Byron Clark

On the University of Canterbury's Ilam campus, every coffee is 'Fair Trade' and every egg is free range* every week there seems to be an international aid worker or someone from the human rights commission speaking on something topical. Yesterday you could sign a petition for the closure of Guantanamo Bay.
Although critiques could be made against Fair Trade, aid under capitalism, and NGO style activism, the above could all be considered 'good causes' yet I sometimes wonder if the student population could ever get beyond this level of consciousness and actually rock the boat on some big issues, issues that aren't so easy.

There is no real movement for Free Education anymore, as capitalism can no longer provide it. As Tim Bowron wrote recently:
"we now have an entire generation of students who have grown-up knowing nothing except the user-pays market model of education and for whom slogans such as “free education” seem utterly quaint and unrealistic."

The Workers Party leaflet "Students the University and the limits of capitalism" makes an argument for what student radicalism really is:
"We need to fight for quality, free education and make common cause with the working class outside the university – the people whose exploitation is still what pays for most of the costs of education. (For instance, students still only pay about 30 percent of their own education costs; the rest is paid for out of the surplus-value exploited out of workers, most of whom never get the chance to attend university). These days, many students are also working in low-paid, casualised, non-unionised workplaces, being exploited. So it makes even more sense for students and staff to link up with workers right across society, support their struggles and gain their support for our struggles."

In terms of consciousness, it almost seems a world away from the current situation, last semester I wrote a letter to the student magazine arguing against a woman who stated that those outside the university are "simply bludging off the declining number of tertiary educated people." Given that 85% of New Zealanders have no university degree that would be a hell of a lot of people bludging off a very small number of others, its ridiculous when put in context, but demonstates some of the misinformation those of us who could be described as "student radicals" need to counter.

*The exception being the one privatly ran cafe loctated (somewhat amusingly) in the Commerce department

Had clubs day at university today, I of course helped out on the Workers Party on Campus table. That morning the first T-shirt I grabbed off my drying rack was my MetalSoc (heavy metal society) one, I decided against it least people get the tables mixed up. The next one I picked up was my "Mummy, what were the arts?" t-shirt, that was part of a students association campaign against the university's cuts to the College of Arts. Again, this could be confusing, so I grabbed a third T-shirt, it happened to be one baring the image of Che Guevara. I grinned at the student-radical cliche it would be, but thought what the hell, and wore that one. Which is where my story begins...

( continue reading )

The university has made a decision on the changes to the College of Arts heres what I saw as being the most significant part of the new plan;

"The University still intends to reduce Art History staff numbers, as originally proposed. But significant changes have been made to other proposals. We intend to retain the American Studies programme, but with a reduction in staff. We intend to move Film Studies academic staff to English, and retain Theatre Studies. The overall result will be reductions of 6.5 full-time equivalent (FTE) academic staff positions and 6.5 FTE general staff positions."

This means that 7 equivlent full time academic jobs were saved and 1.5 general jobs, and it will still be possible for students to study American Studies and theatre. Of course, this means that the equivlent of 13 jobs are still going (most of them among general staff) and the student to staff ratio will still increase. Its important that we continue to fight for all jobs to be retained and for well resourced quality education. But we should acknowledge that this outcome is a result of the campaign against the cuts from students and staff, the submissions, protests and T-shirts all played a part in saving those jobs and our education.

Due to a change in the way tertiary education is funded (to bulk funding rather than per-student) a number of New Zealand universities are considering restricting the entry to some corses, by measures such as, for example, disestablishing universal adult entry (the policy that lets anyone over 20 attend university regardless of high school grades). The bellow is a letter to the Universtity of Canterbury's student magazine Canta. The letter I'm responding too is not online but you can get the jist of it from the quotes I use.

Lucy's letter in the last Canta (Restricted Entry, p.24) makes some rather incorrect assumptions about non university-educated people. Rather than restricted entry “leaving this country filled with uneducated people simply bludging off the declining number of tertiary educated people.” The current situation is the opposite. The vast majority of non-educated people are not “unemployed and on the dole” but working to create the wealth that pays for the universities, not to mention that workers built the buildings, clean the campus, make the food students eat, the clothes we wear and pay the income taxes that subsidise our education. Who's bludging off who?
That being said, restricted entry is an elitist policy that would entrench that situation, right now the average worker has at least some chance of getting the university education they help pay for, restricted entry would disadvantage people from working class families who typically go to less resourced schools and achieve less because of working labour-intensive part time jobs in what could otherwise be study time. Restricted entry policies should be opposed by anyone who supports the right of everyone to receive a university education.

Report written by me for The Spark.

On March 17 Nelson Davila, Venezuela’s charge d’Affaires for Australia and the Pacific, spoke at a student forum at the University of Canterbury. Organised at short notice the meeting was attended by a small but highly interested group of people.

