"You're a student here? Get Out Now"
Oxford students are increasingly taking second priority to the conferences that use the University's facilities every year. The situation appears to be much worse in poorer colleges, the OxStu can reveal.
Although conferences over vacation periods are an essential source of income - "hundreds of thousands of pounds" according to St Anne's JCR President Chris Sullivan - many students feel that their needs are being sacrificed to accommodate these guests.
At Pembroke, for example, vacation residence is "almost impossible to secure", with even finalists told to pack their bags to make way for highly paying conference guests. At New College, conference guests can expect to pay £45 per night whilst a university student is charged just £11.60 in comparison. Worcester JCR President Peter Jones describes the problem: "Why have a student paying £12 per night when you can have a conference guest paying £50; why have students paying £1.60 for Formal Hall when you can serve the same food to conference guests at £30 a head?"
Colleges clearly need to maximise their income, but many students object to how they are often consequently treated. Most colleges demand that students leave by 10am on the Saturday of 8th week, so that rooms can be prepared for conferences, a policy which causes great inconvenience to long distance and overseas students in particular.
Last term, a number of students sitting their Prelims and Mods in 9th week had their exams disrupted by the beginning of the conference season; these included historians, medics and mathematicians. Teddy Hall students found themselves living in adjacent rooms to American teenagers on summer schools who decided to introduce themselves at midnight the night before exams.
Meanwhile at Keble, some were given just two hours to vacate their rooms having completed their examinations, one telling the OxStu: "We were treated as second class citizens rather than integral members of the college".
Serious debate over the issue of conferences was sparked by an incident last year, in which a Balliol undergraduate was violently assaulted by a group of conference guests over the summer vacation. The second year student, who had been helping out at a college open day, attempted to access the JCR one evening, unaware of its booking for a private party. Having ignored a request to leave the room, the student was set upon by a male guest who punched the student in the face before dragging him from the room. He was then thrown to the floor outside the building, where several members of the conference party, who professed to be Harvard lawyers, continued to abuse the confused victim.
He later received compensation and a full apology from the college bursar, but the incident highlighted the real conflict that exists in some colleges. Mark Wardrop, who was JCR President at Balliol during the time of the incident, said at the time that whilst this may have been the first physical attack, the priority given to conference arrangements over student welfare had long been a problem. He added: "I view Balliol as a home for the members of the JCR, but it seems moneyed people who have no connection with the college are measured as a higher priority than undergraduates."
He points to the removal of book and travel grants for Balliol students, whilst the college simultaneously increases its expenditure on "middle managers" such as a new Conference and Catering Manager. He believes that students are "seen as an irritation and a distraction from the core aims of the college." OUSU's College Inequality Report 2003 highlighted that the college had entire staircases "sealed off" solely for conference guests.
With the exception of Balliol, it is in poorer colleges with less available accommodation that tensions seemingly occur.
Hardip Dhesi, JCR President of St John's (with the greatest annual endowment income per capita) told the OxStu: "There is a very reasonable procedure carried out at the college during vacation periods, with any JCR students who wish to stay very well accommodated for". The situation is similar at Christ Church, one of just six colleges where all students live in for the duration of their course.
OUSU's College Inequality Report 2003 states: "The students of Oxford University understand the reasoning that drives colleges into the conference trade ... but we believe that preference should always be given to students". Whether many colleges stand by this in practice remains highly questionable.
23rd Oct 2003