Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington N.Z. Vol. 11, No. 1. February 27, 1948

Salient Leads the Way — Victoria . . . — Ten-Point Programme 1946

Salient Leads the Way

Victoria . . .

Ten-Point Programme 1946

In July, 1946, when the new Executive had just been elected, Salient considered the time ripe to publish an article expounding a one-year plan for the Students' Association. This comprised ten points which Salient considered the most pressing matters for the Exec's attention. It was called the Ten Point Programme, and the following is an account of it, and what happened to it.

1.	Faculty Committees. Joint committees of staff and student representatives should be set up to discuss curricula, methods of-teaching and approach to subjects.
2.	Collective Buying of Textbooks. An attempt has been made before—this time it must be successful.
3.	Class-room Accommodation. It is vital that more class-rooms be provided, of a temporary nature, if it is quite impossible to obtain anything better.
4.	Students' Board and Lodging. The existing hostels are hopelessly inadequate. Salient's attempts to campaign for better accommodation were fruitless, because too few students are contacted by Salient. The Exec must take action.
5.	Building Scheme. Closer coordination between Exec and students will give rise to greater interest in the scheme. Salient will willingly help by publishing information on the proposed plan.
6.	Increased Student Control of Social Activities. The Exec has limited powers over Gym functions, yet is expected to be responsible for them. The Exec should approach the Council for full sovereignty over the Gym.
7.	Improvements to the Library. The reading room is nearly always filled to capacity. There is no room for the new books that will be needed in greater and greater numbers. Soon the library must expand into a new building, and plans should be laid.
8.	Students Sports Council. The purpose of such a committee would be to enquire into specific VUC weaknesses, to conduct membership campaigns for clubs and to co-ordinate club activities.
9.	NZUSA. VUC's representatives should keep closer contact with Salient. The Press Bureau officially wound up in 1944 must be kept alive and invigorated. The Exec should take considerable interest in NZUSA, and make recommendations to it, particularly that NZUSA be affiliated to the World Federation of Democratic Youth.
10.	Common-rooms. Once VUC had a common common-room, but the Library "white-anted" into it, and now the College has no room for another. We suggest that Exec do something, to make the Gym more suitable for the purpose.

Seven Points to go

1.	Exec made a forcible effort to establish Faculty Committees, but lack of co-operation from the majority of.the lecturing staff proved an insuperable obstacle.
2.	At about this time Salient published an article suggesting that either the College authorities or the Student Association should indent and import books for student use, which would then be available much more cheaply than they are from shops. Students should be very grateful to the SCM for the excellent service it has done to VUC through its Second-hand Bookstall, but there is need for the cost-of-books problem to be tackled on a far larger scale. So far no progress has been made.
3.	The establishment of the temporary Geology and Geography Department has barely touched the fringe of this problem, which has its roots in lack of University finance. Overcrowding and inadequate lecturing staff are inevitable until the University can afford to rebuild, and to offer more and better-paid positions for lecturers and professors.
4.	A questionnaire was distributed to obtain statistics that were a necessary basis for a campaign to get better facilities. But students either ignored this, or treated it as a joke, so nothing could be done. Students must co-operate in matters of this nature, if they want their lot to be improved.
6.	Shortly afterwards, complete control of the gym became ours—and it will be noted that this has been completely successful.
7.	Mr. Harold Miller is still our Librarian, and the Library has been maintained at its previous standard.
8.	We are reluctantly forced to admit, that in this isolated suggestion Salient was wrong.
10.	The possibilities of using the gym as a common-room proved somewhat lean, but we obtained a promise of one of the huts to be erected above the Biology block, for student use. However, we were not allowed to occupy this, and eventually came the storm which caused a falling cliff to demolish the long-empty huts.

To sum up, only two of the ten points (5 and 6) have been attained, and No. 9 partially (NZUSA has not been directly affiliated to WFDY, but VUC has been affiliated itself; and VUC's representatives have kept closer contact with Salient, or rather, vice versa). The other seven points have been shelved or abandoned. This is owing to two factors, to apparently insuperable obstacles outside student control, and to that age-old evil, student apathy.

Departmental Committees ..

Every student at some stage of his career finds occasion to groan about something. If sufficiently independent, he goes to his professor pours out his worries, and is satisfied.. But there are hundreds with similar troubles without the necessary "nerve" to have their grievance settled. Professors are busy people, and many students are reluctant to barge in on them in such a way.

