As the author of the article, thankyou for allowing me the opportunity to respond;
The article was intended to be a reflection on both the importance of the University to its community and how well we communicate this importance to the community. I personally grew up down the road from the University, I am passionate about its causes and aims and its importance to Birmingham.
The reference to students being "bleary-eyed" is not a member of staff's view of our student population. It was intended to demonstrate how a member of the community would view a student, yes indeed it plays up to the stereotype but it is not the University's received view of its students as seems to have been suggested. In this section I also mentioned the 6000 staff who "descend" onto campus every day.
Again, Valefest is a fantastic event which raises many thousands of pounds for many charities. The University sees great value in the event and understands the huge positive impact it has each year. However our local community are generally not privy to this information, the article is meant to reflect that all the local community will see/hear on the day is noise. I made the same point in the paragraph about Open Day; 10,000 people on campus has a huge impact for our local community in terms of noise, congestion, litter etc. This may be the only experience that many local community members have of the University, little to they realise the liaison we go through with the council, police, community groups, local schools to host this event or indeed that the event itself encourages thousands of students to attend university, many of whom may not have otherwise considered themselves as capable to or able to attend university.
Quite explicitly in the article I state that there are "dedicated staff and students around the University who are prepared to commit their time to our local community". I believe this wholeheartedly and I believe in the fine work that University of Birmingham students undertake on a day to day basis that has a huge positive impact on our community. The problem is that these messages are often lost or are seldom promoted to our community and the article was intended to be a rallying call to arms to do more and promote it better and to get involved in the community day.
The point of the article was to get people involved and dispel the stereotypes you have highlighted, not to bolster them, so apologies for any offence you may have taken from the article.
Thanks again for allowing me the right to reply.
First of all, i think it is excellent that the author has taken the time to respond to students opinions on the original article. Also it is good that students are getting a chance to see the authors response.
ReplyDeleteBUT
Im actually more offended by the response than i am about the original article. Why does the author in thier own words "play up to a stereotype" out what local communities may think. This makes no sense as it his article and is so unclear in the article. Surely a section along the lines of what i have written below would have been a more sensible approach to the issue.
"Local communities may think that our students turn up at lunch time "bleary eyed" but the reality is quite different".
Again the I have the same issue with the valefest comment. The Author quite rightly recognises value of vale fest but also suggests that the local community may only see the perceived negatives. So why does the article needlessly play up to this misconception? What value does this add to the article? Im sure it would have taken all a extra few words to point out this misconception. A perceived misconception which is indeed an important one to correct within local communities.
I completely agree that the article attempts to promote the good work that students and staff are doing on more than one occasion and i still think that the article was written with the best intentions. However, the author states,
"The problem is that these messages are often lost or are seldom promoted to our community"
So why has this message become lost in this article with NEEDLESS negative comments that are unnecessary and do not actually suggest that these may be other peoples misconceptions???
The author futher writes
"The point of the article was to get people involved and dispel the stereotypes you have highlighted, not to bolster them, so apologies for any offence you may have taken from the article. "
So the article was meant to dispel stereotypes when the article, by the authors admission "plays up to the stereotype(s)". Crazy!
I’m glad that the article also points out that 6,000 staff descend onto campus……. By walking, cycling, public transport….. oh and cars.
Comments from facebook:
ReplyDelete"I think that it is great that the University, in some senses has completely retracted what they originally wrote. The original piece I found extremely offensive and poor by the University to say about students, but I am glad that these statements have been explained in this article.
The notion of 'The community seldom do not see the great work we do' I think is a valid point, but surely it is not just the job of the students to do the work and make a positive impact, but also that of the University, because without the University the students would not be here 'causing all the problems' and noise. I think the University should review how they perceive themselves to the local community and how best to rectify it. High schools and colleges do not allow themselves to be seen in a bad way, why should one the UKs leading universities be any different.
I would also like to raise the fact of one simple thing and that is student power. I have this many times but I will say it again. Never underestimate the potential of students and what they can do. This can be seen with the current general election. Yes normally students can have an attitude of not caring, but at the moment people are getting an opinion and are debating about the issues, this shows in simple terms that when students rise up, they will not just be seen and not heard, they will act in the best way they can and get the job done.... See more
I appreciate the re-write by the university, but do hope that an article like this is never written again "