Tag: Reshalls

• So, You Ran in ANUSA Elections. Now What?

  September 22, 2020 6:09 pm Comments Off on So, You Ran in ANUSA Elections. Now What?

  Elections are finally over, and I think we can all give a collective sigh of relief. If you ran and weren’t one of the 38(ish) candidates who got elected, you’re probably disappointed with the result. You may have put a lot of work into developing detailed policy that no one read, or spent hours campaigning and joking that you’re now a “stupol hack” instead of studying. If you weren’t jaded and disillusioned with ANUSA already, chances are you will be when elections roll around next year and you see the same policy proposals paraded. Between bitterness and burnout, it’s no surprise that few student representatives run for re-election.
  The good news is that there are many different ways to make meaningful impacts on student life without winning elections. Instead of plotting to take over Clubs Council, here are a few ideas to get active on campus.
   
  Residential Committees
  The recent Interhall Committee campaign Who Pays the Price? has demonstrated how different residential communities can coordinate to force student issues into the public consciousness. If you live in a hall of residence at ANU, you have the opportunity to get involved in your residential committees and organise activities and campaigns. There is a tendency for many candidates to run for “first year” positions and few for senior roles. 
  As with any of the ideas on this list, you shouldn’t run just to enhance your CV, get an honorarium or prepare for next year’s student elections. If you have the skills and passion necessary to contribute to residential life, go ahead. If not, there are plenty of other opportunities.
   
  ANU Committees
  What do meetings of ANU Council, the Academic Board and a bunch of University committees have in common? Students can attend as observers. Many of the big decisions of ANU are made in these obscure bodies and you have the ability to see how this happens. You should give notice if you plan on attending (check each board’s charter for who to email), but there’s nothing stopping you from keeping an eye on the inner workings of the university. Except confidentiality. And a lack of info on the ANU website. And that time ANU Council met in Darwin for some reason.
   
  Lobbying Student Representatives
  Unlike taciturn student observers, many student representatives actually sit on ANU boards with full privileges, from the Undergraduate Member on ANU Council to the Student Experience Committee. Further, College Representatives have a direct dialogue with the heads of academic colleges. While you may not hold these positions, there’s nothing stopping you from lobbying your representatives to, in turn, lobby those with their hands on the levers of university power. “Consultation” is a term often bandied about during elections, but you can ensure your reps actually make an impact. Arrange a meeting in person, prepare and present your issue, urge them to relay your concerns to the board/dean and follow up on action taken. It’s simple, and many reps will actually be keen to listen to someone who can give them something concrete to bring up at their next meeting.
   
  ANUSA Working Groups, Departments & Collectives
  As a member of ANUSA, you can attend SRC, College Representative and general meetings, where you can question officeholders and move motions. However, you can also get involved in working groups, where discussions from arts funding to gender equality influence the activities of the student union. As these are often poorly attended, you have many opportunities to contribute. Be warned: some working groups are more focused and effective than others. Try a few out to filter out the white elephants. You can also get involved with ANUSA’s autonomous departments and collectives, which often take the lead on organising campaign and advocacy action. If you’re from a marginalised community group, meetings are regular and open. Just check Facebook or Department Officers for more info!
   
  Education Committee (EdCom)
  EdCom is the education committee of ANUSA, tasked with advocating for education issues as well as mounting campaigns and protests on topics such as fee hikes. While it has gained a reputation for being dominated by factional interests, it has gradually become more open in recent years. Combine this with relatively low turnout to meetings and a considerable budget for campaign activities and there is significant potential for keen, experienced organisers to push ANUSA’s advocacy forward. It remains to be seen whether next year’s EdCom will be an effective force for change. Nonetheless, if you and a couple of friends have an issue you want to ANUSA to campaign on (possibly with funding), then checking in with EdCom and the Education Officer is advised.
   
  Student Media
  If you’re looking to ask difficult questions to the ANU or publish essays on the student experience, student media is for you. With actual online readerships and topics ranging from changes to university degrees to wider university policies (not to mention detailed election reporting), ANU Observer and Woroni play an integral part in keeping the student body informed about all goings-on on campus. While reporter places are limited, Woroni is always on the lookout for online and print content from students. If you want to write opinion pieces on the student experience at ANU that people actually read, this may be an avenue for you.
   
