A 25% HECS increase is the last straw - Students need better student representation on University committees

The University of Wollongong is governed by University Council through a complex system of committees and sub-bodies. These committees make decisions that affect students, staff and the wider community. Stakeholder groups are then represented on these committees by electing representative to ensure their group doesn’t get screwed. Students, however, do not have this luxury, for a number of reasons.

At their February meeting, the University Council resolved

… that Council, having regard to the Australian Government's policy on university funding, with regret, feels bound to approve a 25% increase in the level of HECS fees payable for all courses other than Education and Nursing commencing in 2006 and applying to all new students and students re-enrolling in 2006 after commencing in 2005…

Like most politics, it’s a numbers game

For students to get screwed like this, it is clear that their interests are not being represented. The question is why? While students make up around 95% of the 25,157 people on campus, their proportion of representation is markedly different. With only three out of eighteen (17%) councilors voting against the HECS increase, student interests are simply not being represented by enough Council votes. With 17% student representation on an important thing like HECS, you should be thinking that students are being underrepresented but on closer inspection, it is actually far worse. In 2004, Diana Nestorovska was a student representative on the Academic Senate. There was an ammendment moved to increase the number of undergraduate representative positions on Senate from four to six but Ms Nestorovska voted against the amendment. So almost a year later, when it came to the HECS increase, it came as no surprise to many that your student representative, Diana Nestorovska, not only voted for the HECS increase, she spoke in favour of the motion. Whose interest do you think she is representing? If you agree or disagree with Ms Nestorovska’s decision, send her an email and tell her what you think - dianan@uow.edu.au

According to the University’s website there are around 428 voting positions on the University Council, the Academic Senate and the subsidiary committees, only 25 of them are filled by students. This constitutes around 6% of voting rights on campus.

Paradoxically, there are 23,733 students and 1424 staff members, which means that students constitute 94.33% of people on campus. How can it be that 94% of people are getting less than 6% of representation? This statistic is particularly frightening when the Univesity makes claims of being ‘student-centred’? Imagine being in a room with 19 other people who don’t share your interests. Now wonder why student views don’t determine University policy. Imagine how little representation students would get if the University wasn't 'student-centred'.

Elections equals democracy right?

In addition to having so little representation that it barely constitutes 'token student consultation', the second reason your interests aren’t being represented is who you elect and how you elect them to the few positions available. There are elections each year for faculty committees in all nine faculties and for Academic Senate, every two years for University Council, UniCentre elections each July, each Club and Societies has elections throughout the year and of course the WUSA and WUPA elections in September and April respectively. At most, 10% of students vote in each election. This is a problem that can be attributed to student apathy, confusing and non-standardised elections and poor advertising. Another problem is that all the major decisions that affect students are made by The University Council, Academic Senate and their subcommittees.

All told, these seven student positions are only filled in two elections – six in the Academic Senate elections once each year and one in the University Council elections once every two years (2005, 2007 etc).

Also, if you have issues with your representation, there are no grievance mechanisms and no bi-elections and no incentive like being re-elected. A student representative could, for example, vote to increase HECS by 25%, and there is nothing you can do about it. Even if you could have her fired for not acting in your interest, it would just reduce your representation to zero out of seventeen. The other main problem is that only a handful of people run in the elections and half of them are only doing it to put on their resume. These slackers and dimwits are clogging up what little democracy students have and undermining the students who actually want to represent student interests.

Student democracy has been systematically reduced to a hollow choice between people who toe the University line to varying degrees. We have a situation like in America where voters are saying 'I think the puppet on the right shares my beliefs.' 'I think the puppet on the left is more to my liking.' 'Hey, wait a minute, there's one guy holding up both puppets!'. The University actively encourages the students who are elected to represent non-student interests. The induction guide that all committee members receive contains the following ‘Accountability and Representation’ section:

Your role on the Committee may be to represent a particular group (such as a Faculty or Students). This is particularly true if you were elected to the Committee. As a representative it is important that your decisions and input into the meeting reflect the interests of the University as a whole as well as the group. As a Committee member you are always required to act in the best interests of the University.

Just to repeat that last bit. "As a Committee member you are always required to act in the best interests of the University." This means that you can represent the group that elected you until it contradicts what ‘the University’ has dictated. ‘The University interest’ in this sense is not the majority because that would mean that everyone - staff, students and the University Executive would all have to represent student interests or be ‘student-centred’. The ‘University interest’ is set by the agenda of a handful of university executives. (For a list of the ‘who’s who at the zoo’ please go to http://www.uow.edu.au/about/who/). While it isn't much and isn't effective, students do get some representation in the University but ultimately, democracy at the University can only come through the willful disobedience of the University’s committees guidelines. It isn’t enough that students are completely underrepresented but the few students who are on committees are encouraged to represent interests that are not of those people who elected them. It goes on.

As another of the University’s accountability mechanisms, the people who are elected to the committees are encouraged to keep their constituents informed on committee business. The committees guide contains the following passage:

You should report Committee business to your group. For example, you should tell or email the members about upcoming business and the decisions once they have been made. By encouraging this discussion and communication, you will find that your representative role becomes both easier and more efficient.

I studied for nine years, in three faculties, in six schools and I’m not sure about any of you, but I never received an email about University committee business or decisions made on my behalf. I was pretty pissed off about this until I became a student representative on the Academic Senate at the same time that I was the President of WUSA and I still didn’t have the authority to send a message out on SOLS. As an alternative, I published reports in the Tert but I’m pretty sure not all reps are as vigilant. I’m not sure if University Council members have access to SOLS but I'd be pretty interested to hear what Diana Nestorovska has to say about increasing HECS.

The students of UoW have been swindled out of their democratic rights by the University’s committee system, by shithouse candidates and by the systemic hijacking of representative agendas. The University provides no assistance for representatives to communicate with students, alienating a constituent base up to twenty times larger than the second-largest group. The University claims to be ‘student-centred’ but if students can’t get more of a say in decisions that affect them, then the University’s claims are rhetorical. Students need to determine their own affairs and the first step is making sure their existing representatives are representing their interests effectively. If you are interested in making your representatives accountable they can all be contacted via email. At the time of print WUPA elections hadn’t been declared but WUPA representatives can be found on the their website, http://www.uow.edu.au/wupa . We’ve also excluded faculty representatives because its so poorly advertised we couldn't find who any of them were. As for all the rest…