Some months ago, a number of students were cross with LUSU for refusing postgrad students the right to play intercollegiate sports with their undergrad colleges. One of the unsuccessful LUSU Presidential candidates pledged to investigate how to make this possible. We at subtext thought this rather odd. Were people not aware that in 2014/15, the Provost of Colleges, Student Experience and the Library undertook an exhaustive and costly review of the college system which recommended, among other things, that PGs should have the option to stay with their UG college? Or were we imagining things?
Keen to check that we weren’t getting forgetful, we studied the original proposals in their entirety. From the original report (which isn’t available anywhere online): ‘Recommendation 10: Consideration should be given as to how to allow incoming postgraduate students a choice between remaining with their undergraduate College or joining Graduate College. It should also be made possible for undergraduate entrants to state a preference to live alongside the graduate population.’
The Colleges and Student Experience Committee (CSEC) voted to endorse this recommendation in February 2015, and the University Council ‘noted’ the implementation plan of the College Review in July 2016.
The student body and candidates to represent them politically have been complaining that PGs can’t play sports with their UG colleges. LUSU has rejected requests to make this possible, entirely in good faith, because they thought ‘thems were the rules’. As it turns out, allowing PGs to stay in their UG colleges and, as such, continue to play sports in them is, ostensibly, university policy!
So why hasn’t it been implemented? Who knows. What we do know is that the Grad College issue is another of the College Review’s recommendations that has either been rejected at consultation, ignored, or directly contradicted – further solidifying it as the ‘orchestrated waste of time’ that we were calling it three years ago.
(PS. If it turns out that this recommendation was in fact scrapped by CSEC and has never proposed for implementation, please note that it’s not our fault CSEC hasn’t uploaded its minutes in two and a half years.)