  Truth be told, the ANU doesn’t make it easy for students to affect university policy. Most of the big decisions are made at the executive level with little to no student consultation. Barring a sudden promotion to the Chancellery, you may have to broaden your scope outside of ANUSA and ANU to have real influence by finding organisations the university wants (or at least is forced) to hear. For instance, the Young Workers Centre runs a variety of campaigns combatting wage theft that you can get involved in through volunteering on their website. You could also try emailing ANU executives directly, and if their response is unsatisfactory, reply or write a letter to the Canberra Times.
  You can always run again next year, using your newfound insight into student elections. Chances are it’ll be easier, since you’ll know what you’re doing, have name recognition and have (hopefully) been keeping up to date with ANUSA and university news, rather than being thrown in the deep end. Maybe you don’t even need to focus on ANU; there are plenty of other institutions and problems out there needing to be fixed. All you can be sure about is that if you don’t do it, it won’t happen.
   
   
   
  Think your name would look good in print? Woroni is always open for submissions. Email write@woroni.com.au with a pitch or draft. You can find more info on submitting here.

  Woroni Editor

• My Abusive Relationship on Campus

  September 25, 2018 3:02 pm Comments Off on My Abusive Relationship on Campus

  I never thought of myself as a vulnerable person, who would put up with abuse at the hands of a man. I grew up on a farm where Dad expected the same toughness from meas he did my brother. Dad’s greatest role models were the strong independent women he had grown up with, and he expected the same from me.
  When I was in my first year of university, I met a guy who was 6 years my senior, handsome and keen on pursuing a relationship with me. I was intrigued by his cultural background. I was flattered that he was interested in me.
  My Dad never liked him and wouldn’t engage in any conversation with me about him. I didn’t understand why he couldn’t just be happy for me. I spoke incessantly about him, and Mum indulged me in this hysteria. She was excited for me. My relationship with my Dad started to fray.  
  After a year together, my boyfriend’s lease came to an end, and we decided to move into a share apartment at UniLodge. He was desperate for a place to live, and things had been going well. I am a spontaneous person and had thought, why not?   
  Not long after we moved in together did his true personality start to unravel before me. I got to know that he smoked a lot of weed, spent a lot of time on his phone, and was exceptionally vain, spending hours obsessing over his appearance.
  I started to witness him getting into punchups with random people on nights out. He got into these drunken rages. It was vile. The first violent night I witnessed was a horrible punch up with a guy outside the Melbourne building. I ran in to intervene and pulled him off the guy. He pushed me out of his way. I was thrown almost off my feet. I tried to drag him away as bouncers yelled at him to disappear. I walked past two bypassers and overheard one say to the other, “I bet he hits her too”. I was shocked. Did they really think that? As I walked home he started to shove me in the back. He shoved me again and again, laughing. I yelled at him to stop. I looked over my shoulder and noticed that the police were following us home. Perhaps they were watching to see if he would assault me. They eventually turned around.  
  The weed smoking was confronting. He couldn’t operate without it. If I tried to raise it with him, he would shout at me that “I was causing his depression.” He yelled at me if I dared to talk or argue with him while he was high.
  The violence on nights out became a weekly occurrence. We went home and I was consumed by shame, humiliation, anger, and disappointment. He yelled at me that I was his woman and I should not have undermined him by apologising to the guy he assaulted. I threatened to move out. I started packing stuff in my car and drove off. But I felt like I had nowhere to go to.  I hadn’t confided in anyone what was happening. I was too ashamed. I stayed in the car for hours until he convinced me to drive back.
  Another night, we fought because I discovered he was flirting with another girl over text. I ran upstairs and started sobbing uncontrollably on the floor of our apartment. I felt trapped. He came in and started shouting at me to stop crying. “Shut up!!!” He grabbed a 15 kg dumbbell and raised it above me, threatening to drop it on my head. I was sure that my neighbours would hear what was going on, and the police would be knocking on my door. But nobody came.  
  The next day he apologised and rang the girl he had texted in front of me. He told her he had a girlfriend, that he was really drunk and to please not contact him again.
  I discovered medication in another language and a psychiatric report from a doctor in his home country. I couldn’t read it. I didn’t know whether it was reasonable to understand that his violent behaviour was a result of whatever he was being medicated for. I forgave him.
  But things didn’t get better, they got progressively worse – I discovered abusive messages to women I’d never heard of. When I confronted him he completely denied it. He deleted the messages so I couldn’t see them again. I messaged one of those girls to ask what was going on: “Why did he say what he did? I don’t understand. I’m revolted, what is going on?” She responded saying I should speak with him about it.
  I suffered for several more months. I isolated myself from my friends. He began tormenting me by hinting that there were other women in his life, but then trying to convince me I was going crazy.
  I felt that I was dating a complete monster, but I didn’t want people to know that I was dating such a horrible person. I was consumed by shame. How could I possibly tell my friends, let alone my parents what I had been putting up with? How could I break the lease? I couldn’t afford to pay by myself.
