The University of Manchester President and Vice-Chancellor Duncan Ivison and CEO of the Students’ Union Ben Ward were hosted by the Exec Officers in an open meeting about student activism on November 14.
Students were invited to submit questions online beforehand, as well as to ‘upvote’ others’ questions to be asked to Ivison and Ward.
The most liked questions put to speakers online centred on the ongoing conflict in Gaza, with calls for the University to cut ties with Israeli universities and ‘companies complicit in the current genocide’, namely BAE Systems.
The meeting began with a question from host City and Communities Officer Elliot Briffa, who asked the pair what they thought constituted acceptable protest on campus.
Ivison said “I accept that that is a fuzzy line in some places” but emphasised “I don’t think it is acceptable to have a kind of protestors ‘veto’ on events taking place on campus”.
Briffa then asked whether Ivison or Ward had ever been involved in political protests or campaigns in their student days.
Ivison spoke of his time as a student representative – “that did not involve a lot of protest”. He said: “Just like you and Charlie, I was very supportive of what they were doing, but I had to navigate that as a student representative”.
Briffa highlighted that both Ivison and Ward had been involved in moderate forms of protest, and challenged whether these had been effective.
Ivison insisted that protests in his student days had not been moderate, but emphasised that he felt the purpose of protest was to “trigger the conscience of your fellow students”.
A first question was then taken from the audience, regarding the University’s stance on the “apartheid” and exercise of “racial segregation” by the state of Israel in Gaza.
Ivison said: “It is not our role to take a position on that debate at this stage. We don’t have any significant investments in Israel, we are not a part of any kind of weapons systems”.
The audience member pointed out that the UN Special Committee had that morning found Israel’s warfare in Gaza to be consistent with genocide.
Ivison said: “You will disagree with me”. He suggested that the use of the term genocide was “highly contested”.
The meeting then turned to a question submitted online, asking why the University was unable to take a particular stance on the conflict in Gaza when it had previously taken positions on Russia’s war in Ukraine and the Black Lives Matter movement.
Ivison said: “We don’t support Israel any more than we support any other country”.
“I don’t think we should be taking a political stance on any particular issue of the day in a way that would constrain our academic community from thinking for themselves”.
“One of the University’s most distinctive functions is to be somewhere students can think for themselves”.
The planned increase in tuition fees was also a key concern of students. A question submitted online asked whether the quality of education would improve and whether the University would provide additional financial support.
Ivison insisted that the University would be “considerably worse off” financially, despite the increase in tuition fees, due to increased National Insurance payments expected from employers, including the University, which were raised in the latest Government budget.
Ivison voiced his calls for a return to a maintenance grant system, commenting that the current loan system is “not really fit for purpose”.
There was a question on the issue of students struggling to stretch frozen maintenance loans to pay for rising accommodation costs. SU CEO Ben Ward followed by calling for student leaders to continue lobbying for better funding.
Amongst other student concerns were calls for improved access for students with disabilities and more multi-faith spaces on campus.
An audience member raised that the largest multi-faith space on campus, in the Nancy Rothwell Building (formerly known as Engineering Building A), often spills out into the corridor during Friday prayer, and asked whether the University would commit to creating more of these spaces.
Ward assured that planning for more multi-faith spaces on campus was in the works and that the University was in the process of consulting students on this.
Another audience member, who said he was the President of the Disabled Students Society, raised failures of some University staff to meet reasonable adjustments and fulfil accessibility requests.
Ivison acknowledged that the University has “still got some cultural issues” but told the audience member that he would put forward his concerns.
The meeting closed with a return to the topic of conflict in Gaza. Ward suggested that students put forward their arguments for divestment to the SU Exec Officers to be brought to the Senior Leadership Team.
