Picking Our Battles

As you’re probably aware, the majority of organisations within York University Media generate a great percentage of their audience through varying degrees of University-bashing. Whilst we are well within our rights to be airing our grievances, it has dawned on me that we aren’t being entirely fair. Perhaps we are expecting things far above and beyond the call of duty.

Take, for instance, the outcry over the new study space being created next to The Charles. I have no doubt it’s inconvenient, unfair and downright annoying to everybody that library renovations are forcing us all to crowd around even fewer tables. So why are these proposals not being treated as a positive thing designed to help us? Oh yes, because “The New Building” is next to a pub, a pub which, quite irresponsibly, will sell us all the 99p glasses of wine our revision weary hearts desire. (At least, it will until we fall off a bar stool and have to be carried home.)

All I have heard on campus this month, and last, is accusations levelled at the University over the lack of consideration of the location of the building. Why is temptation being placed so obviously in the way of our path to success? Why are we, mere mortals, being expected to resist the sweet lure of daytime cider in the sun all on our own? Why, why, why won’t Jane Grenville and Brian Cantor be personally positioned outside the door of The Charles, ready and waiting to tackle us to the floor and frogmarch us back to our desks should our willpower fail us?

There are some things that this University does with which we have every right to be disappointed, and even angry. When this happens we shouldn’t hesitate to express our dissatisfaction. The University making us complicit in investment in the arms trade is one such case.

Sacrificing our personal safety and security by cutting porters rather than making other budget concessions is another. To me, it is so important that we stand up for ourselves and defend our rights as students; ultimately we need to have a say in the way the university is run. I am by no means suggesting that we don’t speak out when we feel that it has short changed us. But we should pick our battles wisely. Protesting against one thing that the University does has limited enough success as it is. Protesting about everything it does is not exactly going to endear the people at the top to our cause. Rather, it makes us seem petty, childish, and unable to fix anything ourselves.

While it would be nice to believe that University administration has the ability to right every wrong and solve every problem, unfortunately this is very rarely the case, and we are out of line to expect so much from our University without bearing in mind the financial and administrative restrictions placed upon it. If we as students want our grievances to be truly listened to and acted upon, we need to learn to tell the difference between what is worthy of our public outcry and what is not; which of the universities actions are bad decisions and which are the result of good decisions in bad circumstances. We need to know when we have the power to influence change and when the situation is out of our control entirely.