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"

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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 :)

Easter 2 - CUSU Oscars

Below is pretty much a copy of the email I sent out after the second CUSU council of Easter Term...


Dear all,

Last night was the final CUSU council meeting of term. After all the drama of Easter 1, Easter 2 was pretty mild in comparison. As ever I will endeavour to highlight (literally) things I consider to be of interest.

1) Trustee reform referendum passes

2) Gerard Tulley (CUSU President) makes an apology

3) Approval of Women's officer's £17,140 p/a contract

4) Return of the 'Disproportionate Sentencing' Motion 

5) Black/Minority/Ethnic JCR officer

6) Affiliation to Cambridge Council for Voluntary services

7) CUSU Oscars Controversy

8) 'I've got a bone to pick with you'

9) CUSU secretary election

1) Trustee reform referendum passes: 

I have to eat my words - I thought this referendum was going to fail to get the 10% of students voting 'YES' as required by the CUSU constitution for referendums to pass. In fact CUSU managed to get a turnout of about 2500 voters (~12% of the student body) with about 95% voting YES (so they managed to get about 11% of the student body to vote YES - 1% more than they needed! I wonder how many of us voted out of a genuine desire for Trustee Board Reform, rather than just a desire for the emails from CUSU about it to stop... 

On a lighter note does anyone else think that the pinky on the writing hand at the start of the YES campaign's video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g17Iu_s8zyY) is pretty freaky?

2) Gerard Tulley (CUSU President) makes an apology:

You might have read in the Tab about this drama: 

http://cambridgetab.co.uk/news/cusu-cock-up-causes-conference-confusionBasically Gerard read out an apology for seeming to spread blame on others, and said that he placed all blame on himself.

Just a quick health warning about the article - it is slightly misleading when it says "President Ros Old vocally oppos[ed] his (Gerard Tully's) nomination". She was not opposing the nomination of Gerard Tulley specifically, just the method Charlie Bell was using to attempt to have him nominated (look at item 7 for a fuller explanation)

3)  Approval of Women's officer's £17,140 p/a contract:

It was approved unsurprisingly, although I was surprised that sabbatical officers were paid that much.

4) Return of the 'Disproportionate Sentencing' Motion:

Recap: At the last CUSU council there was a similar motion which was voted down. Basically the old motion suggested that the guy who interrupted the David Willets speech and was given a 7 term sentence should not have been given any punishment at all, which was very controversial. The new motion removed that controversy and unsurprisingly passed. 

5) Black/Minority/Ethnic JCR officer

This was a rather ambiguous motion calling for JCRs to have 'an officer formally responsible for BME issues'. I asked a question about what that meant, since I was concerned that this motion was suggesting our JCR should have a BME officer. In case you are not familiar with our JCR we don't have a BME officer, and I think this is sensible. Although BME issues are important, I don't think that there would be much practical benefit in having a BME officer on the JCR committee, particularly since one of the main BME issues, access, is already covered by our Access officer.Would be very interested to hear what you think.

The motion's proposer, in answer to my question, seemed to say that whereas a BME officer would be preferable, the person in charge of BME issues could be someone like an Access officer. I thought this was sensible, and so voted for the motion, which passed.

For more information about the BME campaign see here -> http://www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/campaigns/bmestudents/. 

6) Affiliation to Cambridge Council for Voluntary services

This passed. It costs £50 a year. That is something like 0.25p from each of us.

7) CUSU Oscars Controversy

I don't think I was the only person in the room confused by what was going on, and since the chairperson of CUSU forgot to ask if anyone had any questions there was about twenty minutes of debating between Charlie Bell (our old JCR president, and now chair of CUSU LGBT), Ros Old (CUSU President Elect) and various others before I had a clue about what was going on.

