No 6252
Wednesday 25 January 2012
Vol cxlii No 17
pp. 400–421
The Council and the General Board beg leave to report to the University as follows:
1. In the course of the academical year 2009–10, the Council’s Standing Advisory Committee on Student Matters (SACSM) considered a submission from its student members which proposed substantive changes to the arrangements for student membership of the Council and of the General Board. Comments on the representation of students on and their election to the Council were also made in the Discussion of the Report of the Council on amendments to Statute A (membership of the Senate and election of student members of the Council) held on 27 April 2010 (Reporter, 2009–10, p. 795 (see http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/reporter/2009-10/weekly/6187/section8.shtml)).
2. The University’s Statutes and Ordinances provide for the following scheme of student membership (class (d) of both the Council and the General Board):
two students elected by and from among all the students in the University;
one graduate student elected by and from among all the graduate students in the University.
one student elected by and from among all undergraduate students in the University;
one graduate student elected by and from among all graduate students in the University.
The Council consists of the Chancellor, the Vice-Chancellor, nineteen elected members (Heads of Colleges; Professors and Readers; other members of the Regent House; students – in all, three-quarters of the members are elected), and four appointed members (external members). The General Board is a smaller body consisting of the Vice-Chancellor, eight representatives of the Schools, four persons appointed by the Council, and two students; only the student members are elected.
In recent years it has been customary for the President of CUSU to stand for election to the Council, and for the CUSU Education Officer to stand for election to the General Board, and for both to be elected.
3. The procedure for the election of student members of the Council, and the General Board, is prescribed by Ordinance (Statutes and Ordinances, p. 114). Voting is by ballot, and electors must give their votes in person. Customarily, voting takes place over one day in Colleges, with organization by local College Returning Officers (normally an officer of a JCR, MCR or equivalent body, or their deputy). The election is conducted in accordance with the University’s Single Transferable Vote regulations (Statutes and Ordinances, p. 118).
4. The principal proposition to SACSM contained in the students’ submission (‘Student membership of the Council and of the General Board of the Faculties’, prepared by the officers of CUSU and reproduced in Annex A(i) to this Report) is the termination of the existing arrangements for direct election of student members of the Council and of the General Board, to be replaced by the appointment of the President, or other elected officer, of the recognized student organizations (namely Cambridge University Students Union (CUSU) and the Graduate Union (GU)) as members of these bodies in class (d). The student membership of each body would be as follows:
(i) the President of CUSU;
(ii) the President of the Graduate Union;
(iii) one student elected by and from among all the students in the University.
In the students’ submission it is suggested that the member in category (iii) should be elected as part of the annual, University-wide elections arranged by CUSU, rather than through direct University election.
(i) the CUSU Education Officer;
(ii) the Academic Affairs Director of the Graduate Union.
Both of these officers are elected by the respective union’s members.
Further consideration by the current officers of the student unions has resulted in a revised proposal for the General Board wherein the graduate representative would be the President of the Graduate Union as there is not always a candidate for the Academic Affairs position (see Annex A(ii)).
5. The arguments in the CUSU submission for the changes outlined above are summed up thus:
to ensure that undergraduate and graduate students are represented by their principal elected officers CUSU strongly supports the principle of elected student membership of both bodies;
but the ‘stand-alone’ Council and General Board elections each year should be ended as the turn-out for these elections is low;
instead the annual CUSU and GU University-wide elections should be used for the election of student members of both bodies.
6. The submission concludes that
‘These changes would provide significantly greater confidence that students elected to membership of the Council and General Board are genuinely as representative as possible of the student body, as students will be represented to these important University bodies by their principal elected representatives – who, through our systems of hustings and publicity, will have received considerably greater scrutiny than candidates for the Council and General Board currently do. The changes will also make that representation considerably more effective, as members will necessarily be supported by their unions – and sabbatical officers have the time to devote considerably more time and effort to the business of the body they have been elected to.’
7. The Council has considered the proposals and is of the opinion that direct appointment of the Presidents of the respective unions as ex officio members of the Council is not appropriate and that instead the persons standing for election as Presidents should also stand in a personal capacity as candidates for election to the Council. The Council stress they would not hold membership, ex-officio, in respect of the particular union offices held and would not be mandated to represent the unions. Both the Council and the General Board concur with the revised proposal for student representation on the General Board.