  Not long after this incident he came home drunk and high, and attempted to cook food in the apartment. It was 3:00 am. Oil was going everywhere, and I was scared he was going to start a fire. I tried to stop him from cooking and he shouted at me. He grabbed a knife and started stabbing at a pan. I pleaded with him to stop and tried to take it off him. He lurched at me with the knife, threatening me with it, sneering. He smashed a glass at my feet. With shaking hands, I messaged a guy who knew him at Kinloch. I asked him to come over and get rid of him. He came over and removed my boyfriend from the apartment. He was sweet to me – saying that what he did was not okay and trying to comfort me as I cried. I was so grateful for him for helping me out, that is, until he sent me a message hitting on me the next day.
  Another guy from campus who had witnessed a few incidents came up to me and said he realised I must be really struggling to cope with my boyfriend’s behaviour and if I wanted to chat he would be happy to. I took him up on the offer, only to have him hit on me.  
  Not long after this incident my boyfriend went overseas for his brother’s wedding. I felt a wave of relief. I didn’t know what to do, how to get out. We had a lease together and I felt like I wasn’t in a financial situation to continue it myself. I guess 20-year-old me didn’t think that there was help out there. I thought there is no way that UniLodge would let me break my lease, which I realise now was wrong.
  When he was overseas I received a message from a random woman, telling me that she had been dating my boyfriend for a few months only to find out that I existed. We spoke on the phone, and she told me everything.
  I asked her if he had been sleeping with her without a condom. She said yes. She asked me. I said yes. We both sat on the phone in silence. That was the moment that I felt like the most abuse had been committed against me. I went on birth control pills on the condition that it was just him and me.  He had exposed me to an STI risk that I did not consent to. He had thoroughly violated my body.
  I ended the relationship on Skype. I rang my Dad. He couldn’t understand a word I was saying but got the gist. He dropped everything and came straight from the farm to pick me up.  
  I had exams and sobbed to the Dean of the Law School. He let me destroy every tissue in his tissue box. I am still so grateful for the compassion and empathy he showed me that day. He deferred my exams and listened to me for as long as I needed.
  We had run-ins in the months following: I ran into my ex-boyfriend in the carpark, only to have him follow me back and knock on my door. He spotted me at Mooseheads, only to punch the guy I was dancing with in the face. He sent me endless abusive messages.
  He lurked around ANU and tried to toy with some of my friends. He threatened to run one over.
  Every time I would walk around a corner at UniLodge my heart would drop – would he be around the corner?
  I started to open up to my friends about what I had endured. I never told my parents. They think that him cheating on me was the extent of it. I also saw an ANU counsellor for one session who tried to encourage me to look into getting an apprehended violence order. I thought about it thoroughly but decided that the risk was too high. I didn’t want to provoke him.
  He had tried to contact me several times by different means over the last few years – using a random person to add me on Snapchat and then sending me an intimidating snap of himself and his friend. Using a different Instagram account to send me a message. Sending me a message on LinkedIn. Sending me several emails with creepy memes.
  I desperately wanted to rebuild my life, and I did. I buried everything: my feelings, my fear. I blocked him on every social network and managed to avoid seeing him again. I assumed he must have left Canberra.
  He managed to get a message through recently on LinkedIn. I saw he worked in an organisation linked to government in Canberra. I thought, “shit.” He would have access to my address working for that organisation.   
  A few days later I went outside my house and I saw a car parked on the street down from my house. There were two men inside. I was sure one of them was him. I started shaking. I jumped in my car and tore off. I kept thinking, “surely not. Surely not.”
  A few weeks later I was in a bar that I frequent, where I have always felt safe for the last three years. No way he would go to a place like this. I was with my new boyfriend. We were kissing when I saw someone out of the corner of my eye. It was him. A few people between us, he was staring at me. Glaring. He walked into my circle of friends, to stare me in the face. He turned around and proceeded to stare at me from farther away. I felt faint. I wanted to get out of there. I was terrified he was going to king hit my boyfriend. I rushed us outside and quickly jumped in a taxi.
  This latest experience has really shaken me. I do not feel safe. I have expressed this to several of my friends, some of whom understand completely, others who do not. I had one male friend say to me “Maddy, you can’t live your life in fear.” Another said, “Oh but he didn’t actually punch anyone so I’m sure you’re fine, you’re safe.” These comments are deeply concerning. I know the man better than anyone else. If I say he is capable of harming me or the people I love, who are you to say otherwise?
  Since this incident, I have started to come to terms with the fact that I have not fully recovered from the trauma I experienced from the relationship. These traumatic memories are the most vivid. They are etched in my brain. I have decided to take steps to properly heal.
  I hope that in reading this, university students such as yourselves will be more attuned to how abusive relationships can occur. Even though we’re educated, fun-loving, university students, it doesn’t mean that abuse could not be happening in the dorm next door.
  A vulnerable woman is not meat, or fair game.
  If you have a friend who is isolating themselves in a relationship, it is vital to persist in keeping the connection alive and ensure that a safety rope for them is still there.
  To those who are experiencing abuse – help is out there. It will surprise you how seriously most people take abuse and are willing to go out of their way to help you.
   
