Keble MCR has published a report encouraging JCRs and MCRs to revise their financial relationship with the Oxford University Student Union while remaining affiliated to it. The Keble Common Room, which in the 1999-2000 academic year was disaffiliated from the Student Union, claims that dissatisfaction with “value for money” is rife amongst fellow student JCRs and MCRs. It points to a national survey it conducted that shows that OUSU is the only Student Union that charges subscription fees. In recent years a number of Common Rooms, including Oriel JCR, have disaffliated. However unlike many JCR and MCR debates on the value of OUSU, Keble MCR does not advocate disaffliation as the key. In cocompiler Andrew MacDonald’s words, they want to take the debate away from a “binary discussion” of “afflilation vs disaffliation.” It furthermore stresses the valuable work that OUSU does, pointing to its active and successful struggle over top-up fees as the current controversial issue. The compilers of the report, sent to OUSU and imminently to JCR and MCR OUSU representatives, hope that their statements will stimulate ’”constructive criticism” and an internal realignment of OUSUCommon Room relations.
ARCHIVE: 4th week TT 2003
OUSU Criticised