8. The Council and the General Board note that a key reason put forward to support the argument for changing the current specifications is that there is widespread dissatisfaction with the current arrangements for both the timing and the conduct of the elections conducted by the University – that is, in person, in Colleges.
9. However, the election of members of the central bodies through an election system managed by a recognized student organization that constitutionally is not part of the University and over which the University has, quite rightly, no direct control or jurisdiction, raises questions about supervision, conduct, and scrutiny. The Council, as a governing body, would need to be confident that election arrangements met its own standards and requirements, as well as those of the regulatory bodies, especially HEFCE, and the Privy Council.
10. Should the proposals in this Report be approved in principle by the Regent House, the Council will consider appropriate arrangements for the supervision and scrutiny of the CUSU and GU elections in these circumstances, possibly through their Committee on the Scrutiny of the Student Unions. The procedures for nomination and candidature would need to be reviewed as some provisions in the unions’ constitutions (for instance, the provision for ‘Re-Open Nominations (RON)’ as an additional ‘candidate’) would be a significant departure from existing provisions in the Ordinances.
11. The Council and the General Board recommend:
I. That the elections of student members of the Council and the General Board, to be held with effect from the Lent Term 2013, be combined with the elections for officers of the student unions.
II. That, if Recommendation I is approved, the following regulations be amended:
Election of members of the Council in class (d) (Statutes and Ordinances, p. 114)
Regulation 7.
By amending the regulation so as to read:
7. The annual election of members in class (d) shall be held in Full Lent Term. The date and place or places of the election, the last date for the receipt of nominations, and the procedures for voting shall be determined by the Vice-Chancellor, subject to any conditions approved by the Council; provided that the last date for the receipt of nominations shall be not later than the seventh day of Full Term before the day appointed for the election.
Regulations 8–14.
By rescinding Regulation 8 and renumbering Regulations 9–14 accordingly.
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23 January 2012 |
L. K. Borysiewicz, Vice-Chancellor |
I. M. Le M. Du Quesnay |
Mavis McDonald |
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David Abulafia |
Nicholas Gay |
Susan Oosthuizen |
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N. Bampos |
David Good |
Rachael Padman |
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Richard Barnes |
Andy Hopper |
T. Parry-Jones |
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D. J. A. Casserley |
Christopher Hum |
Gerard Tully |
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Stephen J. Cowley |
Vanessa V. Lawrence |
Morgan Wild |
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Athene Donald |
Robert Lethbridge |
A.D. Yates |
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R. J. Dowling |
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11 January 2012 |
L. K. Borysiewicz, Vice-Chancellor |
Christopher Crow |
Robert Kennicutt |
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N. Bampos |
Simon Franklin |
Rachael Padman |
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William Brown |
Andrew Gamble |
J. Rallison |
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H. A. Chase |
C. A. Gilligan |
Patrick Sissons |
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Sarah Coakley |
David Good |
Morgan Wild |
This paper proposes changes to the manner of the election of student members to the Council and the General Board, in order to ensure that undergraduate and graduate students are represented by their principal elected officers. The number of student members would not change on either University body.
CUSU strongly supports the principle of elected student membership of both bodies, and this paper does not propose a movement from this principle. This paper does, however, propose an end to the stand-alone Council and General Board elections each year, and proposes instead that the annual CUSU and GU elections be used for the election of student members of both bodies instead.
If this paper receives support, CUSU will produce a formal proposal to amend Statutes and Ordinances for the approval of SACSM at its next meeting.
At present, of the nineteen elected members of the Council, three are elected annually by and from among the students in the University in a manner determined by ordinance. Two of the members of the General Board are elected by and from among the students of the University in a manner determined by ordinance. In the case of the Council, at least one of the student representatives must be a graduate student. For the General Board, one representative must be an undergraduate student and the other must be a graduate student.
Ordinances currently require these elections to take place in Full Term no earlier than fourteen days before the end of Full Lent Term. In recent years, these elections have been entirely notional; in practice, only as many candidates have stood as the number of vacant positions available. In the academical year 2008–09, after advertising by CUSU, multiple candidates did stand in each category and elections were held during Easter Term.