Basically, every year the sabbatical officers nominate one or two people to be 'honorary life members' of CUSU. This year four people were nominated for this apparently highly coveted honour. Charlie Bell put forward a motion which would mandate the sabs to nominate a further two people, ie Gerard Tulley (outgoing CUSU President) and Taz Rahul (outgoing CUSU Access officer). Ros was arguing that we should vote to withdraw this motion on the grounds that it was improper for sabs to be forced to nominate people, and that too many people as a result would be nominated to be 'honorary life members', devaluing the honour. That is why earlier I said that the Tab article was misleading to say she was opposing Gerard's nomination - she was opposing the procedure Charlie was using to get him nominated.

I voted for the motion to be voted on, and then voted for the motion to be passed, which it did. This was partly because I thought it was a bit hypocritical for the CUSU elite to say Charlie was destroying the honorary life membership system when the sabs had chosen themselves to put forward an unprecedented number of people for it. It was also because I mischievously wanted to undermine the honorary life membership system.

8) 'I've got a bone to pick with you'

Less exciting then it sounds. The motion was given that name on the spot since it was originally untitled. It basically is an ideological motion against Trenton Oldfield, Ian Bone, Mr ASBO (a swan) and all others who would wish to disrupt the May Bumps. CUSU is meant now to work with other bodies to ensure the safe running of May Bumps, but I am not really sure what that could involve.

9) CUSU secretary election

One person ran and he won it uncontested.

So that wraps up another episode in the exciting world of CUSU! Let me know what you think about anything raised in this email - as I said I am particularly interested in what people think about the BME officer question. Not being part of an ethnic minority myself I am concerned that I might be missing the other side of the argument on this one. Should we have an Ethnic Minority officer on the JCR or is it OK for the role to be covered by the Access officer?

Wishing you a successful Easter term,

Dom

"Going to CUSU Council so you don't have to since 2012"

Easter 1

Below is pretty much a copy of the email I sent out after the first CUSU Council of Easter term

CUSU Easter Council 1 Low-down

We had the first CUSU council meeting of term on Friday and I thought I would update you about what went down and how I voted. I'm using sub-headings so you only need to read what is of interest to you. ***Things I think are of special interest I have starred and highlighted (although this is horribly subjective so don't read too much into it!). This is my first email like this so if you have any feedback I would be very happy to receive so I can improve my future low-downs. I apologise for any inaccuracies in advance. Please find attached the Agenda for the meeting if you want to read any of the motions in their original.

Remember - if you like this please subscribe to my list at quen-jcr-ext@lists.cam.ac.uk since in the future these low-downs will be sent there. If you want to subscribe but don't know how just reply with a blank email and I will add you :)

Contents:

1. Budget

2. Election returning officer report

3. Trustee Board Changes

***4. Owen Holland and University Discipline

5. Cambridge living wage campaign

6. Say no to dangerous tax hikes

***7. 'God save the Queen'

8. Anti-Semitism

9. Questions to CUSU president

1. Budget - Basically the financial situation has improved from last year and we got given a copy of the budget for next year, which was approved (Will Oram and I voting in favour).

2. Election returning officer report - Said that the election was difficult this year because of some breaches of the election rules. Said that next year it might be an idea to elect Election Committee earlier to make election time less manic. Average turn-out was 20.4%, and Queens' achieved a turn-out of 19.1%.

3. Trustee Board Changes - CUSU is determined to pass reforms on the trustee board. I do not know in detail why this needs to be done, but I think it should be an improvement. My concern is that to change it they need to pass a referendum with at least 10% of the student body voting YES, which they failed to do in Lent term, and I am not convinced that they will succeed this time. Despite this me and Will both voted in favour of allowing another referendum, which I will present to Queens' when the time comes.

***4. Owen Holland and University Discipline - This was an interesting motion put forward by Queens' member Amy Gilligan. 

A little bit of background in case you don't know. Basically Owen was suspended for 7 terms by the university disciplinary body for disrupting the David Willets talk.