  Domestic Violence Crisis Service ((02) 6280 0900)
  The DVCS provide 24/7 crisis intervention services to anyone who is experiencing, or has experienced, domestic and family violence. The crisis services include telephone support, attendance with police at domestic and family violence incidents, access to safe emergency accommodation, safety planning and referrals to support services. Concerned family, friends, colleagues, neighbours and medical and allied health professionals are also very welcome to call the 24/7 telephone crisis line for information and guidance on how to support someone. It is a free, confidential service that does not require a medicare card.
  ANU Counselling
  (02) 6125 2442
  This is the phone number to book an appointment with ANU Counselling. You can book a standard appointment (50 mins) anytime. To book an on the day appointment for urgent help (25 mins) call at 9am or go into the Counselling Centre just before 9am, as these appointments are first in first served. You can receive 6 free sessions per semester. You do not need a medicare card to access this service, but you must be an ANU student. They will not tell the police or the university that they have spoken with you.
  1800 RESPECT
  1800 737 732
  This is over the phone counselling and it is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They can also refer you to local services. It is free of charge. 1800 RESPECT has a triage system, so the first person you speak to is not a counsellor. We recommend that you request to be put through to a counsellor straight away.
  ANU Women’s Department
  Contact the Women’s Officer, Laura Perkov:
  sa.womens@anu.edu.au
  The Women’s Department is part of ANUSA, and it advocates for and supports all ANU Women and non-binary students. As Women’s Officer, Laura can provide pastoral care, referrals to local support services, and give information about options for reporting within ANU and the support ANU can offer.
  ANU Queer* Department
  Contact the Queer* Officer, Matthew Mottola:
  sa.queer@anu.edu.au
  The Queer* Department is part of ANUSA, and it advocates for and supports all Queer* identifying students. Matthew can provide pastoral care, referrals to local support services, and give information about options for reporting within ANU and the support ANU can offer.

  Maddy Miller

• Peer-to-Peer Support at ANU Residential Halls

  July 18, 2018 9:54 am Comments Off on Peer-to-Peer Support at ANU Residential Halls

