Last term was perhaps the most successful in recent memory for the UCL student media community. Indeed, the proliferation of excellent articles, in written, audial and visual forms across the University’s numerous publications was superb. Whilst the Student Publication Association has failed to deliver their regional verdicts for London’s university publications in a timely manner, I am confident that the constituents of UCL’s student media community will feature heavily on their honours roll… that is, whenever they get around to dishing out the long-anticipated awards.
The purpose of this column is not to recount and reflect on the last term, but to rather look forward to the next two. Indeed, student media is on an upward trajectory, and the Union seems to be taking us seriously. I am of the belief that the University and Union have finally realised that, to build a cohesive student community, they need sources from which institutional news, good or bad, can disseminate.
What does the future therefore look like? In my discussions with the Union, we have decided to move forth with regular steering group meetings consisting of the editorial boards of each publication (should they choose to attend). Our hope is that such meetings will inform the fruition and further development of a truly coherent and inclusive student media strategy. This is innately positive for both our democracy and student life at large, insofar as student media, through greater discourse with the Union, will be more organised and better able to fulfil the crucial task of reporting electoral and institutional information.
On the latter point, wider knowledge of the University’s ongoings will be better disseminated throughout the student community via a proper strategy for media (emergent from the aforementioned meetings). It’s no secret that the Union is incapable of effectively advertising the plethora of events, clubs and activities available to students on its own. It is only through student-led dissemination of such information that engagement will increase. This, however, relies on news outlets, like The Cheese Grater and Pi, being “on it” when it comes to timely and consistent publishing.
The necessity of consistent content output becomes increasingly difficult to achieve as the year goes on and our workloads increase. This is why I am now advocating for the creation of a sabbatical position to serve the student media community. As there is at many Students’ Unions across the country already, and has been here at UCL before, we are in desperate need of an editorially independent sabbatical officer whose sole job is to attend to our media community and the production of institutional news.
The extent to which such a position is crucial is highlighted by how often our community is forgotten or ignored within official Union and UCL strategy. It is undoubtedly true that a sabbatical editor or student media position is the only way for our community – and UCL as a whole – to flourish in our diversity.
This article appeared in CG89