The current situation is unsatisfactory for several reasons, arising mainly from two separate but interrelated areas of concern: fundamental deficiencies in the administration of the elections; and differences in the effectiveness of representation able to be conducted through full-time students as opposed to sabbatical student officers.
Publicity about the opportunity to stand for election and about the elections themselves is minimal, which results in a small and potentially unrepresentative number of students both standing in and then voting in the elections. With CUSU’s help in advertising the 2008–09 elections there were at least more candidates than vacant positions – and so an election was actually held – but turnout was just 1,152 (roughly 5.7% of those eligible) in the all-student category, and 149 (roughly 1.4% of those eligible) in the highest graduate-only category.
• No effective procedure exists for the conduct of the current elections; there is no mechanism for organizing hustings of candidates, for digital distribution of manifestos, or even for paper distribution of manifestos beyond a copy provided for each college ballot box. It is therefore impossible for students to learn enough about each candidate in order to make an informed choice between them, which seriously undermines the democratic legitimacy of the elections.
• No rules exist governing the conduct of – or placing limitations upon – candidates running in the elections; upon a query from a candidate, candidates were invited (but not required) in 2008–09 to follow the rules devised for the CUSU annual elections. This lack of clarity further undermines confidence in the conduct of the elections.
• No effective procedure exists for the conduct of voting itself; during 2008–09, JCR Presidents were called upon to act as returning officers in their respective Colleges, despite the fact that some were themselves candidates in one or both of the elections. Aside from obvious issues of transparency, this is not a reasonable burden to place upon JCR Presidents (or MCR Presidents, or their committees) in Easter Term in the weeks immediately preceding exams.
• No form of postal or online voting is available (to students) in the elections, further depressing turnout among those who struggle to reach the ballot box in their college during the designated hours of a busy Full Term day.
In addition to the Council and General Board elections discussed above, we wish to point out that CUSU and the GU currently run – at considerable effort – high-profile elections towards the end of each Lent Term in which turnout reached 4,236 (roughly 21%) and 562 (roughly 5.4%) respectively in 2008–09. We propose that SACSM support the designation of these elections as those required by Statute.
Specifically, we propose that the election of CUSU President be deemed to replace the election of one of the student members of the Council, and that CUSU create an additional elected position of ‘University Council Representative’ – elected at the same time as the CUSU sabbatical officers – to replace the election of the second student member. We propose that the election of GU President be deemed to replace the election of the graduate student member of Council. We propose that the election of CUSU Education Officer be deemed to replace the election of the undergraduate member of the General Board, and that the election of GU Academic Affairs Director be deemed to replace the election of the graduate member of the General Board.
These changes would provide significantly greater confidence that students elected to membership of the Council and General Board are genuinely as representative as possible of the student body, as students will be represented to these important University bodies by their principal elected representatives – who, through our systems of hustings and publicity, will have received considerably greater scrutiny than candidates for the Council and General Board currently do. The changes will also make that representation considerably more effective, as members will necessarily be supported by their unions – and sabbatical officers will have the time to devote considerably more time and effort to the business of the body they have been elected to.
We believe that all changes proposed in this paper would be in the interests of maximizing the effectiveness of student representation on both University bodies. We wish to draw the attention of SACSM, however, to the aspect of our proposals that has the potential to change the nature of the student members of the General Board.
The current position with the General Board is that one student member is guaranteed to be an undergraduate, and the other is guaranteed to be a graduate. According to our proposed changes, one student member would remain guaranteed to be a graduate (the GU Academic Affairs Director), but the other – the CUSU Education Officer – could be either an undergraduate or a graduate student. In a case where the CUSU Education Officer was a graduate student, our proposal would therefore leave the General Board without an undergraduate student member. However, given the CUSU Education Officer’s role to represent all students (i.e. including undergraduates), and his/her privileged (sabbatical) position to devote time and effort to the business of the General Board, we believe that the net results of this change would still be to the benefit of undergraduate students.
This issue does not arise with our proposals regarding the Council, as there is no stipulation that any student member must be an undergraduate. Our proposals would therefore bring the student membership of the General Board into line with that of the Council.
The changes to the student membership of the Council and General Board proposed in this paper are therefore as follows:
Current position Council: two students (undergraduate or graduate) and one graduate student. General Board: one undergraduate student and one graduate student.
