Official YUSU protests on campus have shown that student support for the portering system still remains strong.
The protests were set up in the porters’ lodges of Vanbrugh, Langwith and Derwent colleges by YUSU’s campaigns officers Chris Etheridge and Jason Rose with college JCRCs.
Speaking to Vision, Chris Etheridge said: “We really needed a sustained, official, campaign. We’re here to show that students really need porters.”
When asked about the unofficial protest, which saw Derwent Bar’s furniture set up outside of Heslington Hall on Monday night, Etheridge commented: “It proved that porters are a preventative measure not a responsive measure; if that had been a crime they would have got away with it. Nobody’s watching the security cameras; it took security services an hour and a half to respond on Monday.”
Jason Rose, said he believed the student body was very much behind the campaign. “Student response has been very one way: all the students I’ve talked to have been in support of the porters.”
He commented on the Monday’s unofficial protest: “I think that the students involved made a valuable point. Security services are not ready for the void left by the removal of the portering services.”
Proof that students need 24 hour porters was very easy to find. On several occasions students turned up to porters lodges enquiring about various issues.
One first-year told Vision that all she wanted to do was return a key but that she was unable to and that she “did not know what to do” in the absence of the porters.
Many students have already signed the YUSU petition and sent postcards to the director of commercial services, Keith Lilly.
Vanbrugh student Chris Venables, who was attending one of the protests, told Vision: “I hope to raise awareness and to see what effects the changes have had on students.” He remarked that “the university administration has made the decision but haven’t really thought it through.”
At the Derwent protest, Chair Joe Rankin summed up the campaign saying: “We’re doing what the porters would have done, helping students with their various problems, but we shouldn’t have to do that.”
Photographs by Daniel Gilks
Thanks for the article: I just want to say (before the night is over) that it’s not just Chris Etheridge and I that set tonight up. Joe Rankin and company helped pose the initial idea and gain initial support and both Joe and Chris Venables did a fantastic job of getting everyone organised for both Derwent and Vanbrugh.
Thanks to them and thanks to the many students who supported us, signed the petitions – and the fact that I haven’t had a single harsh word all night (the only person who didn’t want to sign the petition said that he admired what we were doing) shows just how strongly students feel on this issue.