To build a movement that grows, that changes, that has weight it needs to constantly replenish it self with, new activists, new “hubs” of the movement. This is something I think we do very poorly at the guild of students.
Hubs are easy to spot; they do a vast amount of the work, and they seemingly know everyone and have connections seemingly everywhere.
Yeah, we need people like this but where I think the guild falls flat on it face… Is that it turns these “hubs” into permanent entrenched leaders who suppress the development of their replacements… limiting the growth of our movement.
To become an effective student activist on campus you need introductions … not just to other students and student groups but to the university its officers and managers and union and staff campaigners… more than it requires skills, knowledge about the university and a memory of the past.
The Guild reserves all these things for mainly for its officers as an officer you get the training, get taught about university structures told who is who, who to approach on each issue and start building relationships with these people.
This knowledge needs to be decentralized away from individuals and woven into the very fabric our student movement’s environment.
We should have pages on the guilds website profiling the universities directors with the e-mails available, interactive maps of the universities committees; including their links. Members remit and contact information.
The system of campaign representation was (I hope) designed with the best intentions, to get students heard. Its has unfortunately now become more like a bottleneck more of a block than boost to student campaigns. It is surprising? we don't need the one many army we need hundreds of students with the tools and will to make a difference.
Up until I leave as EEO I’m going to spend time publishing this information as best I can, while its up copy and paste it incase it gets removed.
I’m going to start with the upper management academic structures
University council – the highest body in the university, approves all decisions.
Professor D Eastwood The Vice-Chancellor and Principal d.eastwood@bham.ac.uk
Professor M C Sheppard The Vice-Principal 30/09/12 M.C.Sheppardl@bham.ac.uk
Professor M J Hilton Modern History 2012 M.J.Hilton@bham.ac.uk
Professor J M Marshall Medicine 2012 j.m.marshall@bham.ac.uk
Professor C Ryan European Economics 2013 c.ryan@bham.ac.uk
Professor A J Schofield Physics & Astronomy 2013 ajs@th.ph.bham.ac.uk
The Heads of College members of the council
Professor A Pauwels Arts and Law Email: a.pauwels@bham.ac.uk
Professor E W Peck Social Sciences e.w.peck@bham.ac.uk
Professor M C Press Life and Environmental Sciences m.c.press@bham.ac.uk
Professor N P Weatherill Engineering and Physical Sciences n.p.weatherill@bham.ac.uk
Professor L S Young Medical and Dental Sciences l.s.young@bham.ac.uk
The senate
think of this as guild council for the university, recent reforms have weaken its powers considerably and handed them over the executive, however this is how staff and student dissent with decisions is expressed. If you are upset with a decision that seems to have already been made… then it could well be useful to approach these people.
Three College Board members (each of these has been nominated by the Heads of College)
Engineering and Physical Sciences
Dr D F Hermans Director of Education hermadfm@adf.bham.ac.uk
Professor A J Schofield Director of Research ajs@th.ph.bham.ac.uk
Professor D W L Hukins Head of School, Mechanical Engineering D.W.Hukins@bham.ac.uk
Arts and Law
Professor M D Stringer Director of Education m.d.stringer@bham.ac.uk
Professor V L Gaffney Director of Research and Knowledge Transfer v.l.gaffney@bham.ac.uk
Dr L Brydon Head of School, History & Cultures L.Brydon@bham.ac.uk
Social Sciences
Professor C Ryan Director of Education c.ryan@bham.ac.uk
Professor C K Skelcher Director of Research and Knowledge Transfer c.k.skelcher@bham.ac.uk
Professor P B Jackson Head of School, Government and Society p.b.jackson@bham.ac.uk
Leaving Counter-Strike behind
-
Last year I wrote a post about how I needed to take some time out, due to
me developing physical anxiety symptoms. It’s fair to say that many things
got on...
2 months ago
Posts
http://edwardbauereeo.blogspot.com/2009/09/stuck-in-bottleneck-of-representation.html ... a earlier post on a simlar subject
ReplyDeletearen't these all available on the bham website anyway?
ReplyDeleteSome of them are but not all, if you know where to look, the point is we should be directing students towards these address and empowering them to represent themselves.
ReplyDeleteIt is quite disempowering, to have officer say I will pass on your message and just have to leave it at that. Not to mention the many issues that the officer team refuses to take up.
One of the dangers is that you ask an officer for help and they just say... “I will take that up for you”, when they could be campaigning with you lending their position to your letters telling you who’s who at the university passing on contacts.
From what I have seen during my time in the guild, much of this process is repeated because those with the information keep it to themselves just saying “I will pass it on” often to maintain there own usefulness and status as a “hub”.