The Union’s autumn elections saw a group of overwhelmingly left-wing faces elected into Union council and the trustee board. Luke Durigan, previous Education and Campaigns Officer, was elected trus- tee. Ben Towse was elected Post Graduate Officer, as well as a member of UCLU’s NUS delegation along with Hannah Webb - UCLU Community Officer. Numerous other left-wingers were elected into various faculty rep positions. Islamic Soc also did well, having about nine members elected into positions. The Tories didn’t lose out either - five of the candidates they backed won. Some old UCLU favourites lost out. Jules Leclair, last year’s losing candidate for Ethics, Environment and Operations Officer, lost again - this time for trustee - despite beginning his campaign early and purchasing advertising space on Facebook!
What’s a ULU?
It’s campaigning season at University of London Union with seven candidates running for ULU president. The contest is a by-election to replace Sean Rillo Racza, the president-elect who resigned for un- explained “personal reasons”. Three candi- dates are from UCL: Michael Chessum, Will Hall and Ben Maguire. Chessum and Hall are old rivals from the left and right within UCLU. Maguire has no real reputa- tion so to speak of within the union.
The Honourable William Hall – son of Lord Hall of Birkenhead - was president of UCL Tories in 2010-11 when infighting and financial problems brought the society to the brink of collapse. The previous year, Hall and other members disgraced them- selves at an Oxford Union Conservative Association Port and Policy event when sexist remarks were exposed by the national press. He’s since been elected a Tory coun- cillor in Henley, despite being on his year abroad in Italy – duly flying back to attend council. Comrade Chessum is well known for his leadership of the anti-fees and cuts movement in autumn 2010 when UCLU Education and Campaigns Officer. He has joined the race after two failed attempts to become NUS Vice President.
Considering ULU’s generally left-lean- ing electorate, it’s unlikely the final show- down will include a Tory aristo candidate. It will likely be a contest between Chessum and centrist liberal Gala Jackson-Coombs, former president of Heythrop College and current editor of their newspaper, The Lion. Whatever the result, if turnout is as low as last time - one per cent - the winning can- didate can hardly claim to have a real man- date.
Judge, Jury and Executioner
On attending UCL Academic Board - the committee for all professors in the college - you might well get the impression that the chair, Provost, Professor Malcolm Grant, has no respect for the opinions of his fellow academics. At last week’s Aca- demic Board Grant cut off Ben Towse, who was speaking, screaming “Order! Order!” and would not let him finish his point, to the shock of other members of the Board. When Towse next got a chance to speak he said: “I would ask Grant not to scream at members of Academic Board”, which was followed by replies of “here, here!” from fel- low academics.
On the subject of Statute 18 re- form - which would make it easier for UCL to make academic staff redundant - a vote was held to scrap the changes altogether; with a show of hands, there was an ap- proximate fifty-fifty split for and against. Grant ignored calls from some academics for a vote on the voting pads provided and moved on to other business. Another vote was held on whether UCL Council should stall making a vote on the changes to Stat- ute 18 for two weeks, which passed almost unanimously. On this decision, Grant said he would merely “consider” the wishes of the Board. So much for democracy.
Space Race
UCL Union are on tenterhooks over UCL’s “space utilisation survey”. The survey is designed re-allocate under-used space. UCLU Ethics, Environment and Opera- tions officer, told this magazine of her con- cern that some of the Union’s space will be re-allocated and student services will suffer. Under a different scheme UCLU will lose the Garage Theatre - home of UCLU’s small productions - later this year, college re-allocating it to the Bartlett.
As UCLU does not own any of the space it uses and has no formal agree- ment with UCL, College can take away Union space at will. UCLU is currently speaking to Rex Knight - Vice Provost Op- erations - about having a formal leaseholder agreement for UCLU, but more direct action might be in the pipeline; Union Council noted two weeks ago that if any Union space is threatened, there would be grounds to occupy it.