A day earlier Davila had also spoken at a public meeting in the inner city which some 20-25 socialist and trade union activists attended. Following on from that meeting a decision was made to establish a Venezuela solidarity group in Christchurch.

At the UC student forum Davila spoke of the revolutionary process currently unfolding in the Latin American country, where modes of participatory democracy such as community councils and worker run factories are being developed. He also talked of the “Missions” that the government of Hugo Chávez is carrying out; social programs financed by revenue from Venezuela’s nationalised oil industry that have drastically improved the situation for people in the country’s poor barrios, alleviating poverty and improving literacy rates. Venezuela has made education free, from kindergarten though university, and is also building a free health care system with help from Cuba which has supplied many trained doctors. Davila stated that Venezuela was “not paradise” but they were working to build a human alternative to neoliberal capitalism.

When asked what activists in New Zealand could do to support the revolution in Venezuela, Davila said that Venezuela what needs most is political support; activists should publish information on the situation there, and show the many documentary films that have been made about Venezuela. This is important to counter the misinformation coming from the US administration and repeated in most corporate media. He also encouraged us to visit Venezuela ourselves, something which several Australian activists have already done recently.

Lectures still don't start till Monday and already I've sent two angry letters to the student magazine complaining about the actions of the university; though this one in my capacity as Workers Party on Campus club president, this is something that effects all student clubs at Canterbury.

It is not often that the Workers Party on Campus finds common ground with the campus Christian clubs, but we are appalled that campus security asked members of a UCSA-affiliated club to stop handing out leaflets or be tresspassed, as happened to members of the Christian Union last week. Christian Union president Paul Denmead make a good point in his comments to The Press (Feb. 21) stating that the university is allowing banks and other businesses to advertise on campus during enrolment week, but not clubs. The university's new policy on club advertising, supposedly intended to create 'a level playing field for all clubs' is actually keeping clubs off campus and inviting private companies on. It appears the university is putting profit ahead of its own students; like Student Life president Justin O'Malley told the Press "I'm sure it's a money thing."
The ban is essentially an outrageous infringement of students’ rights. The university is supposed to be about critical thinking, freedom of thought and so on, yet here we have the university authorities saying there will be no freedom of expression by students’ clubs on campus during enrolment week.
We would be happy to work with other student clubs in opposing this ban and getting it overturned.

Bellow is the submission on the proposed cuts to the College of Arts at Canterbury University which I've just emailed to College of Arts, the students association and the student magazine (Canta).

As an arts student I am deeply concerned at the university administrations proposed cuts to the School of Arts. The cuts show a disregard by the administation toward university staff (the 13.5 equivalent full time jobs to be cut) and amounts to a reduction in the educational opportunities available to students at Canterbury. it seems the university is increasingly becoming less of an institution of higher learning promoting critical thinking, and more of a production line churning out skilled workers for employers. Ken Strongman's suggestion that Theatre and Film studies come up with a "private benefactor" (The Press, 31/01/08) implies that the university can not provide for students, and we should seek the generosity of philthanthropists! what is this institution coming to?

As mentioned in the Press article linked to above, American Studies and Theatre and Film Studies would be axed completly, this seems to be whats making the news, since the other changes haven't got much attention in the media heres a quick summary of them based on the College of Arts Change Proposal 2008:
- School of Cultural Studies 'disestablished' with its English programme being transfered to the School of English and Linguistics, Gender Studies is being "disestablished but retained as a major" and as mentioned American Studies is getting the chop.
- School of Philosophy is being 'disestablished' with its Philosophy programme transfered to the new "School of Political Science, Philosophy & Communication" with Religious Studies "disestablished but retained as a major"
- School of Fine Arts is being disestablished with half its content going to the new "School of Creative Arts" and the other half going to the new "School of History, Classics and Art History"
- The two "disestablished but retained as a major" subjects will be absorbed by Sociology
- Student to staff ratios are all incresing

So whats happening is not just the cuts in AMST and TAFTS but also what I'll call a "big squeeze;" students squeezed into smaller, broader, schools with less resources. There is a student forum on the change proposal on March 5th that I plan to attend, hopefully there will be enough of a reaction to the cut and the big squeeze amongst the student population to mean more actions beyond strongly worded submissions.

The university I attend has drafted a new intellectual property policy, I've just sent the following to the president of the students association to contribute to the submission they're going make to the university, a slightly shortened version was also sent to the student magazine as a letter to the editor.