Proposal Council: CUSU President, GU President, and one student (undergraduate or graduate). General Board: CUSU Education Officer and GU Academic Affairs Director.
The problems in principle with the current system of the election of student members to the Council and General Board that this paper highlights are longstanding; these proposals to change the system have been prompted now by the first actual election in recent years, in which all of the problems outlined above became manifest. We would be grateful for the support of SACSM in our efforts to improve how effective and representative student members of both bodies are able to be.
CUSU, 12 October 2009
This paper seeks to summarize the current position of CUSU, the Graduate Union, and the student members of Council. We believe these issues should be addressed as quickly as possible: the current elections (as a result of the system the University currently relies upon) are poorly run, reliably disenfranchise parts of the electorate, and have extremely poor turnout, which all call into question the democratic legitimacy of the elections. We also argue that there is no need for separate elections, as the CUSU/GU elections suffer from none of these faults (and have appropriate oversight from the University to ensure that they are free and fair), and are used to elect the officers that the University has long recognized as students’ principal elected representatives.
Our proposals are the same in substance as contained in our original paper: primarily, that the election for the posts of CUSU President and Graduate Union President be deemed the election for two of the student members on University Council[see below for a summary of the proposals]. They have, however, been clarified in the two years since the paper was originally submitted, and we felt that it was necessary to indicate our position on the various alternative proposals outlined in SACSM’s attachment to our paper.
The CUSU and GU Presidents are students’ principal elected representatives: they are students’ choice to represent them in all ways, including at the highest level.
Changing the elections in the way we propose would ensure that representation is consistently effective, as full time sabbatical officers are able to devote more time and effort to the business of University Council and have the support of their student union infrastructure in doing so. As reflected in most other University and intercollegiate committees – on which the norm is student representation by CUSU/GU sabbatical officers – we believe the University has recognized that full time officers offer a consistently higher quality of representation for students and in engaging constructively with University and intercollegiate business.
Historically, the CUSU President has almost always sat on University Council – our proposals would simply recognize what has almost always been the case under current election arrangements. Should the Council accept our arguments, we believe it would be a natural extension that the election for Graduate Union President would be deemed the election for one of the student member positions as well.
The current elections are marred by poor turnout and few (often just one) candidates stand, which undermines how representative those elected are of the student body. The CUSU/GU elections, by contrast, are well run and well-advertised, with hustings and debates to engage the electorate, and therefore enjoy substantially better turnout – thousands, rather than hundreds.
The University currently relies on JCRs/MCRs to run the election for the student members of the central bodies – elections that they are not responsible for running, but most do each year out of good will. However, each year a proportion of the electorate is disenfranchised, as not all JCRs/MCRs are successful in running ballot boxes and those that do often run them for very narrow voting periods. In the past, we have had situations where students standing for election are also running the ballot in their college: this is plainly unsatisfactory for the running of a free and fair election (though, as the election as it currently stands has no rules, there is little prospect of ensuring this anyway).
The CUSU/GU elections have a considerably higher degree of accountability, transparency, and fairness than the current arrangements. We have a clear set of election rules, full time officers dedicated to ensuring that the elections are free and fair, and a formal complaints procedure to deal with any issues that arise (with the Junior Proctor as ultimate arbiter).
Finally, one option outlined by the SACSM paper is relegating student members to observer status. Student representatives enjoying full member status frames a very positive message about the seriousness with which the University takes student engagement – both within and beyond the University. It also gives the student members full involvement in and responsibility for the decisions reached, in a way that would not be possible if students were observers. We do not believe this proposal has been or should be seriously entertained, and we do not consider it an option on the table.
1.That the CUSU/GU elections for the posts of CUSU President and GU President (the principal student representatives of their respective constituencies) be deemed the election for two of the student members on University Council.
2. That the number of student representatives on the Council remains at three, with the third member being elected from and by all the students in the University in the CUSU/GU cross campus elections.
3. That similar changes be adopted for the General Board, with the election for CUSU Education Officer (the principal student representative in educational matters) and GU President (the only full time graduate representative) deemed the election for the two student members on General Board.
4. We take for granted that the student members of University Council will remain full Trustees, rather than be relegated to observer status.
Gerard Tully, Morgan Wild, and Tom Parry Jones
Student Members of Council 2011–12