​​Student participation is key to the project we call university. Students are not consumers who simply hand over a sum of money at the start of a three-year engagement, and receive a piece of paper in return. University is not that detached, transactional consumption. University is a community of scholars and students who, together, explore, build, engage, and try to gain a better understanding of the world and of what it means to be responsible participants in it. Over the course of a three year commitment to QMUL, students as well as the university owe each other active engagement to make this project work. It is key to listen to students’ experiences and expectations to make this work effectively. But students have not always been listened to in good faith. 

There are many offices across the university who should listen to and engage with students. Reach out to them.

  • Prevent local action: Let management know that their punitive deductions policy is damaging your education, not protecting it. Tell them their persistence with it shows they do not value your education, as only QMUL is hit with a local strike. Tell them the policy has to end.
  • Denounce Snitch Forms: Tell the governing body that the snitch forms sour the trust needed in a classroom, and in governing an institution. Tell them you do not appreciate being turned into a spy for Management to inflict unlawful deductions on your teachers.
  • Sign the open letter calling on the Principal to put striking workers’ wages in the students hardship fund
  • Email the Principal to use his position in the UUK to come to an agreement on pay and workload. QMUL Community Solidarity provides helpful templates.
  • Use the handy template ucu national made
  • If you prefer not to write in your own name, write together as a year group or as a class group (though refrain from naming your teacher), or as a group of student ambassadors, or a group of the same dorm, or…
  • Ask your university society to speak out in support of the strikes
  • Write to your MP (template and contact details here) to tell them to put political pressure on all Vice-Chancellors. Political pressure is important because QMUL management should not act without impunity, and the treatment of staff and students at QMUL has ramifications for workers elsewhere. See for instance the letter from the Mayor of Tower Hamlets addressing QMUL management.
  • There is a guide to file formal complaints

Talk to your teachers and professional staff as well as fellow students. Many across the university are keen to hear suggestions and work together on organising

  • Join the pickets! Pickets are welcoming and hopeful spaces, you are more than welcome to have a chat about the future of education and of work with anyone there.
  • Propose a teach-out! Pickets are a lot of milling around and organising for a better future on an ad-hoc level, but strikers also organise activities to have a focused discussion about particular current events or problems, and to think together about solutions. Staff have been organising at least one a day, but are always keen to hear what students would like a teach-out on or would like to organise a teach-out about themselves.
  • Come an talk with people on the ‘Strike Couch‘: an informal meeting point where you can ask any questions, or make any suggestions
  • Join in national actions! Many unions are currently trying to save working conditions and pay in all sectors which you’ll enter after graduation. Keep an eye on what’s going on, for instance by signing up to the Student Liaison’s email list.