The Guild of Students Officer elections are all over and done with and Emma Cooper has been elected as LGBTQ Officer for the 2010/11 academic. 1,214 students have made an excellent choice and I would like to congratulate her on her election. As for the 289 students who somehow felt that RON was a better choice, well…jog on, basically.

As with all of the new officers, Emma takes office on 1st August 2010 after my term as Officer ends. However, in the first few days following the announcement of results, Emma stood in for me while I was locked away completing my final year project and has done an amazing job, on top of her good work on the LGBTQ Committee over the past year no less. This bodeswell for the year to come

I’d also like to congratulate all of the newly elected officers – particularly Johnny Davis for making Guild history as the first re-elected Officer!

Elections of 2010/11 LGBTQ Committee

Myself and Kitten also held the Annual General Meeting of the LGBTQ Association last Thursday, 17th March. Knowing that I would be more-or-less gone next year, and that the Association has become somewhat dependent on my technical abilities to maintain our online media, I pushed through a motion to create an Information, Communication and Publicity Officer position on the LGBTQ committee.

My relatively crappy report on campaigns and projects was easily dwarfed by Kitten’s well-prepared PowerPoint presentation – our way of satisfying constitutional requirements of committee reports. In both cases, we had an opportunity to report on the successes and failures of this year to our members and committee candidates.

After listening to nomination speeches, distributing ballets and counting votes, we announced the election winners who are the new LGBTQ Committee:

Dan Guzman Chair	Andy Roche Secretary	Rob Unwin Treasurer	John Chivers ICP
Christian White Open Place	Katherine Johnson Open Place	Sarah Green Open Place	Caitlin Horne Open Place
	Sarah Perry Guild Councillor	Dan Doherty Guild Councillor

A lot of these were elected unanimously; congrats to all in any case

I will retain my co-chair position on the committee with Emma shadowing until the 1st August at which point Emma will take over.

Today is World AIDs Day, observed around the world to raise awareness of the Acquired Immuno-deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), the Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV) as well as the dangers posed by other sexually transmitted diseases.

Since 1987, AIDS has killed over 25 million people. As of 2007, over 33 million live people live with it worldwide, making it one of the most destructive pandemics in recorded history. For this reason, countless organisations take part in the observance of World AIDS Day to place the highest emphasis on sexual health to prevent the spread of the virus, and raise funds for research into treatments.

The Guild and LGBTQ Association will be marking the day with the Mermaid Fountain draped in a red sash, and suspiciously spewing forth dyed red water. There will also be the red double-decker bus on which Guild and LGBTQ volunteers will be handing out information, collecting for AIDs and sexual health charities.

• 12-2: Guild Car Park
• 2-4: Campus (library)
• 4-7: Halls of Residence

The LGBTQ have been kindly sponsored by Crusaid and the Terence Higgins Trust; two very prominent organisations in the field of sexual health and HIV. They’ve kindly provided posters

Also, the LGBTQ’s film night was moved from Sunday 29th to tonight at 6PM to coincide with World AIDs Day. We will be showing Philidelphia, a film that illustrates the controversy that many with AIDS have faced:

“When a man with AIDS is fired by a conservative law firm because of his condition, he hires a homophobic small time lawyer as the only willing advocate for a wrongful dismissal suit.”

Yesterday there was a FlashMob Protest outside the Aston Webb building campaigning against the proposed rise in tuition fees, following the announcement that our own Pro-Vice Chancellor David Eastwood was a member of the review panel.

To put things in context…

I’m going to start by being fiendishly self-centred and talking about me.

I’m from a working class background. I left home at 19 while in my second year of college; my living costs was funded purely by working 35 hour weeks, and eventually contract work alongside my studies before coming to Uni in 2006 – the year the £3,000 tuition fees were introduced. The Student Loans Company refused to consider me a self-sufficient student and took my mother’s income into account. I was fortunate; her financial situation entitled me to the maximum tuition fee and maintenace loans, supplementary grant, and I was also entitled to the Birmingham Scholarship and Grant based on my entry grades.

I might add that in 2007 – a year after the new fees were introduced, the SLC doubled the interest rates from 2.4% to 4.8%. When I graduate this June, I will have accumulated over £25,000 of debt.

I have a 15-year-old sister who hopes to study at University in a few years time. University would give her a chance to explore her potential and develop the knowledge and skills that she can bring back to society in her future career, and she certainly deserves that chance. She’s currently living with my father who is in a much better financial situation, and she probably won’t get the entitlement I got. She may not be able to go to University altogether.

I have gay friends who were disowned by their homophobic families and struggle to survive – while studying at college – with aspirations of University. If the top-up fees double they probably won’t be able to go to University.

It’s a dangerous precident

The very idea of raising tuition fees promotes the incredibly conservative notion that there is a direct correlation between intellectual potential and socio-economic background (The Daily Hate Mail tried to illustrate it as such in one of their “articles” earlier this year).

If our government allows fees to go up then it brings our nation’s higher education system back by at least a century, where only the elite, rich, straight, white students could go to University, as I seriously doubt that the SLC will support £7K yearly tuition fee loans.

More importantly, it’s been five years since the £3K tuition fees were introduced; how exactly has the quality of higher education improved in that time?

So what can be done about it?

• Fabian, and presidents from Student Unions/Guilds across the country have signed a petition protesting the Labour and Tory parties hiding behind this review.
• Edd started a small, active student group that I and three other LGBTQ members have joined.
• I’ve contacted my brother and a few friends in the Liberal Democrats; as the one party that has always decried top-up fees, they are truly our greatest ally. Ideally a massive national student boycott of all Labour and the Tories by voting LibDem or Green would at help balance things out.
• Nick Petrie and I are putting together a mini-site to keep track of the “tell David” campaign, the progress of the review and reactions across the country. It won’t just be for students; obviously we want to appeal to local people whose children will be barred from higher education by increasing the fees.
• More to come soon…

What’s standing in our way?

Something that has caused me to repeatedly banging my head against a wall is the fact that activist students are so involved; so passionate that they find the concept of an apathetic student hard to believe. In fact, they underestimate just how far apathy extends. The more the Guild tries to engage these students, the further they are pushed away. Trust me, I’ve lived with more than a few of them. However, like me, some of them have younger relatives and friends with University aspirations; and we can appeal to them on that basis. to get involved even to a basic level.

The same can be said for the seemingly built-in attitude of local residents that students are lazy, intrusive scum who take up space. However, I reminded myself of Brigid’s blog post about University places. People were angry their kids wouldn’t be going to University; we can appeal to those people on that basis.

More to come on this as it develops!

Also, check out the FlashMob coverage from RedBrick, Guardian, Birmingham Mail, Birmingham Post.

Today, 11th November, marks the 80th Remembrance Day which commemorates the sacrifices made in war; notably both World wars.

Remembrance day holds a special significance to LGBTQ people everywhere. The freedom to even fight for equality would not have been possible had it not been for the sacrifices made in past wars; especially given the persecution that gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans people suffered under the Nazi regime during WW2.

The University and Guild held the respectful two-minute silence in keeping with tradition to remember those who fought for the freedoms we enjoy. From where I was standing by the Aston Webb building, I was amazed to see just how many people stopped where they were, what they were doing to take part. I would like to thank everyone – LGBTQ students or otherwise – who participated.