That Girl from Derwent dwells on the value of religion this Christmas.
That Girl from Derwent has learned a few more things about prejudice since moving up North.
That Girl From Derwent reckons if you're going to be offensive, you should find a better reason.
That Girl from Derwent considers why it is that some words have wider implications than others.
In Nouse last week I challenged the view that the essence of a college is its bar and dining room. I realise that this could be seen to be anti-college in general, whereas the opposite is true, so let me expand.
When you arrive at the University of York, whether leaving home for the first time, returning to education after a break (long or short) or moving to a new country to study, you form networks of shared interests in your academic departments, in your societies, in your sporting activities. In your college by contrast, you meet the people you wouldn’t necessarily immediately team up with – some surprising friendships are forged and some long-held beliefs about ‘the other’ may be challenged when sharing a kitchen with someone you normally wouldn’t dream of talking to. So – point one of a college – it’s to broaden your social horizons, knock you out of your comfort zone, get you thinking about how society articulates or fails to – and why.
JCRs create social opportunities of all kinds to help everyone find a social niche - and if a college has a bar, that’s an easier task in many ways
Point two – not everybody is confident and outgoing when they turn up in a new milieu. Colleges are there to provide somewhere to live in this strange new place that will also offer a degree of support, both from staff and fellow students. The college team provides a welfare structure that articulates with central Student Support Services. JCRs create social opportunities of all kinds to help everyone find a social niche - and if a college has a bar, that’s an easier task in many ways as it provides an informal locale for meeting your friends, sitting around chatting, or putting on events. Question: can those functions be provided by other sorts of social space, if as I suggested in Nouse, student preferences make it difficult to sustain the bar? To me, the answer just has to be yes – no social space, no functioning college. It’s as simple as that – yet the configuration of the social space is absolutely central and we must get it right. We need student input to that issue.
Point three – the JCR system requires students to take a large measure of responsibility for their own college at an early stage and to sustain that commitment through subsequent years in the university. I am convinced that a healthy society is one that maximises active democratic involvement. The demands that colleges make on their members beyond the first year distinguish them from halls of residence elsewhere and create the conditions for social interaction between years as well as within them, and between students and staff. YUSU, Boards of Studies and club committees provide other platforms for such active engagement. Employers like York graduates because they are used to taking responsibility and they are used to talking across status groups as informed and active members of society – they are ‘collegial’ in their approach to life and work.
All this implies a ‘college spirit’ that is hard to define and even harder to manufacture. There must be more to it than having a bar – I look forward to your comments on Thursday.
To read the previous blog in this series, by Erik O'Connor, click here.
The Facebook event for the debate can be found here.
It's great that a member of the university's Senior Management Group is actually taking the time to communicate and engage in dialogue with students. While members of the university management talk to representatives of students on a regular basis (mainly YUSU officers but also college chairs, board of studies reps etc), many students don't see this, and aren't really engaged in that dialogue. So well done to Jane for making the effort on this. Let's hope that the debate goes well and that the university considers changing some of its policies and attitudes towards students as a result.
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