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| ULU plan will sever community
links |
Student union leader Samuel Thomas argues
that plans to reorganise London’s colleges will ruin community
relations
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UCL’s Senate House
Samuel Thomas
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READING the media in the last week, you can hardly have avoided
the frenzy of guesswork about the future of the University of London.
You might wonder what all the fuss is about. You wouldn’t be
the only ones.
Several people have called for the university – a federation
of 23 colleges – to be dissolved. They generally call for the
large colleges to become independent universities, and simply take
over the small and medium-sized colleges.
The arguments offered are as varied as they are unconvincing. They
range from political and commercial ambition to spurious attacks
on the academic standards of certain colleges.
The University of London Union (ULU) is independent and I have no
brief to defend the university. I work to promote the needs of students.
But neither the interests of students nor the concerns of the community
play much part in the arguments of those who call for dissolution.
One of the most incredible of such arguments was made by Simon Jenkins
in The Guardian last week. He chose to attack the university by
insulting Bloomsbury. While the university has colleges as far afield
as Paris and western Scotland, and in all parts of London, many
of them are concentrated in Bloomsbury. Mr Jenkins calls the area
a “tarmacked wilderness” and insists that it is “one
of the bleakest parts of central London”. He says little about
the wonderfully diverse people who choose to live, work and study
here.
The advantages of Bloomsbury were driven home to me recently when
I visited a university in the midlands. I found a place in which
students are in a state of permanent warfare with the community.
The totally enclosed campus meant that thousands of students can
access virtually any service – shops, cinema, doctor, bars
– without ever seeing a resident. In turn, the residents resent
the students and blame them for a number of problems. Hostility
builds up between the two groups who can easily judge each other
because they rarely meet.
In contrast, within minutes of leaving my office I can be chatting
with residents of Tavistock Square or shop assistants on the Tottenham
Court Road. People who live or work in Bloomsbury find themselves
rubbing shoulders with students. Londoners with no other connection
with higher education visit the excellent gym and swimming pool.
In Bloomsbury, relations between students and locals are a cause
for celebration and pride.
I am constantly looking for ways to build on this and form greater
partnerships with the community. When I addressed the Bloomsbury
Association on Tuesday I made it clear that suggestions and comments
from locals were positively desirable.
But relations between students and residents would be greatly threatened
if the university was dissolved. ULU represents students not only
to the government and the media but also to representatives of the
area, such as councillors and residents’ associations. Positive
relationships have been built up over years, and without ULU here
we would simply be sent back to the drawing board of community relations.
Following my recent experience in the midlands, it’s not a
drawing board I’m very keen to sit at.
Residents would find themselves no longer able to use ULU’s
swimming pool or visit the gigs we host.
If, as Simon Jenkins suggests, our buildings were knocked down,
then community groups from Bloomsbury and Camden would lose the
meeting and conference facilities that ULU provides.
Losses to students would include facilities such as accommodation
and careers advice, provided efficiently and cheaply at a university-wide
level. The small colleges, such as the School of Oriental and African
Studies, would be unable to exist completely alone and simply become
departments of larger institutions, with far less independence than
they currently enjoy. They would lose their identities and quite
possibly their international reputations. Students would no longer
benefit from ULU’s campaigning, which in recent years has won
a 30 per cent student discount on London’s public transport.
Cynical stereotypes of students present us all as disruptive nuisances.
Bloomsbury has exposed this image as a falsehood. ULU and the University
of London will continue to benefit the community. Let’s treat
Simon Jenkins’ insults with the contempt they deserve. Let’s
continue to work together for Bloomsbury.
• Samuel Thomas is acting president of the University of
London Union |
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