Say goodbye to getting boozy with your tutors

How the University’s crusade against alcohol will hurt us all


Our university’s ingenious overlords have set their sights on a new target: our alcohol.

Whilst it has been clear for an age that the NUS thinks that undergraduate drinking in ‘dangerous’ and that students are obviously incapable of looking after themselves, it hasn’t until now become a serious university policy.

The university are proposing to prevent the Social Sciences Faculty (SSF) from funding alcohol at any of their events. What that means is Economics, Development, Law, Geography, Education, Business, Psychology and Social Work students will be denied free (school funded) alcoholic drinks at, for instance, careers events. This isn’t nearly as sensible as it seems.

The provision of alcohol at staff-student events breaks down the formal barriers that encourages students to get to know their lecturers and seminar leaders. Improving the relationships of staff and students increases the engagement in lectures, seminars and most invaluably office hours.

Various department-run events will cease to exist

All economics and business school students, for example, will know and love the annual pub quiz and truly value the Economics Society’s career events which are both essential elements of the unique and highly successful selling points of the ECO School.

Not only are students not trusted to drink responsibly at SSF events, but the academics who organised the events aren’t being trusted either. The audacity required to tell professionals with decades of experience that they can’t provide alcohol at their events is staggering. Sobering, even.

2nd Year Economics Student, Lorenzo: “The environment at the pub quiz events showed us that lecturers love the sesh too- I engaged with the department more as a result”

This isn’t because it’s exclusionary: the SSLC have acknowledged that catering to all students’ needs and preferences at such events (non-drinkers for example) is of the highest importance in order to accommodate and include everyone. So why not just acknowledge soft drinks are also available rather than banning the booze? This isn’t anything to do with actually improving the university, it is everything to do with following an agenda of merely appearing to improve the university. In reality this policy will only harm it.

Input from the Staff Student Liaison Committee (SSLC) or the Committee of Student Engagement was curiously absent. I suppose consultations and referendums have become unpopular as of late amongst bureaucrats of all creeds. Not only this but the new union website seems to have omitted a petitions section… whoops!

Student voice not found? Is this the latest ‘accident’ that happens to dismiss us?

Oppose absurd prohibition of alcohol funding at university events. We are adults, not children. We must fight against our illiberal university when they come after our drinks, they are hurting our academic relationships, our career prospects and our student experience.

Stand up for your pints, stop the prohibition.