UCC Launches Inaugural Student Forum

By Atakan Uzun (Deputy News Editor)

At the beginning of October, UCC President John O’Halloran announced the launch of an inaugural student forum. This new forum represented a notable opportunity for the student voice to have an influence on decisions made on the future of the university, going forward. In an email sent to students throughout the university, Mr. O’Halloran said, “born from UCC’s strategic plan, the UCC Student Forum is an exercise in deliberative and participatory democracy that places students at the heart of important strategic and policy issues facing UCC as a community. UCC is committed to widening participation, an intention that goes beyond mere access but extends to active involvement in decision-making”. 

Deliberations in the forum began over two days, starting on Sunday October 9th , with participants including 68 randomly selected students, the UCC Students Union committee, along with the UCC President, and ending on Monday, October 10th. Further commenting on the deliberations, President O’Halloran said “the Forum will provide space to consider ‘hot topics’ at the heart of the student experience. Recent challenges, including climate change, the Covid-19 pandemic, accommodation shortages and mental health issues require meaningful participation from students. This initiative will also further enhance the student experience for all students”. 

Based upon these discussions, the model that was chosen for the operation of this Student Forum replicated that of the deliberations taking place in the Irish Citizens’ Assembly. Discussing this in detail, President O’Halloran added that the “main aims of the Forum are to strengthen transparency and integrity in decision making and to facilitate good decision making. As a University we are consciously cultivating citizens who shape society for the common good and betterment of humanity and the planet. Therefore, we are committed via ‘sortition’, to create a truly representative assembly of students who can develop civic and leadership capacities through constructive participation. Questions discussed, included, for example, ‘what kind of university experience would you as good ancestors create for UCC students of the future’? 

Undoubtedly, the inaugural Student Forum represents an important step in the university. Part of UCC’s strategic plan, this is the first opportunity in which students have had to play a role in shaping decisions made by the Senior Executive in UCC, including President John O’Halloran. Such decisions have previously been left in the hands of those at the top, which may have widened a disconnect between the decisions made at a university level and such decisions impacting on students. Based upon the model used by the Irish Citizen Assembly, students, whether they were participants in this forum or not, will welcome the opportunity to have their important voices heard when shaping future decisions impacting on the university. This will improve accountability between those governing the university that make decisions, and students, which may previously have been absent. 

Matters discussed at the Forum involving how student fees are spent, climate change through climate action and sustainability, Covid-19, accommodation shortages, mental health issues, etc, will hope to have an influence on improving decisions made at a university level. Committing to climate action and sustainability already, UCC is becoming single-use plastic free in 2023 after 8,000 students signed a petition in October 2018 to make the university plastic free by next year. This is imperative in ending waste caused by plastic across the university. Ranked 8th out of 1,000 universities across 98 different countries, UCC is one of the most sustainable universities in the world. However, more needs to be done to address climate change at the university. The ban on single-use plastic across the university is an important first step, but other measures are also needed. Regarding Covid-19, the lessons learned from the pandemic, albeit not over yet, should involve the continued inclusion of hybrid learning for students, amongst other measures for current and future students attending the university. This should be geared towards those who either are unable to attend college through illness, including Covid-19, or students who have not found student accommodation. Students suffering with disabilities must also not be forgotten, whether physical or mental. Currently, in some courses, anecdotally, many students who meet one or more of these criteria are unable to avail of hybrid learning because it is at the discretion of their lecturer and university department to record or stream these lectures live. Given that many departments and lecturers have ditched hybrid learning across the university campus due to the return of full in-person lectures, and their concerns that decreases in attendance would be evident. Students with disabilities, those that are ill, and those that cannot find student accommodation would argue that their concerns have been ignored. Going forward, senior management at the university need to urgently take into consideration their decision to re-introduce full in-person lectures and allow the recording of lectures to be at the discretion of lecturers and university departments. 

Alternatively, whilst retaining in-person lectures for students who can attend such lectures, for those that are unable to attend college for any reason, recorded and live-streamed lectures should remain in place. If there is anything we have learned from the pandemic, it is that the post-pandemic world will be vastly different to what we knew pre-pandemic. Given the advances in technology in recent years, future students attending the university will have a vastly different university experience, compared to their ancestors. Students across the university will certainly hope that the inaugural Student Forum has discussed these matters in detail. In relation to accommodation shortages, students will hope that the university is making steps towards addressing accommodation shortages across the university. While this problem is not unique to the university, it has an important role in building purpose-built, affordable accommodation. The current accommodation crisis has led to students either commuting to lectures from afar which leads to them missing out on opportunities to explore the joys of student life (including joining clubs and societies), or being forced to miss out on lectures due to the long commute. Many students, shockingly, in the third-richest country in the world, have been unable to find accommodation and, in some instances, been forced to sleep in their cars. From this Student Forum, measures are needed to address the student accommodation crisis. Through building purpose-built and affordable student accommodation, this would represent an important first step in allowing students to be able to find and afford accommodation. 

Last, but not least, focusing upon the model question, ‘what kind of university experience would you as good ancestors create for UCC students of the future’, it is hoped that this experience for future ancestors will not involve either struggling to find student accommodation and struggling to pay extortionate prices for it once they have been able to find it. It is also hoped this university experience will allow students to have the opportunity to enjoy student life more actively rather than worrying about their financial situations given the current cost of living crisis. The inaugural Student Forum represents an important first step in the university recognising the importance of the student voice. However, this is only the first step, as current and future students will hope to have their voice heard and used to help influence future decisions shaping the life of the university. 

Demonstrated by past occurrences such as the decision by the university in 2019 to increase the student capitation fee by 200 euro for 12,400 students, despite students previously voting in a referendum for a 5 euro increase, those governing the university at the top have tended to have a disconnect between the decisions they make and the opinion of students on these decisions. Eventually reversed due to strong pressure on the ground from students, this highlighted the extent to which students were willing to oppose decisions made by university management. Similarly, the #OccupyTheQuad protests in February 2020 against increasing rents at the campus also demonstrated the disconnect between university management and ordinary students. As opposed to seeing them as commodities, it is time for students to have a shared role in making decisions that impact on the university, whether this relates to student accommodation, mental health, Covid-19, climate change, sustainability, etc. Let’s hope for us all that this Student Forum represents the beginning of a change in attitude by senior management in the university to include the voice of students in future decisions.