When I was a student, I was twice elected to be one of the two undergraduate representatives on my College Council. Looking back, I realise that I was rather ineffective, never fully understanding the relative importance of the various items on the agenda, nor knowing how to be persuasive in discussion, nor being able to build alliances with those academics who were sympathetic to the student viewpoint. It was, as they say, a learning experience. During this time, I thought it important to attend the monthly student union meetings, to be informed about the issues that my fellow students were discussing and aware of anything that might need to be presented to the College Council on the students’ behalf. It was at one of these meetings that I witnessed a disreputable breach of good process, that was successful in the short term, but caused sufficient reputational damage that it was soon rescinded.
The student union in the College was responsible for distributing funds to societies and clubs, generally according to their popularity, adjusted for the costs of the activity. The newly elected head of the student union was keen to reallocate money away from one of the big sports clubs, to fund other societies with which he had more sympathy. His plan had some merit, but it would be controversial. His proposed funding allocations were due to be debated at an open meeting, under item 10 of a long agenda. It would likely take an hour or so to get to this item, after various reports, updates, and a discussion about the annual college party, had been dealt with. As I headed to the meeting, I passed the College bar, where members of the under-threat sports club were gathering. They were going to drink beer first, prepare their speeches, and then show up at the meeting to vote against the proposed cut in funding.
The meeting started, sparsely attended, and the minutes from the previous month were approved. The head of the union then suggested a change to the order of the agenda: we could, he said, take item 10 now, to approve the new funding allocations, and then go back to item 2, ‘matters arising from the previous meeting’. The attendees all laughed, thinking this was a joke but the chair, persisting with his plan, invited anyone who wished to speak for or against the recommendation on club funding allocations to raise their hand. One student – clearly briefed beforehand about this ploy –spoke in favour of the redistribution of resources, after which the resolution at item 10 was passed without dissent. The multitude of sport club members who were about to lose 20% of their annual funding were still sitting in the bar, unaware that they had been disenfranchised. An hour later, when they arrived at the meeting, there was uproar when they discovered that the motion they had come to vote down had already been approved.
Under “any other business”, the captain of the sports club proposed a motion of no confidence in the head of the student union, which was passed by a show of hand. A constitutional crisis loomed.
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