The main issue I as a student have with the university's draft IP policy is the lack of protection for students and staff wishing to publish their research in a non-commercial environment, while the current policy states that "Students own and control the copyright of their theses, and the student will always be able to determine whether the text may be reproduced." the new policy does not appear to contain a similar clause. In an era where self-publishing is easier than ever and there is an increasing trend to publish work under non-commerical licenses, such as Creative Commons, the GFDL, and in the case of software the GPL, any university IP policy should give students and staff the ability to publish their work freely under these licences. I am also concerned that the benefits of releasing research commercially are skewed in favour of the institution rather than than those who actually do the work- students and staff. The concerns of AUS also need to be taken into consideration.

The new draft IP policy with its talk of supporting an "entreprerneurial environment" makes the university appear as a corporate R&D lab rather than the institute of higher learning it should be.

As readers will have noticed, this blog has been all about the mayoral campaign for the last month or so, it would be easy to think the rest of my life is on hold, yet I've still been off to work every weekend to provide people with their iPod accessaries, and I've kept on top of my studies, though realisticly expecting a drop in grades, because of this I was surprised when today I picked up my comment paper for the globalisation course I'm taking, after a double take I was sure the 'A' was in fact an 'A' but figured I'd better check with my tutor about the mark following it; "is that a plus?" I said after turning back into the office, "and its not a mistake?" as I walked out of the building I thought "I can campaign for mayor of the South Islands largest city, deal with customers complaining about New Zealands cripling iPod shortage, and get A+'s?! I must be some kind of super human" before my head got to big I remembered the history essay on post-colonial development in Africa that I will get to work on as soon as I finish this post.

In the mean time, heres my comment paper, a critique of Michel Laguerre's article 'IT as Process and Globalisation as Outcome' it draws largely on my own observations and work by Dana Boyd. I also managed to cite Mark Pesce, someone who's ideas I'm quite a fan of. Aside from the original article, all my souces are available online so I've provided links at the end.

( click here to see what an A+ comment paper looks like )

Had the UCSA hosted candidates meeting at university, despite the wind blowing my hair everywhere and making the mic difficult to use, it was a sucessfull meeting. Afterward 3 people joined the Workres Party, to help make workers issues hi-viz at the next election.

I while I hopefully picked up a few voters at the university, I hope to pick up more in the working clas areas of Christchurch. In an email I was asked by The Inner City East Neighbourhood Group, Inc (ICENG) and Te Whare Roimata Trust "What do you see as the key issues affecting the inner city east area in the next five years and, if elected, how would you address them?"

This was my reply:
I think the key issue affecting the inner city east neighbourhoods in Christchurch is social inequality, working class areas like Linwood have been hard hit by the policies of Labour and National governments over the past two decades. Out side of local government I've been active in the issue of social inequality, mostly though work in the trade union movement. I've been a delegate and later a volunteer organiser for the Unite union which has worked with low paid workers to improve pay and conditions, and last year I was active in collecting donations and organising student support for locked out distribution workers. These are the sorts of things I will do whether elected or not.

As the mayoral candidate for the Workers Party I have several policies to help address this issue; I'm calling for public services such as transport to be brought into full public ownership, and public transport and recreational facilities to be made free. I'm also calling for free quality childcare centres. These things would reduce the financial burden on workers and their families. If elected mayor I promise to only take the average workers wage from my salary as no elected representative should be paid more than the people they're representing. The rest of the money from the mayoral salary would be used to support workers struggles. This issue is much bigger than just local government, I'm encouraging people to join and get involved with the Workers Party so we can contest the party vote in next years general election and raise these issues at a national level.

"Wikipedia is entirely free. And that freedom includes not just the ability of anyone to read it (a freedom denied by the scholarly journals in, say, jstor, which requires an expensive institutional subscription) but also—more remarkably—their freedom to use it."

From Roy Rosenzweig's "Can History be Open Source? Wikipedia and the future of the past"

I hadn't used jstor, but as I've mentioned citing Wikipedia in anything for my current history class is an automatic fail, so I went to check out jstor. I was naive enough to think that the the only restiction on jstor would be the fact that only academic institutions can afford subscriptions, making it only available to students, but they've decided thats not restrictive enough, heres the other restrictions:

"Access to this resource is restricted to staff and students at the University of Canterbury, using their University usercode and password.
It may be searched and accessed only for the purpose of University teaching, study or research. A reasonable quantity of excerpts may be downloaded for this purpose.
Substantial subsets of data may not be created. Data may not be copied, sold or provided for any other commercial purpose. Data may not be provided to anyone who is not an authorized user." (from here)

Forget reseach for blog posts, writing Wikipedia articles or even just getting some information for interested non-student friends. While we've come along way from just having the slogan "information wants to be free" we're still not there yet.

As of yesterday I'm back at university, had my first lecture of the new semester yesterday which includes all the basics, what text book to buy, what times the tutorials are, and of course, a stern warning on the evils of Wikipedia, according my history lecturer Wikipedia is not to be trusted, in fact she was adament that if any of us cite Wikipedia we would fail the course.

