On these facts and many others Executive should sometimes ponder. The students who pay their money and do not take advantage of the facilities this University provides have been known to moan that compulsion and voluntary activity do not go together. With the University permeated with night-school, certificate-for-money, red-hot-bed trends many students shun the place like the common common room. The Executive must consider these background facts.

An Example

It is a bad example. In one of the first issues this year Salient published a small article complaining about the Notice Board and suggesting that it be tidied.

The suggestion that a more permanent form of division be used was ignored and one member solemnly assured a Salient staffer that "It had never been brought up." Brown paper is insignificant. The notice board is ineffective. The Executive did not read and act—either for or against a good suggestion in the College newspaper.

First the Lesser Things

The men's common room is a disgrace. If the election promises are to be believed something will be done, but it should be done soon. The furniture is hard. The room is gloomy. The pictures on the walls are dull. Money is being spent to cover over the boiler room in the science block. In the meantime a few hardy individuals pay 32/6 a year, pay a College Fee, watch the Exam fees rise and still sit in discomfort.

The matter of towels and soap, rubbish boxes and such also comes into election pledges. Some action has been taken on this matter but the results are not apparent.

At last the cafeteria has been painted. What is to prevent the Executive investigating some decoration for its walls? After all this is a University, prints are not expensive—four Association fees would provide prints for some years.

Card Please ! ! !

A supposedly intelligent student goes to take a book out from the Library. His card is at home. No book.

Another student wishes to find an issue of a quarterly. It may be there. It may be away being bound. It may be . . . Why not a notice listing those periodicals away being bound? On the shelves rows and rows of hardly used tomes collect the dust, others are in the stack room. The student waits.

Some of the periodicals are not put out until they are weeks old. How many students, for example, know that our Library receives 'Time"?

There have been Executive Committees before on this subject. Many a student complains and complains. It should not be beyond our Executive to form a Joint Committee which does get things done, a committee which includes a representative of the Library.

Fees and Bursaries

By this time Student Executives should be able to command respect in the field of University administration. For this reason foolhardy political activity does not become them.

President O'Brien's letter to Freedom should be a model for those who wish to defend, as every student should defend, our rights of debate.

If College Executives can be respected, there might come a day when moves made by either Connell or Senate which do vitally interest students will not be made before consultation with Executives. The present rise in exam fees, not a great rise, it is admitted, should have been met by bursary increases particularly in view of the cost of living.

How long will it take the new Executive to conclude the negotiations which were commenced?

Why not try to establish a permanent arrangement which will enable this sort of discrepancy to be discussed before it actually becomes too apparent?

The Student at the University

Most important of all in this night school atmosphere is the relation of the student to the University. High on the list of topics to be considered there should be a place for some orientation which goes further than the Principal's address.

Not only is the atmosphere of Victoria different from that of the Secondary school but it demands explanation the Student Christian Movement's excellent handbook tells the where and the when, but beyond that it cannot go.

There is a student in English who sets out to write an examination answer about the Poet Keats. This conscientious student starts his answer: "Keats was born in the year . . . at the small town of . . . . his mother was . . . .and his father etc."

The facts are there all neatly set out but the paper is marked 35. Examiners expect something different. What do they expect?

Other Universities attempt to tackle this problem with an orientation week during which the faculty deans lecture upon such things. We confine ourselves to the Handbook, the Freshers' Welcome (a shock rather than introduction for some!), the Principal's address and a couple of other lectures.

A scheme was working once. It has since died gracefully, unsung and unmourned in a quiet corner. A scheme it was to set up faculty committees which would help students. Where is that idea now?

Most necessary however is the improving of the relationship with our overworked staff. There must be dozens of students who have never asked a question, spoken or been spoken to by a member of the staff. English tutorials in Stage I are an ideal but in the lectures the lecturer can talk for an hour, talk nonsense sometimes, and no one interrupts, why?

No Sacred Cow

Students at a University should not be expected to treat lecturers as sacred cows. Discussion should be normal and questions too. We are only beginuning to discard note regurgitating.

The Executive should wonder whether their sacred cow has become Administration rather than all the interests of the student body. In our interest they aro elected and our interests are wider than towels and rubbish boxes, comfortable common rooms.

Students either want to be university students in the true sense or they want to get out and make a living, or they want to try and combine the two. These ideas and ideals the Executive should consider and set aside time for their consideration in our view there are things more vital than rubbish boxes but they need attention as well.

M.