well"

Michaelmas 2 got off to an ominous start, as we were sternly reminded of CUSU's 'Safe Space Policy', which requires us not to use language deemed 'aggressive, disrespectful, threatening, intimidating, or designed to cause harm or disruption'. This was presumably in response to the uncomfortable moment last week regarding the correction of a non-native English speaking student's grammar in his motion. More on that below.

In response to complaints last week, I will basically not be using a certain word in this post.

Summarised below are the main points from the meeting. The list of motions was very long, but most were dealt with quickly since they were the lapsing motions which were not dealt with at Mich 1 (see point 3 of the last post).

1. Who said what last week

* 2. Upholding the Safe Space policy

3. Rattle, rattle, rattle

* 4. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so, so, sorry"

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1. Who said what last week

Some corrections were suggested for the minutes from last week, regarding what was actually said in relation to the correction of the non-native English speaking student's grammar. The original minutes are as follows (AG is the non-native English speaking student, MC is the person who challenged the correction as discriminatory):


"Another amendment was proposed to correct grammatical mistakes.
AG indicated that he was happy for minor copy editing to occur. MC
said that we must now have a debate. It was said that it is unfair to
make fun of the use of the English language by someone whose first
language is not English and as such the proposal of this motion is not
fair and offensive. The proposer apologised for the tone of the proposal
but stood by the content and said that CUSU should still produce
documentations written in correct English and said that CUSU should
provide reasonable support to these people as it would to someone
with a disability affecting their use of the language. SW proposed to not
put the question. Council voted to not put the amendment."

MC now wanted to change these minutes so that the part in yellow should be deleted. This is because she said she was offended by the suggestion that being an international student was the same as being disabled, and she didn't like how the comment was being sanitised with the addition of the highlighted text.

For his part, the guy who made the comment said that he thought he said 'disability such as dyslexia'.

Personally, I don't see what the difference is. If you were going to get offended at all, I think you would be offended whether or not the highlighted text was there.

Thankfully, Ros (CUSU President) suggested we all take two weeks out to work out what was said and talk about it next council. Someone pointed out that our collective memory was likely to be even worse then, but Ros' suggestion was upheld. I'm hoping the collective CUSU memory will not care in two weeks time, and be busy with the topical and gripping issues that define CUSU council as an institution.

* 2. Upholding the Safe Space policy

Our friend MC was not finished there. Under the innocuous title 'CUSU celebrate Cambridge diversity', she brought a motion which would uphold CUSU's commitment to its Safe Space policy, mandate the Chair to apologise for not upholding it last week, and mandate the Chair to proof-read all motions.

Her argument, which was well put, was that the comments about proof-reading last week made her and other non-native English speakers feel uncomfortable, undermining CUSU council as a safe forum for debate.

Ironically, although she supposedly had four 'native' English speakers proof-read her motion, there were still quite a few mistakes (including the great Yoda-ism "CUSU is a democratic body that encourage should participation and freedom of speech").

Hackles were raised at the suggestion that the CUSU Chair should apologise for not upholding the Safe Space policy last week. I think this was because people couldn't see how the comments made were offensive. Whilst I agree that the comments were not intrinsically offensive or discriminatory, CUSU ought to have reminded everyone of their obligation to avoid language which could be considered 'aggressive, disrespectful, threatening, intimidating, or designed to cause harm or disruption'. I think that the comment made last week could be considered disrespectful regardless of who it was directed to, and it was unfortunate that in the context it made some non-native speakers feel uncomfortable. Therefore when there was a vote to remove the requirement for a CUSU representative to make an apology from the motion, I voted against it. I was strongly in the minority, and that part of the motion was scrapped, but I would be interested in hearing whether or not you agree with me.

The rest of the motion passed pretty much unanimously, since all it did was mandate the proof-reading of motions (which ought to be done anyway).

3. Rattle, rattle, rattle

We managed to get through 18 lapsing motions pretty efficiently. All was well until we were asked to hold Julian Huppert and the Lib Dems to their pledges...

* 4. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so, so, sorry"

At the outset, let me just say that Julian Huppert (Lib Dem MP for Cambridge) did not break his pledge to vote against any rise in tuition fees, since the Lib Dem whips did not need to use his vote to get a Coalition majority on this issue.

Seeing as the vital vote has happened, and his pledge has already been adhered to (or in Nick Clegg's case, broken), there doesn't seem much that CUSU can do to hold them to their pledges. People also objected to this motion on the grounds that it seemed to unfairly single out the Lib Dems for tuition fee increases, when it takes two to tango in a coalition.

I felt uncomfortable by the motion, especially since NC had made his apology video (the auto-tuning makes it just about bearable: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUDjRZ30SNo). Therefore I was grateful when someone suggested a procedural motion to not vote on the issue, on the grounds that the motion was in some way inappropriate. This was surprisingly overwhelmingly voted in favour of. Either there are lots of Lib Dem voters in CUSU, or everyone just wanted to get out. I might suggest similar motions in the future if I feel things are dragging on a bit. Watch this space.


Thats all folks! Slightly shorter than usual. Also slightly saner. I think no-one had the energy to bring up some major CUSU craziness because of all of the rattling lapsing motions which needed to be processed. Tune in next time for the next thrilling instalment!

Dom

CUSU Council Michaelmas 1

CUSU Council Michaelmas 1

or, 'The one where we debated whether it is discriminatory to correct someone's grammar.'

New academic year, new CUSU antics. 

As I arrived at the small examinations building at the old museum site, I thought that CUSU had attracted a new wave of hip looking devotees, including our very own Tom Rasmussen. Then I realised that CUSU council had been scheduled next to a 'Varsity' newspaper meeting, and that there are no hip people in CUSU :( [That is a joke, of course there are hip people in CUSU]

Summarised below are the main points from the meeting. As ever, I have starred the items of interest and/or amusement. 