Essentially this motion was calling for CUSU to condemn this sentence as too harsh and supporting Owen through protests etc. The problem was that the motion was drafted in quite a divisive way. For example in the 'Believes' section it called for Owen to be 'reinstated' without specifying whether this was to be immediate or after a proportionate sentence. 

It had to be taken in parts, but both parts failed. Will voted against both parts. I voted against the 'Believes' section because of the ambiguity I have mentioned, and voted for the 'Resolves' section, since I thought it was more straight-forward. The reason others voted against the 'Resolves' section was that part of it seemed to imply that CUSU would be supporting the 'Defend the Right to Protest Campaign', which was unpopular because of that campaign's history of supporting more extreme protesters (ie the guy who climbed the Cenotaph, and the guy who threw the fire extinguisher). I did not think that the motion did imply support of that campaign, except in the limited context of the support they were giving to Owen Holland. 

I would be interested to hear from you if you disagree with the decision I took so I can take that into account for future votes. Have a look at the motions attached and let me know what you think!

5. Cambridge Living Wage Campaign - This motion essentially ideological in favour of aligning CUSU with this campaign. There were some criticisms of the campaign's methodologies, but Will and I, along with most of CUSU council, were not convinced by them, and subsequently voted to support the campaign, which passed in whole. This is a really interesting campaign calling for an increase in wages for those being paid below what the campaign considers to be the 'living wage'. Will and I agreed that we should bring this up with college, as a freedom of information request indicated that Queens' currently pays about 30 staff members below this level.

6. Say no to dangerous tax hikes - This was another ideological motion opposing the government's proposed changes to the tax rules for charities. Considering that Queens' relies heavily on charitable donations, and the governments changes would seem to reduce the incentive to give large amounts of money to charity, Will and I voted in favour of it and it passed.

***7. God save the Queen - This was a patriotic motion put forward by Charlie Bell which would require CUSU to formally congratulate the Queen on her diamond jubilee and sing 2 verses of the national anthem at the start of next council. Even after there was a friendly amendment for one of the verses to be sung solo by Charlie this motion failed to pass. Considering the Queen is our patron, I felt it my duty to support this motion (as did Will). Keep an eye out on the Tab for an article Charlie will be writing about this hopefully.

8. Anti-Semitism - This was an emergency motion separate from the main agenda. This was another ideological motion condemning the vandalism of the Union of Jewish Students stall at the recent NUS conference. This, unsurprisingly, passed unanimously.

9. Questions to CUSU president -Questions were asked about bursaries, the NUS conference and some other matters. What was of most interest was the fact that Cambridge failed to get their motions raised at NUS because they were not submitted on time. Apparently this was because the CUSUteam was busy with elections, but this seemed like a pretty inexcusable error.

Please contact me if you want to know in any more detail about what happened at Council, or if you are interested in coming along next time. If you want to be kept in the loop subscribe to my list at quen-jcr-ext@lists.cam.ac.uk since in the future these low-downs will be sent there. If you want to subscribe but don't know how just reply with a blank email and I will add you.

Thanks for reading,

Dom Brown

VP External

First Post

Hi all,


As VP external it is my mission to get the students of Queens' to explore beyond the four walls of college and see some of the exciting things which go on in the rest of the university.


In particular I am talking about the exciting world of CUSU, the mothership of all college JCRs and MCRs. It is a place where student policy at a university level is decided, and is attended by a mixture of CUSU representatives and JCR/MCR reps. As such it is very exciting.


It is the responsibility of the VP External and the President to represent the interests of Queens' at these meetings. 


As some of you may know I send out a regular email detailing what happens at CUSU meetings and beyond, so as to keep everyone in Queens' in the loop, and to ensure that the President and I remain accountable for the decisions we take on your behalf. 


I call them my 'low-downs' of what is going on. 


This blog will hopefully make my 'low-downs' accessible to a circle wider than those on my list (which you are still free to subscribe to by emailing me here -> jcr-vp-external@queens.cam.ac.uk)


Thanks for reading


Dom