The University of Melbourne Student Union recently passed a second motion condemning Israeli apartheid and urging support for the Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions movement against the “settler colonial apartheid state”, after a first had to be rescinded. Gideon Polya reports.
Australian univeristy student campaigns and organising
Gideon Polya writes that free speech faltered and falsehood triumphed at the University of Melbourne, after the student union was forced to withdraw a motion condemning apartheid Israel.
Markela Panegyres reports on evidence that the University of Sydney management has been engaged in surveillance of staff and students.
NSW Police has again used the pandemic to thwart staff and students' efforts to protest Sydney University's job cuts and the federal government’s refusal to help universities, reports Rachel Evans.
The University of Sydney Women’s Collective is calling for residential colleges to be repurposed into safe, affordable student housing, reports Rachel Evans.
Climate activists are planning a mass blockade of the upcoming International Mining and Resources Conference (IMARC) in Melbourne, with the support of local councils, student unions and the Victorian Greens.
Universities are big business and critical to the health of Australian capitalism.
University education added $140 billion to the Australian economy in 2014. According to Universities Australia, 1.3 million Australian and international students were enrolled in Australian universities in 2016.
After an appeal process, described by activists as “plagued with allegations of corruption”, the University of Wollongong (UOW) has overturned the election result for the Wollongong Undergraduate Students’ Association (WUSA).
The elections, in which more than 1500 students voted, the biggest student participation in many years, was hotly contested between the Liberals, standing as Revolution, and a broad left group Save Our Union. It followed a year of uncertainty over whether the student union would be closed down.
Progressive students have staged a remarkable come-from-behind victory in Sydney University’s Student Representative Council (SRC) elections, with Imogen Grant elected SRC president.
Grant headed Switch, a ticket of Greens, socialists and independents. She edged out Liberal candidate Brendan Ma, following a string of controversial decisions made during the course of the campaign.
Grant’s victory came on the back of another defeat of the federal coalition government’s attempt to further impoverish students with its changes to higher education.
This speech was given by Rachel Evans at an action called by the Queer Undergraduate Action Collective (QUAC) calling on the University of Sydney's Vice-Chancellor Michael Spence to support the Yes campaign for marriage equality.
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My name is Rachel Evans and I helped kickstart the marriage equality campaign in 2004. Last year, I was the queer Office Bearer with Sydney University Postgraduate Representative Association (SUPRA).
Students at the Milperra campus of Western Sydney University are angry that they are being left in the dark about the university administration’s plans to close their campus and move it to the Bankstown CBD by 2021.
Student groups nation-wide registered their opposition to the government’s proposals to raise student fees and lower the HECS threshold at an action in Canberra on budget day on May 9.
The $2.8 billion in cuts would see fees increase by a maximum of $3600 for a four-year course with students paying for 46% of the cost of their degree on average — up from 42%. The cuts propose a lowering of the HECS threshold — down from $55,874 to $42,000.
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