Not every historian agrees however, scholorly work by people such as George Mason University history professor Roy Rosenzweig has showen Wikipedia to be in general as accurate as other encyclopedias ("Wikipedia, then, beats Encarta...in coverage and roughly matches Encarta in accuracy"). There is some good discussion of Rosenweigs work on the If:Book blog and an interesting essay of his "Can History be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past" originally published in The Journal of American History Volume 93 is available online.

Another interesting view on Wikis and the new methods of knowledge sharing is given by Mark Pesce a lecturer in the interactive media program at AFTRS, video of a lecture given during the April 2007 Education.AU tour of Australia’s capitol cities with Jimmy Wales (founder of Wikipedia) is available on his blog.

As is probably apparent by my lack of posts university is keeping me busy, but not too busy to find things to complain about; the first is the news that "The University of Canterbury is considering radical changes to sharpen up students of its most traditional degree, the Bachelor of Arts (BA). A university review panel is recommending that from 2009, BA students study several compulsory disciplines" From the looks of it this is a plan to restructure learning to produce the kind of workers that employers want, as this editorial from The Press states, "They [graduates] will be more productive and civilised as a result. and a boost to the New Zealand society and economy."
Now I didnt enroll in university to be a boost to the economy, I already boost the ecomony by working and spending money, Im at university to learn, and as such I want to be able to choose what I learn, rather than being subjected to a ridgid degree structure designed to prepare me for the white-collar workforce, what happened to the time when the persuit of knowledge was a noble thing? rather than "a cop out" as the Press editorial calls studying for a BA.

The other is the fact that while the central library has a nice display on "our peace heritage" all over the rest of campus there are army recruitment posters, somethings not right there.

One of the first things I've had to do for sociology is ask I question I want to try and answer during the course, after a bit of thinking this is what I've came up with;

Coming to the social sciences after studying information technology my question relates to both these areas; How is the academic establishment reacting (or adapting) to a society where the Internet, particularly the Wikipedia project, but also blogs, Google News etc, have made information ubiquitous? Its a bigger issue than whether or not your tutor will let you cite Wikipedia in an essay, it raises questions like, How do works licenced under the Gnu Free Documentation Licence fit within the concept of plagiarism? How do the students in the Free Culture Movement approach their university work? Is the idea of consensus decision making used on Wikipedia really appropriate for creating an encyclopedia? In the 1990s the cyberpunk subculture declared that information WANTS to be free,and in 2007 much of it is, and as the founder of the Free Software Movement Richard Stallman might say its Free as in Free Speech not free as in free beer this is radically different from any form of information distribution that has existed before. The closest example from history is public libraries, but as the recent controversy over a Telecom commercial shows, public libraries aren't 100% behind the new networks of information distribution. To put my question in a metaphorical way, when the hordes of Internet users storm the Ivory Towers, will they be let in? or will they be turned away?

I've already had an intereting reply showing I'm not the only student thinking like this. Could turn out to be an interesting class.

This is what I have to do for 5% of my sociology grade: "all students will be asigned to a small online discussion group, and wil be given a weekly question to consider. The response to the question will be in the form of an online journal post" 5% of my grade for keeping a blog! awesome, even better than that achievement standard I did in year 12 that required me to write fan fiction.

Also started my history paper on Revolutions and Revolutionaries which I expect to enjoy, think I'll do my first essay on the question "To what extent did the Bolsheviks transform Russian society in the period 1917 to 1921?" Its the sort of thing that I feel I should know more about, but wouldn't make time to study unless I had to, which in a way is a big part of the reason I'm at university at all.

Anyway, expect a few history posts between posts on current events over the next 6 months, and possibly some sociological/anthropological type posts as well.

Had my first day back at university, the weather was hot and the campus was crawling with almost-identically dressed students and banks giving them overdrafts, other than all that, the day was ok.

I had my first anthropology class, it looks like I'm going to enjoy it, the main text for the course is "In Search of Respect" by Philippe Bourgois a book about drug dealers in the slums of New York. Bourgois is a Neo-Marxist so I don't expect to find myself disagreeing with his analysis (unless he gets into dialectical-idealism that is- me being a classical Marxist and all)

The only worry I have is with the essay, which is to "describe and analyse anthropologically a single social practice or cultural belieft with which [you] are familliar from [your] own socio-cultural background and experience, whatever that might happen to be" I'm not sure how broad "whatever that might happen to be" is, personally I believe that individuals in the 21st centurary create their own culture- there are outside influences of course, but with the amount of cultural information available online and the ease of finding like minded people though social networking, "culture" is becoming something between small groups of people, but I don't know if mainstream education agrees with that yet.

2006 Bachelor of Arts GPA 5.00

Course>
New Zealand in the Late Twentieth Century

Points
18.00

Grade
B

Awesome.