  I’m worried – and I need to know if the student body is too.
  In 2017 I ran in the ANUSA elections with a clear commitment to safe, sustainable and fair peer support models in ANU residential halls. In my experience they haven’t been any of these things – but I need to know if that was an anomaly or if it’s the norm.
  I was elected with a strong majority, so I know I have a mandate to look into this issue – but for the university to be convinced of any real change I need you to share your experiences.
  While I was a senior resident at B&G, I’m almost certain that I received more sexual assault disclosures than my male counterparts – and overall I would have contributed more hours and more emotional labour to the job. I was a woman doing more work than the men in my role – and receiving the same pay.
  I would avoid being in my room alone because all I could think of was the harrowing stories I’d been told by my residents, friends, and peers while they sat on my bed.
  The people running your training call this burn out. It’s not burn out. It’s vicarious trauma, and the university needs to do more to support students in this situation.
  Because I was being paid via a scholarship and therefore wasn’t an employee, I couldn’t access an Employee Assistance Program. This is where your workplace covers counselling costs for you. If I needed time off, I had to apply for leave. If I was going to be away from the hall for longer than 48 hours I had to apply for this leave. There are so many structural issues like this one that make peer support at ANU residential halls unsafe, unfair and unsustainable. I’ve spent the last six months talking to people about these issues, but I haven’t spoken to everyone.
  There are some questions that I still can’t answer on my own.
  Should SRs and RAs be paid as employees if they are doing overnight shifts and some are taking on more hours than others?
  Should CC’s be responsible for overseeing and training other students, while they are students themselves?
  What kind of structural support do we offer these students, and who can access EAP (employee assistance program) to get free counselling outside of ANU?
  Why isn’t anyone talking about vicarious trauma?
  What are the benefits and non-negotiable aspects of peer support that we must maintain?
  Should SRs get penalty rates for being on call over a long weekend?
  My experiences were not all bad. I had incredible residents and a supportive SR team to work with and I am so grateful for having the opportunity to befriend these lovely people. But this issue is a systemic one that is disadvantaging women, and people from linguistically and/or culturally diverse backgrounds – people I believe are often receiving more work than others, but not being remunerated for it.
  I need to know if this issue is widespread or localised to some residential halls – and I need to know what the student body wants me to advocate for. Should we have trained mental health nurses on call overnight? Do we need paramedics? I know I would have appreciated both of these when I was 19 years old, dealing with mental health crises and doing CPR on my peers.
  Your experiences will help to inform a report that will make recommendations for peer pastoral care models in ANU residential halls in 2019. If you’ve been an SR, CC, RA, Women’s Officer, Men’s Officer, Gender and Sexuality Advocate, Mental Health Advocate – or any other peer support role – please fill out my survey, or get in touch with me to talk about your experiences. I want to hear from you.
  Survey: https://goo.gl/forms/zDl5OQryEFrFDIYB3
  Email Tess Masters, ANUSA Vice President: sa.vicepres@anu.edu.au
   
  Woroni is committed to standing with survivors of sexual harassment and assault. If you or someone you know have been affected by this piece, please reach out to the support services listed.
   
  Canberra Rape Crisis Centre (6247 2525)
  CRCC are on campus and available to support you if you have experienced sexual violence, harassment, or anything that has made you feel uncomfortable. You don’t need a medicare card to see them, all appointments are free, and nobody will be told you have spoken to them. You can call CRCC on 6247 2525 between 7am and 11pm.
   
  ANU Counselling
  The ANU Counselling Centre promotes, supports and enhances mental health and wellbeing within the University student community. It is a free, confidential and non-diagnostic service available to all currently enrolled ANU students. No referral or Mental Health Treatment Plan from a General Practitioner is required to attend appointments.
  http://www.anu.edu.au/…/…/counselling/anu-counselling-centre
   
  1800RESPECT
  Provides support for people experiencing, or at risk of experiencing, sexual assault, domestic or family violence, their friends and family, and workers and professionals supporting someone experiencing, or at risk of experiencing sexual assault, domestic or family violence. Call 1800 737 732.
  https://www.1800respect.org.au/about-1800respect/
   
  Lifeline (13 11 14)
  A national charity providing all Australians experiencing a personal crisis with access to 24 hour crisis support and suicide prevention services. Call 13 11 13.
  https://www.lifeline.org.au/
  ANU Women’s Department
  Contact the Women’s Officer, Laura Perkov:

  For non-urgent inquiries: sa.womens@anu.edu.au

   
  The Women’s Department is part of ANUSA, and it advocates for and supports all ANU Women and non-binary students. As Women’s Officer, Laura can provide pastoral care, referrals to local support services, and give information about options for reporting within ANU and the support ANU can offer.
   
  ANU Queer* Department
  Contact the Queer* Officer, Matthew Mottola:

  sa.queer@anu.edu.au

  The Queer* Department is part of ANUSA, and it advocates for and supports all Queer* identifying students. Matthew can provide pastoral care, referrals to local support services, and give information about options for reporting within ANU and the support ANU can offer.
   

