Better Staffs Forum May - Outcomes

Better Staffs Forum May – Outcomes

13 in attendance: including 6 panel members and 1 FTO

3 issues considered

1.   Better Staffs Fora

“Better Staffs Forum has now been running for 2 years, over this time many suggestions have been raised by students for the Union to work upon, At this time it is not that easy to find the outcomes of all previous meetings and any updates of work carried out on student ideas.

There needs to be a full list or matrix of actions passed and any updates, these need to be reviewed by the Better Staffs forum to make sure that officers, staff and any student willing to help update these records.

In the meantime students should be informed on the progress of the ideas so far passed for example, memorial garden, lockable space on campus, out of hours support line, quiet halls and the introduction of safe spaces. These have all been passed in past forums but no updates online for students to see.”

Panel voted unanimously to:

Have a regularly updated and accessible online matrix that would be updated regularly to show progress on issues passed at BSF (Lead Officer and student to be responsible for updating regularly)

Updates to be brought to each subsequent BSF until action completed (or identified as not being possible)

2.   Closure of Philosophy Course

“Greetings and Salutations fellow Students and Staff. I would like to challenge and question the validity of this institutions decisions by voicing my alarm and disquiet over the Senior Management Team’s questionable decision to completely remove the study of undergraduate philosophy (even at a joint/options level); a travesty of great and significant import. I, my fellow philosophy students, faculty staff, and even Stoke’s local MP Joan Walley, in addition to many many students I have canvassed around campus, upon being enlightened to it, are aghast and amazed at the university’s short-sightedness, exclaiming “but philosophy’s really important!”. I therefore request to engage the Students Forum to articulate why Philosophy matters, as Philosophy enriches the potency of any subject, cultivating an articulation, a richness, and a capacity for critical multidimensional thinking in a wide variety of subjects, such as history, economics, forensics, engineering, journalism, business, media, design, science, film production, games design, advertising and law. So, why does philosophy matter, why is it important and why should we care? All are valid and interesting questions. “Would you rather follow the crowd or your curiosity?” The latest Staffordshire University advert opens with. Curiosity is what cultivated the vision within each of us to aspire to come to university. The concept of a university was created by the philosopher Plato; without philosophy therefore – there would be no universities. So what is the purpose of a university? The purpose of a University is Knowledge; Philosophy is the beating heart of Knowledge – it is its Ethos, it is Philo ‘Loving’, it is Sophia ‘Knowledge’ or ‘Wisdom’, as translated from the Greek. Yet, where there is no purpose and no vision, the people perish; as Martin Luther King Jr. said ‘I have a dream…’ A dream is your vision – your hope – your aspiration to expand knowledge and understanding of yourself and your place on the world stage. Philosophy is an Ethic; it is a discipline that feeds our souls and our society. Without the opportunity to study Philosophy, the world might never have known Martin Luther King Jr. as it was his study of philosophy which catalysed a new era of burgeoning social consciousness, effecting paradigm shifts in perception, catapulting a collective and radical political process towards sweeping social changes. And, it was through the study of philosophy, that some of our greatest scientists honed and developed their skills, such as Einstein, as theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli exerts: “Should a scientist think about philosophy, or not? It's sort of the fashion today to discard philosophy, to say now we have science, we don't need philosophy. I find this attitude very naïve for two reasons. One is historical. Just look back. […] Einstein would never have done relativity without having read all the philosophers and have a head full of philosophy. Galileo would never have done what he had done without having a head full of Plato. Newton thought of himself as a philosopher, and started by discussing this with Descartes, and had strong philosophical ideas.” We need understanding, rather than just knowledge of mere ‘facts’. Knowledge without understanding ethical implications induces a kind of poverty of thought - rendering our minds, and our moral compass’s, wanting. Understanding is vital; coupling knowledge with understanding begets a rise in awareness – an awareness of self, an awareness of others, an awareness of our world – viewing our conceptions through a philosophical lens, discloses new ways of understanding what it means to be human. The humanities are important; they remind us of what it is to be human. Because it matters to us what happens in the world. It matters to us what happens with science and with creative ideas. It matters to us what happens with us, as human Beings. Philosophy enriches the potency of any subject, cultivating an articulation, a richness, and a capacity for critical multidimensional thinking in a variety of subjects such as history, business, the sciences, engineering, psychology, international relations, sociology, games design, computer science, nursing, law, politics, literature, photojournalism, art, healthcare, biology, broadcasting, to name but a few. So how does the study of philosophy in conjunction with other disciplines achieve these bold claims upon our minds, and upon our very subjects? What use does it have to subjects such as games design or photojournalism or engineering? Philosophy arms us with a certain kind of interrogation. It examines and equips us with the tools to question the presuppositions and prejudices of our created and constructed visions of the world – prejudice whose roots stem from the imagined and ingrained conceptual structures we have for thinking about particular problems within a subject. It challenges the way we think, challenging projected visions of the world. Ethics are of great significant and political import to all subjects; games design for instance – the analysis of computer games as moral objects because of the ethical values that can be imprinted in their design, is fundamentally an ethical dilemma. Understanding the importance of design as a creative ethical activity, will allow the analysis of computer games’ rhetorics and the ways they are or could be used for conveying engaging ethical experiences. Understanding the morality of the digital expression can show us both the ways for new expressions, and the moral being of computer games as a form of art , where there has been much heated debate on the social impact of gaming. Interrogating a subject through a philosophical lens therefore, frees us from ingrained prejudices of thought constructed within the very conceptual structures we have created for thinking about the quandaries they induced in the first place. Philosophy questions the questions themselves. But why is this important? When we think of a problem within a subject’s framework – or even outside of it, we are asking a question; the solution of which is not the main goal, for example - when learning arithmetic or physics. Arriving at the correct answer is not the main purpose of the exercise – interrogating and demonstrating how an answer reveals itself along the way is what compels and fascinates – breaking things down into their elemental pieces, unpacking their contents to pick them up and look at them from differing perspectives, imbues a greater understanding of a subjects nature, and by extension – revealing a greater expressional understanding of its essence. Philosophy probes behind our constructed scenes to find the meanings that lie beyond the questions – often opening up more problems and paradoxes – true (…but that is a good thing!). Philosophy poses challenges to our thinking which are imperative, as we should not take the meaning of things for granted, consciously challenging old assumptions. We therefore face a crisis of thought at Staffordshire University. Philosophy is vital, not redundant. By denying and minimising something’s significance - it makes it easier to dismiss it. I would polemically charge therefore, that reducing philosophy’s significance has been committed by this university to pay lip service to the altar of utility, and the cold discipline of economics. I would assert that philosophy enriches the potency of any subject; cultivating and articulating a richness and capacity for critical multidimensional thinking, as everything that happens in life is the real subject, and philosophy is its voice. It explores and explicates the Ethics which underpin our humanity, our modes of being, and the subjects and disciplines we have come here to study. For instance, exploring environmental ethics both challenges and demonstrates that vast capacities can be found in creative engineering, demonstrating that human beings ARE incredibly capable. That we have the capacities within us for making a shift in consciousness towards positive radical changes in how we use our environment, bringing us face to face with how we currently consume our resources, and that a shift towards a more sustainable relationship can be actualised through our imagination, our creativity and our engineering wizardry, as Carl Mitcham – Philosopher of Science and Technology at the Colorado School of Mines, Switzerland exerts: “There are times in the engineering world when engineers ask themselves questions about what they should be doing or how they should do it that cannot be solved by technical expertise alone. […] ethics often has a serious role to play in engineering design. Questions of safety, risk, and environmental protection are only the more obvious manifestations of variables that call for ethical judgment in assessing their proper influence on design decisions. Philosophy (especially ethics) is an internal practical need of engineering - and is so recognized by the professional engineering community.” A University is a Universal place of Learning. To remove the aspect of philosophy, is to remove a star from our universe, removing Universality from our University. By removing the opportunity to study Philosophy from Staffordshire University – I would argue, has stolen Wisdom from our Knowledge, Ethics from our Practice, and Dreams from our Future. Philosophy is passion. It is an excitement to the incitement of multi-dimensional thought. It is god-damn intellectual intercourse! And who doesn’t like a bit of flexing and agility of mind …after all – that is why we are here, is it not? To experiment with thoughts and ideas? To have our curiosities stimulated and moved in ways we never thought possible? Because, we do not know what we do not know. Which is why we are all here today – at this moment; we are all here for a reason. We are all here because we have the capacity and the inertia of mind to will that our knowledge be propelled and compelled towards being worked and formed into understanding our subjects, our disciplines. Because knowledge is Freedom. Knowledge is power. And with power comes great responsibility; philosophy informs a framework which challenges and tempers power dynamics with ethics, with grace, and with wisdom. Knowledge and understanding is freedom from the shackles of ignorance, as ignorance and arrogance go hand in hand, whereas knowledge and understanding do not. As Confucius says ‘ignorance is the night of the mind, but a night without moon or star’. Knowledge and understanding change us fundamentally and forever as, once exposed to it - we cannot ‘un-know’ something; philosophy indicts us to challenge and rigorously examine preconceived notions - to own to our actions, and to vigilantly examine our ethics. So I believe in philosophy. I believe in defending our right to question: • To question ourselves • To question each other • To question our world • To question the validity of our institutions decisions And I believe in defending our right to think. For even to think wrongly, is better than not to think at all. Thank you. Are there any questions?”

