College misled us over housing, say SPC students
The college says the building on Paradise St will be ready next year
First year students at St Peter’s College have been told that they must find their own accommodation for the coming academic year, despite the fact that they were promised college housing for the whole of their three year degree course.
Several students have reported that the Master, Professor Silverman, told them repeatedly at the beginning of Michaelmas Term 2005 that this was a “momentous occasion” for St Peter’s as it was the first time that it could house all of its students for three years. Yet college authorities have denied this was ever said, and students have continually been given contradictory information.
An email was sent out to freshers on the 18th January stating that although college housing would be available to a small group of second years, the rest would have to find private accommodation. The initial reason given for this new arrangement was that the building of new en suite annexes on Paradise Street had been delayed and would not in be completed in time for the beginning of the next academic year.
However, college Bursar Clendon Daukes has told this newspaper that the new rooms will in fact be completed. “We have only recently been able to make decisions surrounding a new 50-bed annexe which we are now confident will be coming on stream for the new academic year. “As a result, we have been able to encourage first year students to enter the housing ballot.
However, although first years can still enter the housing ballot the domestic manager confirmed that their applications will be dependent on how many third or fourth years apply, as students in their later years are given priority in the allocation of rooms. This will mean that despite the early completion of the new building, there could potentially only be around 20 places available for current first years, leaving forty or fifty current first years with no accommodation at all.
Naveed Somani, the JCR first Year Representative for the college, expressed his frustration at the way the matter had been handled. “I don’t know how they could have promised us accommodation at all when the numbers simply don’t match up. “When, in a meeting with college staff, I brought up the fact that the Master had promised it to us in front of the whole year, the administration denied that it had happened, despite the fact that there were nearly 100 of us present.
Several first year students have confirmed Somani’s assertions. James Rogers, a first year English student, said, “We had all assumed that we were guaranteed college accommodation; we were told this would be the case several times during Freshers’ Week, despite what college authorities have said, and we continued in this assumption until we received an email saying otherwise, as if this had been the plan all along.
“Had we simply been informed of the situation earlier, we would have been prepared and would have looked into private housing and sorted out groups of people much earlier in the year.” Another student, who wished to remain anonymous, expressed outrage at their treatment by the college authorities. “In the same speech the Master told us we were ‘the top rung of the academic ladder’.
“Now they are denying he made this claim, therefore completely undermining the forceful statement that we are all extremely intelligent by assuming that we will accept the statement that the whole population of the first year heard him incorrectly.” Professor Silverman declined to confirm whether or not he made the comments, saying he had nothing to add to the statements already made by the college. Finalists too have encountered confusion over housing plans.
They were recently informed that there would no longer be rooms on the college site available to them, before being told a day later that there would in fact be twenty-three rooms on offer to final year students.
26th Jan 2006