Some students have ideas on the syllabus or improving the teaching methods in a department. In 1941 Salient featured some of their excellent ideas in two issues.

In September 1943. Salient reported the first constructive step towards a body to which students could come with both their worries and their constructive suggestions. Messrs. Boyd and Creed prepared a scheme for Faculty Committees, consisting of staff and student representatives, to discuss problems of mutual interest. The Professorial Board said, "No."

Two years later Dave Cohen proposed a similar scheme with similar results. Salient continued the battle in June, 1946, with Faculty Committees as part of its Ten Point Programme.

Then in the first issue of last year, Salient again set out its proposals. Though still under the name of Faculty Committees, the proposed Staff-Student Committees were to be set up in each Department, and were to consist of the Staff of that Department and one representative from each Stage. The scheme was fully endorsed by a General Meeting of the Association in March. Despite support from some staff members, the Professorial Board' again said "No."

So progressive Victoria "still lags behind A.U.C. and the Australian Universities. Salient urges every student to demand this necessary reform. It is the Job of every intellectually active student to see that Departmental Committees are set up at Victoria.

J.O.M.

Other Colleges...

Prompt Assistance and Sympathy

For a large share of our life, the troubles of other colleges all dealt with the Nazi domination of Europe. The fascist attitude to education and to the students of democratic universities featured often in the editorial columns of 1941-2. Scraps of information from and about students were only too eagerly published but it was not until March 14, 1945, that Salient was able to print an issue of extracts from student papers of liberated universities in Belgium, France, the Soviet Union, and China. The most striking paragraph comes from a French students' paper. It was headed—

When Paris Rose ...

"Guns Spluttered before the great closed doors of the Ministry, which were guarded by armed men. In the courtyard inside, men of the F.F.I. mingled with their comrades of the National University Front, with graduates, teachers, professors, civil servants, students and schoolboys. Some of us stood by with loaded guns, while others worked in the office with the heads of the Department, issuing orders against traitors and collaborators, and appointing trustworthy men and women to responsible posts."

Meanwhile, in the United States, six thousand Texan students became involved in the battle of Brains against Business. On November 2, 1944, the university board dismissed without trial the president for his unwelcome views on the poll-tax and land tenure in the South. As a result of the students' demonstration the Southern Association of Colleges appointed a competent committee of "leading southern educators" to investigate the circumstances surrounding the dismissal.

Fitt Affair

At home the influence of corporate action' was most noticeable over the "Fitt Affair." This estimable professor was "libelled" in a copy of the Auckland Students Capping magazine. The council subsequently banned all student publications. The following morning the streets of Auckland were white with slogans of the oppressed.

Events moved so rapidly that no complete account was published. Following the previous night's Press report, it was moved by a timely AGM "That the executive go into the question of publishing an Auckland edition of Salient—a motion which was carried with acclamation. A second motion was also moved and carried. "That this AGM learns with regret of the [unclear: suppsion] of the freedom of the press in Auckland University College and affirms that all student publications should be free from bodies outside the Students' Association."

The attitude of the student body received much publicity in the press.and this was partly responsible for the noted change in policy of the Auckland University Council.

John Child

No recent student function has caused so great a stir as the speech of John Child to the Otago University Students' Welcome Ceremony, last year. In contrast to the solidarity shown by the Auckland students during their row with the council the prevailing attitude at Otago was one of general apathy. Not only did the executive fail to give John Child the support that a president might expect, but they later dissociated themselves entirely from his action Salient could do little better than to give full, publicity and comments on the situation.

The following is reprinted from the issue of April 23. last year—

"It is a poor comment on the status of the OUSA when it is completely superseded in the democratic privilege of passing judgment on its own elected representative. Furthermore, it is unfortunate that the Executive of the OUSA should take such a gutless, apologetic attitude, smacking of the proverbial small boy who has broken a window. They have in fact, apparently deserted their own President.

* * *

"John Child expressed certain immoral views. i.e., views inimical to the moral glasshouse of upright citizens and students. That these views were couched in such obviously ironic context has been overlooked by some, by others seen, but deplored as untimely or tactless, and by some accepted in a wholesome gulp, digested and excreted.