  Tess Masters

• ANU and Ramsay Centre: Trading Academic Independence for Cash

  May 20, 2018 10:01 pm Comments Off on ANU and Ramsay Centre: Trading Academic Independence for Cash

  ANU loves to brag about its scholarships. Its brochures are plastered with smiling shiny faces of Tuckwell scholarship students reading books on green grass under blue sky, with dust and heavy industrial equipment from the nearby construction site neatly cropped out. But ANU – the thought leader that it is – is changing away from this, as it quietly releases piecemeal information and timidly defends its negotiations with the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilization (RCWC) over a divisive new scholarship and degree originally slated for 2019.
  Late last year ANU announced it was in negations with the RCWC to create a new Bachelor in Western Civilization for a cohort of 60 students, of which it would provide some 30 students with a $25,000 per annum scholarship. But this group doesn’t exactly have the same appeal as the kind-faced, generous Tuckwells, with their passion for education. No, RCWC is instead staffed by some of the most disliked politicians in Australian history and has repeatedly said it will use the degree to push its ideological beliefs.
  RCWC launched in November 2017 thanks to a $3 billion donation left by healthcare-magnate and top Liberal party donor Paul Ramsay. The group aims  to get universities to teach a positive interpretation of Western civilization. To achieve this RCWC turned to ANU, promising a fortune to the university if they establish a degree that adheres to the group’s goals.
  RCWC chairman and former prime minister John Howard described the degree as “an exercise in the unapologetic exposal of what Western Civilization has brought to mankind over the centuries.” There are three main issues with the degree: firstly, its politically biased approach; secondly, the ambiguity of RCWC’s control over the degree; finally, the involvement of sitting MPs and partisan political figures.
  Members of RCWC board and its CEO have repeatedly said that the degree will only address the positive aspects of Western civilization. Board member Tony Abbott said that RCWC is “not merely about Western Civilization but in favour of it.” Even when Howard acknowledged that western civilisation had “its share of moral failures”, he didn’t elaborate. Instead, Howard said people should look to the successes of western civilization, such as the defeat of Nazi Germany. Of course, Howard did not explain why Nazi Germany – a European nation-State influenced by Enlightenment thought, Christianity and Graeco-Roman culture – was not part of the West. Nor have any of the board members mentioned colonisation, fascism, autocracy or imperialism; governmental structures that characterised the West for far longer than modern democracies. RCWC will not address these issues. They are explicitly narrow-minded and have no intention of approaching western civilization with the complexity it requires. Such an approach is not only an insult to students, but also to those affected by the negative aspects of western civilization. 
  ANU and RCWC have both said they will respect the traditional course approval structures, but this hasn’t stopped RCWC officials from also saying the exact opposite. During negotiations, CEO Simon Haines said “we would not be wanting to hire somebody who is coming in with a long liturgy of what terrible damage western [civilization] had done to the world.” If academic integrity is respected, then a politically motivated third party should not get to have a say in the hiring and firing of staff. A similar stance has also been taken on the syllabus of the 16 new courses in the degree. RCWC said that they will choose the readings or “great texts” for the degree, while also saying that ANU will treat the courses like any other. These two things can’t be true at the same time. To drive home the strong arm tactics, Haines threatened to pull funding if the courses and teachers did not tow RCWC’s ideological line.
  There is also the issue of RCWC’s board members also being sitting politicians. On the board, there are both former MPs – Howard and Beazley – and, more worryingly, current MPs. Liberal Party parliamentarians Leeser and Abbott sit on the RCWC board and have a deep involvement with the new degree. A sitting MP – particularly an ideologically divisive one, such as Abbott – having input on the curriculum of a public university is extremely unsettling and goes beyond a simple philanthropic donation. With all these issues you might have thought that justifications for ANU’s deal would be stronger.
  The most common argument in favour of the degree is a version of: ‘well people can do Asian, studies major so why not a have a Bachelor in Western Civilization?’ The response to this is twofold. Firstly the Asian studies major is not funded by a group called the Xi Jinping Lord President for Life Appreciation Society. In fact, any whiff of political bias in any course is met with legitimate anger and concern. Courses at ANU are – or if the deal isn’t stopped, were – run by academics that have independent say over course material with the sole goal of educating students. As a result of this, the Asian studies major does not ignore negative aspects of said society or mislead their students to guarantee funding. Secondly, ANU already has a heavily Western-centric model for teaching the humanities – look no further than English, Ancient History and International Relations. And the best thing about these courses is that they don’t sell the education of their students to politicians for some extra cash.
  This extra cash will also come with its own cost. RCWC is not a charity: they are not donating, they are buying. RCWC is trying to make their own degree and is paying the university to turn a blind eye to academic independence to do so. The world will see this and treat the ANU accordingly. Secondly, there are MPs on the RCWC board. If they really wanted to properly fund universities they could do it the old-fashioned democratic way, not with the vast wealth of a political partisan’s estate. Finally, we as students also pay ANU, under the presumption that we will be given the best education possible. At a Ramsay Centre forum Rae Frances, Dean of CASS, was asked what the threshold donation for someone to create their own degree would be, she tongue in cheek replied “$50 million.” Well, we – the students – provide ANU with hundreds of millions of dollars annually, and we don’t ask for a degree that mimics our personal political bias. We just ask for the university not to sell our education to the highest bidder.
  Sam Brennan is an admin of the Facebook page ‘Keep Ramsay out of ANU’

