UPDATE: The kitchen was re-opened on Monday after members of the JCR, and the Cut The Catering Charge committee, made assurances to the Junior Dean that the kitchen would be adequately cleaned and drew up a rota.
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Students have responded angrily after the JCR kitchen in Exeter College was shut this morning due to “almighty mess”
In an email sent to the JCR, Rina Ariga, the Junior Dean, stated, that a disciplinary fine and cleaning costs were being issued to the JCR, and that the “JCR kitchen [is] locked indefinitely”
The email went on, “the JCR and JCR kitchen has once again been left in an ALMIGHTY MESS”, and that “a fellow student has had to clean up some of the filth in the kitchen in order to make a meal this morning.”
Several students have linked the move to students’ ongoing hall boycott, as there is now no alternative to hall food on-site at Exeter. JCR President Richard Collett-White commented that, “Students have been quick to condemn this as a clear attempt to break the boycott – understandably, I think.
#ctcc @ExeterCollegeOx indefinitely lock their boycotting students out of the only kitchen available to them. Do they want a hunger strike?
— Owen Donovan (@owen_donovan) February 23, 2014
psyched for making couscous with my kettle for the foreseeable future #ctcc
— Ella Harold (@ella_harold) February 23, 2014
In the most politically naive move ever, @ExeterCollegeOx have locked the only kitchen available to @ExeterJCR students during a hall strike
— Lucy McCann (@lucyfmccann) February 23, 2014
The closure of the kitchen will prevent the JCR from hosting welfare tea, which has been a major part of the hall strike, and this has led to fears about the JCR’s general welfare provision. The JCR Welfare reps told Cherwell, “the welfare team at Exeter are strongly against this action by college as for some people the kitchen is the only viable means of eating at the moment. Furthermore the negative impact on welfare if it stays locked for welfare tea will be substantial.”
Former JCR President Ed Nickell drew attention to the welfare problems of closing the kitchen, telling Cherwell, “There are students who must use the kitchen every night because hall cannot cater to their dietary and health needs. Locking the kitchen has a serious welfare impact on them. Even though these students cannot use hall for health reasons, they still must pay the full £840 catering charge!”
He added that, “One hundred and forty four people share a single sink, hob, oven and fridge. Of course they can become messy. It’s unreasonable for College to blame this on students, whenever it is really due to their failure to provide adequate kitchen facilities.”
‘Hallternatives’ Committee member Lucy McCann told Cherwell, “This is a classic case of a bad move made by an authority under threat. Fining the JCR and shutting the only kitchen available to Exeter students, a place people have been relying on for the past week for food, is further narrowing our options and angering students.
“The reason given for closing the kitchen was that was that it had been left in an ‘ALMIGHTY MESS’, unsurprising given that the majority of students living in are now forced to cook there. I’m sure most of the JCR, if threatened with a kitchen closure would have tidied up the kitchen, but of course the JCR had not been given any notice and it was shut indefinitely.
“Rather than engaging with us on the issue of the catering charge maturely, the college have tried to reassert themselves in ways which only go to fuel student discontent and have made it clear that they’re not willing to listen to us at all.”
