Student politics at the LSE has been disappointing – and its political roots are slowly dying
So who is the real winner of this year’s LSE elections? My vote goes to General Disinterest on behalf of everyone unconnected with a campaign. The feeling towards these elections amongst my fellow graduate students was at best one of apathy, and at worst, one of minor indignation, namely at their apparent lack of inclusion which so many of the candidates campaigned about.
This was not a revolutionary election, just because it heralded a new era of online democracy. This was an election that saw people take (maybe) five minutes to vote for their friend who told them to, who would not have if it involved queuing anywhere. That said, even then it was apparently a struggle to motivate anyone to walk to a computer and vote. I would be interested to see how many students took the time to vote for every position on the ballot. Obviously the organisers will cite any increase in voter turn out as a success, but I think that such a simplistic view of things is missing the real point of student elections: to build a sense of community and shared goals. Just perpetuating the cliquey atmosphere of the UGM is not a success.
I guess my main problem here is all the rhetoric about this being the greatest election ever held in the history of the world. I personally only voted for one position. Not (only) because I’m lazy but because I no longer have a burning desire to ‘Make the union mine’. I did back in October when who I voted for would have had bearing on my time here, but now I’m pretty content to run down the clock.
The real issue is: why does no one give a hoot? The answer is because whether you participate in the elections or not, your time here will largely go unnoticed. Departments apparently have so little interest in creating a social element to courses they seem content with holding a Christmas party, and then letting you get on with it. This type of thing does nothing to support LSE’s purported Holy Grail of ‘networking’ or ‘community’. I guess if the school doesn’t have a problem with excluding people, why should the Union? Conversely, why should graduate students fight for ‘inclusion’ if only a handful care about it?
The LSE clings desperately to its political roots. But to paraphrase, if you kick at the roots the tree will die. Today’s students are so disengaged and uninterested in ‘school spirit’ even organising a beer after class turns into a four page thread on an internet forum. If we can’t generate enough interest to get a bunch of students to go to the pub I think there is something badly wrong with what the school does to build cohesion. As I like to pass the blame around though, I’m more than happy to put at least some of it on the apathetic schmucks who want nothing more out of their time here than eight hours of contact time a week and LSE on their CV.
This isn’t my Union; I’m only around for a few more months, then I’m outtahere. In jaded reflection of what I had hoped to get from LSE, I guess I was a bit naïve to think it would be more than this. Can we really be at the school that produced President Bartlet and other notable notables? I can’t see it.
Concluding, it turns out I can’t solve the problem of graduate student apathy towards the union in a few hundred words. But what can you do, eh?
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on Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 at 05:52 and is filed under Comment.
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Jed Bartlet lied to me
by Matthew J. Allan on 9 Mar 2010 in Comment
Student politics at the LSE has been disappointing – and its political roots are slowly dying
So who is the real winner of this year’s LSE elections? My vote goes to General Disinterest on behalf of everyone unconnected with a campaign. The feeling towards these elections amongst my fellow graduate students was at best one of apathy, and at worst, one of minor indignation, namely at their apparent lack of inclusion which so many of the candidates campaigned about.
This was not a revolutionary election, just because it heralded a new era of online democracy. This was an election that saw people take (maybe) five minutes to vote for their friend who told them to, who would not have if it involved queuing anywhere. That said, even then it was apparently a struggle to motivate anyone to walk to a computer and vote. I would be interested to see how many students took the time to vote for every position on the ballot. Obviously the organisers will cite any increase in voter turn out as a success, but I think that such a simplistic view of things is missing the real point of student elections: to build a sense of community and shared goals. Just perpetuating the cliquey atmosphere of the UGM is not a success.
I guess my main problem here is all the rhetoric about this being the greatest election ever held in the history of the world. I personally only voted for one position. Not (only) because I’m lazy but because I no longer have a burning desire to ‘Make the union mine’. I did back in October when who I voted for would have had bearing on my time here, but now I’m pretty content to run down the clock.
The real issue is: why does no one give a hoot? The answer is because whether you participate in the elections or not, your time here will largely go unnoticed. Departments apparently have so little interest in creating a social element to courses they seem content with holding a Christmas party, and then letting you get on with it. This type of thing does nothing to support LSE’s purported Holy Grail of ‘networking’ or ‘community’. I guess if the school doesn’t have a problem with excluding people, why should the Union? Conversely, why should graduate students fight for ‘inclusion’ if only a handful care about it?
The LSE clings desperately to its political roots. But to paraphrase, if you kick at the roots the tree will die. Today’s students are so disengaged and uninterested in ‘school spirit’ even organising a beer after class turns into a four page thread on an internet forum. If we can’t generate enough interest to get a bunch of students to go to the pub I think there is something badly wrong with what the school does to build cohesion. As I like to pass the blame around though, I’m more than happy to put at least some of it on the apathetic schmucks who want nothing more out of their time here than eight hours of contact time a week and LSE on their CV.
This isn’t my Union; I’m only around for a few more months, then I’m outtahere. In jaded reflection of what I had hoped to get from LSE, I guess I was a bit naïve to think it would be more than this. Can we really be at the school that produced President Bartlet and other notable notables? I can’t see it.
Concluding, it turns out I can’t solve the problem of graduate student apathy towards the union in a few hundred words. But what can you do, eh?
No related posts.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 at 05:52 and is filed under Comment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.