A lengthy discussion ensued- students wanting to challenge the University on their focus on utility, spending on buildings rather than education. Not just about philosophy other subjects being reduced in breadth and the student experience diluted.

Final proposal to panel was to support the reintroduction of Philosophy as a joint option and/or optional module for 2016/7 and if this proved viable reviewing the possibility of reinstating it as an undergraduate degree.

The Panel voted unanimously in favour specifically that:

The Union supports Faith with a petition proposing the above and officers attending Boards and Committees to put Philosophy on the agenda for discussion.

3.   Officer Accountability

“Holding officers to account is a prime value of democracy of Students’ Unions, How do we hold our elected officers to account? How can you question the work your representatives have done when there are no reports for you to read? The answer is every two months in an officer question time, this is normally in the guise of a 30 minute chat show style TV show created by Staffs TV, (who was asked by the union to create this, they have done some good work this academic year), Is this a real way to question those who are representing you? There is a need for the creation of a mechanism to hold all those who represent students, not just the officers but also those who represent the student union at national conference, (Liberation, because of its independence is not included in this as they have their own meetings were the chairs can be questioned and held to account), what is needed is reports on work carried out, meetings attended and outcomes achieved for students. The reports should be released one week before the meeting that will replace officer question time, so that any questions can be submitted or students can attend the meeting thus holding officers to account. Caveat to this is that how the meeting looks will be decided by a mix of officers, staff, liberation chairs and students.”

Long discussion around better communication, transparency etc. and forum ran over but consensus of panel was to take it to the first BSF of the new academic year for further discussion and some examples