Students suffer due to greed. Have you say

giveliberty wrote: »

I am not one to champion the success of any Students' Union but:

1 - What is wrong with DCU making a profit - would you prefer it make a loss and invariably have to make cutbacks? You can be guaranteed if it had to make cutbacks they would be non-essential student services like other Universities have done?

2 - I agree with you, the canteen is a rip off. Scandalous in fact. Does the SU sit on the committee that awards the contract for the canteen like say they do in almost every other large HEI? UCC, NUIG, ITS are three SUs who have managed to get rid of what was considered undesirable caterers - why can't DCUSU do the same? Or does it sit on these committees? If not, why not? If the canteen is subsidized from capitation it should.

3 - Campus accommodation has INCREASED in price this year. When rents have been falling an average of 17% - why aren't people complaining about this - with the exception of Sligo and Waterford landlords, and purpose built student accommodations have been dropping their prices - in deflationary times what new service has on campus accommodation provided to justify this increase in the rent?

4 - I like fines - they work, most of the time. DCU is actually less draconian in this regard. However - the fines should be listed in the rental agreement and DCU campus accommodation should not be allowed deviate from this.

5 - Student involvement - whilst this in an honourable aspiration, from someone I no doubt has his/her eyes on the presidential office of DCUSU, I must question how much more involvement you want to see in terms of the structures that are already in place? Students have two seats on the governing council, sits on the various academic boards, sits on the disciplinary committee, it has a class rep system, and students sit on the course boards also. Where else could they sit? It could do a sit-down protest but that wouldn't get it very far! The SU sits on the various student services and welfare committees. Are you implying that the SU representatives on these committees are not doing enough to represent your views? What are the views of other students on this? Overall people were satisfied with the SU last year, mind you they did also confirm LongLiveQ&A's belief that the SU is not independent.

My analysis of the SU structures would lead me to believe that the SU is too intimately tied to the University. This has both advantages and disadvantages. Mind you a Union who can't even get access to its own offices at the weekend because the building is locked up should really question the point of its own existence, when its locked into the same working days as the public servants who are paid to liaise with them. You see locking them out of their own offices means they can't get up to anything that isn't monitored! I find it sometimes difficult to find out about the SU structures which is quite annoying. The SU website is terrible and hard to navigate but that old civil service maxim - If people don't know what you're doing, they don't know what you're doing wrong!!!

Students' Unions are all about principles. And the principle is, never act on principle.

giveliberty wrote: »

What DCU needs is a Students' Union with a pair of balls. Plain and simple.

Students need a union that isn't under the watchful eye of college.

It needs a Union that is a campaigning union - not just campaigning in frivolous non student issues but will take on campus accommodation, will stand up to Ferdy and the overpriced canteen - what exactly do they need to be afraid off.

Now don't get me wrong, confrontation is not always the answer - what I suggest above should ONLY be done when all other avenues are exhausted.

I find certain members of DCUSU (not all I stress to add) rather naive, and not terribly clued in all the time on various issues.

But that is the Students' Union the students of DCU voted for when the voted for the current constitution .