Students To Become Lecturers After More Strikes

Warwick is looking more like a baseball league  than a university after yet two more strikes were announced: for today and next Tuesday.

The strikes have caused uproar in the History department, where Student-Staff Liason Committee member Alexander Bunzl has organised for masters students to take lectures.

There are more strikes at Warwick than there are in Major League Baseball!

Here is what he had to say when he spoke to The Tab:

“As an History SSLC member, I was elected to represent the voices of my fellow students. Our political views vary, but we share a common interest in our studies.

Many are appalled by the recent strikes and shocked that class cancellations persist. We respect the right to strike, but feel it unjust that students should be penalised.

Lectures at Warwick are a stimulating and contextualising experience where speakers draw attention to the major themes and questions of a period. They form an important part of our course.

To suggest that students can make do without them is a discredit to the excellence of the staff. The idea that we should work independently is an insult to our choice to study at Warwick and pay substantial fees.

Our concern is not ideological. This is why we are not ‘taking over’ university property, camping by the Arts Centre, slandering academic staff or smearing campus with graffiti – all of which left-wing ideologues have done in recent times.

Instead, we have arranged a practical solution whereby learned students lecture their younger peers on topics for which the former have expertise. It is for the students of other departments and universities to decide whether to follow this example.

I would like to note that the staff are usually highly helpful and committed. Warwick academics will participate in a centenary commemoration of World War I for Warwick’s first History Lecture Forum, which several students and I have been working to arrange.

Just as we look forward to ‘WWI: The International Perspective’, the student body are adamant to engage with staff-led lectures.”

More strikes take place today and next Tuesday about lecturer wages, especially after Nigel Thrift’s pay rise.

Rosalie Green van Dyke, a second year History student, was more nonchalant about the furore. She said: “I don’t really care about the strikes at the end of the day .

They’re for a worthwhile cause and it means I get a lie in. It’s not like I’m missing tons of contact hours anyway.”

Do you agree with the strikes? Have your department taken actions like the History department? Leave your comments below.