Out-of-touch Union staff and sabbs necessitate student engagement

Last week at Council, a report from the Deputy President (Welfare) revealed that she had successfully secured £5000 from College for a one-year subscription to Consent Matters, an online educational tool to be integrated with Blackboard that supposes to inform students about “sex, consent, and relationships”. Consent Matters is a 2 hour course that, from the preview on their website, appears to be composed entirely of stick-figure animations with a narration so mind-numbingly patronising that the viewer regresses into a child-like state as they’re taught the thoroughly novel lesson that ‘sometimes touching people’s no-no parts is bad’.

The concept of consent is undoubtedly an important one, but it’s also so simple a concept that a good ‘cup of tea’ metaphor just about sums it up (as seen in a popular Youtube video). Anyone who thinks that potential rapists exist on campus simply because they were never presented with a cartoon telling them that you shouldn’t have sex with unconscious people is utterly delusional. The only people who will go to the trouble of taking this course are those who already value learning about consent. Anyone who is forced to take the course for disciplinary reasons (as suggested by the DPW at Council) will also extract zero benefit as they have already shown a wilful disregard for others’ ownership of their own bodies that an hour of cheery narration cannot fix (although perhaps the soul-destroying boredom of the experience will be a well-deserved punishment). In short, this purchase will contribute nothing to the student experience on campus.

Imagine what could have been done with this money had it been secured for funding for clubs and societies

Despite this, our elected representatives saw fit to have £5,000 of College money put towards this purchase. That’s 5/9 of annual tuition for most of you, or just enough for a brand new reception desk in the Union. That’s many times larger than the RCSU’s entire Welfare budget. Imagine what could have been done with it had it been secured for funding clubs and societies, or for Constituent Unions to spend on real, meaningful contributions to student welfare. This is £5,000 completely and utterly wasted.

It is true that the engagement of the student body with Union Council is essentially nil (heck, most of those with a seat on Council don’t show up most of the time). Because of this, Union staff and sabbatical officers (who, as this incident shows, can be just as out-of-touch as staff) are held to a degree of accountability that is vastly insufficient. Thanks to the Union’s decision to make their Governance Manager redundant over the summer, the latest set of elections were completely ballsed up and the resulting shockingly low voter turnout strikes at the heart of our very nature as a democratic Student Union. Because of the Union’s decision last year to lobby College to threaten academic sanctions against members of the RAG Committee over a publication embarrassing to a Union Officer, the highest purpose of a Student Union – to stand up for its members against the University – was completely perverted. These things can happen because staff are only accountable to us through the sabbatical officers, who themselves are only accountable through Council, in which the majority of us do not engage.

If we, as students and members of Imperial College Union, do not make our voices heard, this will only continue. As the accountability of the Union to its members evaporates, it can only become less and less student-focused and more and more of a ‘Student Appeasement Division’ of Imperial College London. If you have an opinion on any of the vast number of issues that affect us all as students, Union Council is the place for it to be heard. Get in touch with your Faculty’s council representative, or better yet, come along yourself to the open meetings of the paramount policy-making and accountability body in Imperial College Union. Listen to the reports of your representatives, and express your views.

Express your appraisal for the excellent work that is often done, whether by the DP (Education) and the Education Team in fighting for students in the College’s education policy-making process, or by the DP (Clubs and Societies), the DP (Finance and Services), and the Activities Team in managing the largest and greatest clubs and societies portfolio in the country. Express your disapproval of the mistakes that are made, be they bizarre, pointless expenditures or plain violations of the Union’s responsibilities to students. But whatever they may be, express your views.

As the accountability of the Union to its members evaporates, it can only become less and less student-focused

The next meeting of Union Council is Tuesday, November 8th at 18:30 in the Union Dining Hall. Your representatives on council are as follows:

Faculty of Natural Sciences Abhijay Sood (UG), Michael Edwards (UG), Joshua Renken (UG), Stephen Ball (PG)

Faculty of Engineering Andrew Olson Gallardo (UG), James Long (UG), Thomas Shakespeare (UG), Luke Granger-Brown (UG), Theresa Davey (PG), James Targett (PG).

Faculty of Medicine

Eric Suen (UG), Kai Matthews (UG)