Home » Posts tagged 'Student Union'
Tag Archives: Student Union
Starting a new school year
What makes university unique?
Unlike school, students make the choice to come to university. What’s more, it is often a student’s first-time experiencing independence from caregivers, e.g. outside the purview of their own parents. For many, this may mean learning how to shop, cook, budget, clean and take care of their own stuff. This is an entirely new series of decisions leading to the person you will become. Never shy away from seeking help, support and advice, and use every resource at hand, including and especially people.
Build relationships. You will undoubtedly be tempted to spend lots of time on your digital devices – alone – but this will most certainly lead you down a dark path towards isolation, loneliness and the false feeling of control. Instead, accept that you must fashion a new independent self. Who are you outside your caregivers/parent’s home? Put the phone down and give yourself a fighting chance to find out!
Find kinship beyond superficial similarities, and sow the seeds for happiness in your new environment. At our university, the biggest mistake I’ve consistently seen students make is failing to create community here. Often, for example, UK-based students are anxious to spend the weekend at home with their parents or school friends. International students may either indulge in regional tourism, indulge their homesickness, and/or only seek to build relationships within their own ethno-linguistic group. Again, this all feeds a false sense of control.
This mirrors my experiences at Hanoi University of Science and Technology, where I taught during my sabbatical year in Vietnam (see featured image). There, I had to not only learn from my students how to navigate the local environment, but crucially, learn local classroom norms from both them and colleagues so that I could teach more effectively.
With that said: Build relationships right here through the university community. Join a club, explore and develop your interests and cultivate support networks. These may overlap or be three different ventures. If you work, then find employment that anchors you here in Northampton. Use every job experience as A) An opportunity to improve your communication skills, and B) As building blocks towards your own goals.
Within the first few weeks of starting university 30 years ago, I met a student who quickly became my best friend. He came from a country I couldn’t have pointed out on a map, was from a different religion, and studied something far from my own interests. As our friendship blossomed, we easily discovered that we had far more in common than not, which in turn fed my own curiosity and confidence to get to know more about this planet we all call home. Even though he’s passed away, our friendship still sustains me to this day (Rest in Power, dear Numair).
On the mentor/disciple relationship between students and teachers
At university, there is no separation between staff/students, adults/youth like in school. Please find opportunities to develop mentor/mentee relationships with your tutors*. Find a tutor with whom you can share your new world and reflect upon your growth. Ask them exactly what excellence looks like in their classroom and on assessments so you can foster the right study skills.
Yes, find mentors and become one, too! Learn from others who are further along the journey you now tread. At the same time, find ways to work with youth to inspire those who follow your path. This not only develops your own confidence and communication skills, but collectively contributes to a vibrant university community.
As someone who has studied and practiced Buddhism my whole life, I am convinced that what we give, we get in return. Cultivate a spirit of generosity and feed your own open-mindedness. This support and tolerance will be returned to you ten-fold.
*hooks, bell (2003). Teaching Community: A pedagogy of hope. New York ; Routledge.
Share this:
Killed with kindness #RaceEd
What does it say about the education sector that we don’t say what we mean? What does it say that I attended a conference on racism at universities that didn’t have racism in the title? “Racial harassment” is what they called it, as in Westminster Higher Education Forum Keynote Seminar: Priorities for Tackling Racial Harassment & Improving the BAME Experience in HE. Racial harassment? Racism. Name it. Own it. We’re nearly in 2020 and we’re still wrapping these issues in bubblewrap to make it more palatable for, dare I say, senior management at UK universities (overwhelmingly White). Should we draw a nail? Pop. Pop. Pop.
Arising from my bed at 5:45am to make a 7:30am(ish) train, only to arrive at this conference feeling a bit awkward. The whole delivery felt “preachy” from the get-go. Being lectured on race by mainly White middle class people brought me back to first year on my Creative Writing degree where I did a number of literature modules, delivered by a lecturer who talked about slavery like a trivial matter. That’s my family history you’re talking there!
As Vice President BME at Northampton, I’m facing more and more problems with the language and rhetoric we use around race. The sector lumps all Black and brown students together and calls them BME / BAME. What about the term people of colour? I, too, am guilty of using “people of colour” and do myself have issues with it. It’s probably the best of the worst.
The term B(A)ME is not homogeneous. Even among Black people, there is differences. i.e between African and Caribbean, as well as Black British people whose families come from those places. Even to call someone African; there are fifty-four different nations in Africa, each with their own languages, culture, traditions and so on. Nigeria alone has over 250 different languages. But we continue with BME and BAME. Racial / cultural identity matters. Do we lump all White people together? No. And I bet if you called someone from Belfast, English, they’d have something to say!
Watching Dr. Zainab Khan (Assoc. Pro-Vice Chancellor at London Met) speak was a breath of fresh air, telling it like it is. And having been to a few conferences like this, it seems to me that the sector is more set on managing racism than taking to steps to eradicate it. Both Dr. Khan, and Fope Olaleye (Black Students’ Officer at NUS) brought a much needed clarity to racism (not racial harassment) at our universities, as well as institutional racism. It was great to hear comments on Macpherson and Critical Race Theory too.
And in my opinion, best practice is the brutal, honest truth. Not statistics, but qualitative data. Real life experiences and true stories by people on the ground experiencing this on a day-to-day.
The Royal Over-Seas League private members club was our host. Plaques to Britain’s colonial past in what was then British India hung on the wall. Staff meandered in capes and gowns, and plums in their mouths. What’s more, it was six speakers before a Black or brown person came to the floor. As a Students’ Union, we did not have to pay to attend. But others did pay the three-figure entrance fee. And there sat problem number one, why do these conferences seek money for attendance? Are they cashing in on Black and brown trauma? Is there an argument of ethics to be had here?
During the half-day conference there were four non-White speakers. This did not occur until towards the end of proceedings, in what felt like a very shoehorned state of affairs. Again, I felt that I was being preached at on my own narrative of racism in higher education. Whitesplaining is very real, when White British people talk about racism like its their lived experience.
At an event, wherein, we discussed things like the ethnicity award gap, decolonising the curriculum and anti-racist learning, to have a conference of this matter in a place that was overtly classist and elitist with nods to a system which in itself was built of white supremacy, it’s quite difficult to not see the irony in it all. We also discussed institutional racism in the same breath as decolonial thinking. Ha! And really, all you can do is laugh.
White British people organising events on behalf of Black / brown people on themes that impact us more than them, on symptoms that were originally created by the White elite – in the jaws of colonisation and the whims of European empires. The times that made Britain “great” – imperialism in the tint of gold, glory and god, eclipsed by the Ritz in London’s southwest as I bump into austerity and homelessness, like cold corpses by Green Park.
In the making of Westminster Higher Education Forum Keynote Seminar: Priorities for Tackling Racial Harassment, the White middle class stands tall as colonialism walks with us in the present. The bellowing voice of White privilege. I know plenty of students that would have come to this. Alas, this forum fell into the trap that many discussions have fallen into. Well-meaning White people telling us what we ought to do about racism.
Whilst I made some valuable connections, the wider narrative of whitesplaining ran riot, like Robert Redford and Meryl Streep spread-eagled across the plains in Out of Africa. Diversity in panel discussions is a must. It was functional in concept, but the swaggering thoughtlessness in venue, entry fee and panellists left for a very awkward-feeling in the audience.
If these types of conferences aren’t done properly (from diverse panels to organisational competence), are we not just feeding the racist systems we want to deconstruct?
Thoughts from the criminology team 