1. What the Sabs did on vacation

*2. Ofstead comes to Cambridge

3. Lapsing policy motion

4. Student Trustee

*5. NUS National Demonstration

*6. Trades Union Congress Demonstration
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1. What the sabs did on vacation

Our fresh-faced new CUSU President, Ros Old, kicked of the one-upmanship of holiday stories by telling us about how she spent her summer trying to improve student engagement with CUSU (which is currently pretty poor according to the Tab -> http://cambridgetab.co.uk/news/cusu-cu-seless-in-national-survey).

As part of this there is the new student survey, which you can fill out here ->
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CUSUsurvey2012

Other interesting holidays included that of the Welfare officer, who has started the new C-Card scheme. This scheme is basically meant to saturate the student population with condoms so that no-one has an excuse for not having one on them. According to the Tab, they have spent a record amount on Condoms! -> http://cambridgetab.co.uk/news/condom-overload-for-the-9k-freshers

You can find out about the C-Card scheme, which basically gives you access to unlimited free condoms from pick-up places around town, at -> www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/ccard

* 2.Ofstead comes to Cambridge

Well, this isn't really Ofstead. The body is called the QAA (Quality Assurance Agency) and they basically go around universities checking that standards are at a certain threshold and making suggestions on improvement.

This is interesting because they are very active in taking student opinions into account, and in the past the weight of QAA support has changed some important things CUSU has campaigned about.

The Education Officer, Sam Wakeford, has asked for people to contact him at education@cusu.cam.ac.uk if they have any recommendations for this review regarding educational standards at the university. He is also looking for volunteers for people to help him write his important and potentially influential report to the QAA, so if you are interested in having an involved impact on the eventual report get in touch!

3. Lapsing policy motion

This was the first sign of CUSU silliness of the night. Basically last Easter term we agreed in council to extend lapsing policies to this meeting so we could discuss them now (basically a policy lapses after 3 years and so after this time council needs to vote again if they want to renew it). 

Ros basically asked if the deadline could be extended until the next CUSU meeting to allow more time to discuss which specific policies should be put forward to be renewed. 

This then became a serious discussion about whether we would waste more time by delaying the vote for another council, or if we would ultimately save time since the policies would have been sifted through. To cut a long story short, we wasted a lot of time, and ultimately voted to delay the vote.

4.Student Trustee

Yet more CUSU silliness. For those of you who are not aware of last term's institutional amendments to CUSU, after a long process of referenda it was decided that there should be two student trustees on the trustee board. After another long process of nominations, applications and interviews, two student trustees were selected. Now they needed to be ratified by CUSU council.

First someone objected that one of the would-be trustees had represented herself in 'The Cambridge Student' as ALREADY being a trustee, even though her position needed to be ratified. Shocking stuff, I know.

Then, someone started citing the Charity Act claiming that the whole selection process was illegal because only trustees have the power to choose other trustees on the board of trustees. Despite being a law student currently studying the law of trusts, we haven't gotten there in lectures yet, so I was as clueless as everyone else. The concerned attendee was told to address his concerns to the board of trustees, and we thankfully moved on.

*5. NUS national demonstration

Basically, we voted pretty unanimously in favour of supporting the NUS national student demonstration and providing £200 to help pay for bus fares for students to London for that event, which will be on the 21st of November if you are interested. 

According to Ros, who proposed this motion, the protest was planned to be peaceful and constructive. £200 represents about 10% of CUSU's unallocated budget, so is a substantial amount. I personally will not be attending the protest, but am sympathetic to those who will want to, particularly if they promise to not start a riot. 

Incidentally, there was another motion which was withdrawn after this one succeeded, because it called for essentially the same thing. That one, however, was drafted in a far more politically aggressive way, claiming that 'resolution of the crisis (of youth unemployment) is not on the agenda of the current coalition government' and that 'unless policies change the economy will not grow, incomes will not rise, and there will be almost no new jobs'. 

*6. Trades Union Congress Demonstration

The same agitator who gave us the alternative motion I just mentioned also supplied us with another politically charged motion, which called for CUSU to support the Trades Union strike later this month. 

One part of the motion received particular attention:
"In the time of austerity, there will no advancement of education in general."

Read that again. It doesn't make sense (in my view) as a statement of the effect of the cuts, and it also doesn't make sense grammatically. 

One council attendee proposed a friendly amendment to proof-read the motion and correct the grammatical mistakes. This was rejected as a friendly amendment, not just by the proposer, but also by another attendee who claimed that the proposed amendment was 'discriminatory' and 'patronising' towards international students (the person who proposed the original motion was an international student). In my opinion, the person who made the amendment was making a pretty cheap shot, but to describe it as 'discriminatory' is a little absurd. The person who raised the motion didn't make the mistake because of any problem with his grasp of English, he made it because he didn't proof read!

We never got to vote on whether to allow the grammatical mistakes to be corrected, as a procedural motion was proposed to move on without having to vote. This was unanimously accepted, except by people who at first challenged the friendly amendment. Obviously they wanted to argue as a point of principle about 'discriminatory' grammar checking.

We finally made it to the speeches in opposition to the motion. A great and succinct speech was made by the John's JCR President, who reminded everyone that not all Cambridge students have the same political views, and it was not CUSU's job to use such politically charged language as was present in the motion. Another speech more provocatively described the motion as 'vulgar marxism'. 

Thankfully the motion was rejected, with only 5 attendees voting in favour.
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That's all folks! Feel free to comment if you agree/disagree with anything I did at council/wrote about here. What is your opinion on the correction of grammar? What do you think about the QAA coming to Cambridge? Are you excited about getting your C-Card and an unlimited supply of free condoms?

Comment below :)