What happened at the Nov. 23rd Meeting?
Student Council voted overwhelmingly to express no-confidence in David Willets, the Government’s Minster for Universities and Science.
Members of Student Council, the Union’s Part-time Officers and Student Representatives, also supported a position against the government’s ‘chaotic and unsustainable’ universities policy which has included 80% cuts to the University teaching grant and a tripling of University fees. The Union will now go on to lobby members of Queen Mary’s Senate, one of the governing bodies of the College, to do the same.
Over a dozen students attended the meeting that agreed to call for the National Union of Students (NUS) to organise a National Demonstration against increases to University fees and cuts to Higher Education and to campaign against prospective redundancies in the numbers of library staff.
Other motions that were discussed but did not pass were a motion to mandate members of Student Council to bring a guest, to affiliate to the campaigning groups Unite Against Fascism and the Education Activist Network, to support the suspended Queen Mary branch secretary of the Trade Union Unison and to establish reserved budget for new Union societies and sport clubs.
Any students can attend Student Council, submit an issue or motion to be discussed and take part in the debate. To find out more about submitting a motion, this semester’s meeting dates, agendas and minutes of meetings go to qmsu.org/studentcouncil.