Oat milk lattes and Mario Kart: What it was really like inside the UoN occupations

Last Monday, a group of students occupied Keighton Auditorium for five days. It began with a sit in at Coates Road Auditorium, then they moved to occupy Keighton for five days and finally on Friday, Coates, Keighton and the Monica Partridge lecture theatres were all occupied simultaneously.

The occupying students had hung up banners proclaiming “students support the strikes” and “free education now” and when cohorts of other students turned up to to attend their lectures in the occupied spaces, they were met by people handing out leaflets explaining why the building was being occupied.

“We’re occupying this building in support of the ongoing UCU strikes”, the line of occupying students said when turning away at the door people who turned up for lectures, but their demands reach beyond that.

Sarah*, a student involved in the occupation said: “Primarily we are here in support of our teaching staff and their ongoing battle for fair pensions and working conditions, but we’re also here to protest the way our university is being managed and the shift we’re seeing in higher education towards marketisation.”

When asked about how staff and students have reacted to their teaching being cancelled, Sarah said: “The response from staff has been overwhelmingly positive and students have also been supportive of what we’re doing.”

Inside the occupied spaces you could see students sleeping, chatting and doing uni work. There was also a few communal food and drinks tables set up that boasted a comically large amount of oat milk.

“Lots of us sleep here and loads of people have brought in food and things to be used communally,” Alex*, another student taking part in the occupation, said.

“We’ve also had appreciative staff members buying us food and things which is really lovely, it’s nice to know that what you’re trying to do is appreciated by the people you’re trying to do it for.

“In the day people will do their work or play a lot of Mario Kart and in the evenings we’ll do group activity like a powerpoint night or something similar. We’ve also had regular teach outs from both staff and students which have been good fun and informative. Overall, I’d say it’s a very fun and relaxed environment.”

When asked about the universities response to their actions, Alex* said: “The university seem pretty unbothered by what we’re doing, which is odd considering how much teaching we’ve managed to disrupt. But that’s quite telling of their general attitude towards student learning, I would say. They’re generally unbothered.”

*Name changed at the request of the interviewee.

Related articles recommended by this author:

• ‘We don’t want to strike’, Uni of Nottingham lecturer on the picket line says

• Angry about strikes? We need to support our picketing lecturers and here’s why

• UoN strikes: It’s not our fault, so why are we the ones being punished?