  Woroni Comment

• Lost, scared and confused: Non-selective public-school kid finds himself in a Labor Left and Right mixer

  May 5, 2018 12:18 pm Comments Off on Lost, scared and confused: Non-selective public-school kid finds himself in a Labor Left and Right mixer

  From Kiama High in rural NSW and the the son of teachers, James wasn’t quite prepared for ANU. Engineering seemed to have been confused with computer science, no one talked to each other in class and everyone drank cocktails, not kegs.
  He certainly wasn’t ready for this bustling lakeside function room.
  Lavender-scented CMFEU t-shirts, outfits made up of an SDA hat and RM’s… seeing the political battlelines everyone had been talking about before had become a task of splitting hairs – or haircuts.
  He bumped and jostled around the feverish networkers, falling to the back of the room with little resistance, like a pinball in a machine without bumpers.
  Now and then he agreed to statements he didn’t understand, with a non-committal nod and an empty word. Warm, wine-ladened breaths whispered: “but, like, its not a trust fund, it’s a long-term deposit”; “they’re just talking shit, I’m not rich, the tennis court is in the front garden”; “a $50,000 gift every year from my parents isn’t really tax dodging, I don’t have the faintest idea where the bank account is. Besides, everyone does it”.
  The worst were the arguments. James couldn’t see clear thought, despite the apparent sea of “pragmatic hats” and “thinking caps”. The room was split chaotically on who the ‘real’ terrorists were but mainly divided on whether the Shiraz was better than the Sauvignon Blanc.
  A quick jog took him out of the room. That politics could never be for him became cognizant far before he’d found the door.
  Back in the kitchen now, after handing out the last of his tray, he felt at peace. Until he had to wash the functions glasses with Kenny at the end of the shift. No- one knows what Kenny did for the first 40 years of his life, and the missing pinkie finger and neck tattoos didn’t invite questions.

  Liam King

• 100 per cent Transparent Troglobitic Isopod Crustacean Finishes Up 30 Million Year Preparation for ANUSA Just One Month After Voting Closes

  October 19, 2017 9:16 pm Comments Off on 100 per cent Transparent Troglobitic Isopod Crustacean Finishes Up 30 Million Year Preparation for ANUSA Just One Month After Voting Closes

  This brave troglobitic isopod crustacean began its extraordinary campaign close to 30 000 millennia ago with one radical idea not yet implemented in student politics: achieve an entirely transparent form.
  This effort has come to a tragic end, due to a failure to account for minor shifts in the distance between Earth and the Sun, which occurred over the course of this little bug’s entire evolutionary span – what a fucking idiot.
  Inhabiting an underground cave system for the whole period of the species’ existence, it has evolved to be entirely transparent through a lack of exposure to light. This sort of strategy has never been employed before in an ANUSA election – although living in the cave that is the BKSS might certainly constitute a prerequisite to running.
  ‘Shit Happens’, an autobiographical post-mortem of the campaign will be released in two weeks. You can find it at all good bookstores.

  Will Fletcher