Organisation or Disorganisation?

Moves now taking place in hostel circles to establish an inter-hostel organisation could embarrass the accommodation sub-committee and also possibly the public relations sub-committee. As yet no appointment of chairman to the accommodation subcommittee has been made by executive, which resolved some time back to seek applications for the post outside executive.

Meanwhile the hostels organisation is under consideration, and it is believed that it will function as much more than a social organisation. Its formation was proposed at a recent meeting of hostel head students and several present felt that there was a great need for sustained pressure from students in hostels for better facilities, for more hostels, and for a "revised image" of the hostel student.

In order to achieve this, it was proposed that surveys on hostel views be carried out. But although only university students are involved in the proposed organisation, they showed little concern for the implications their actions held for the Students' Association.

As a result they would appear to intend to act quite independently of the two sub-committees of the Students' Association already covering such matters. Should the hostels organisation ever arrive at a view point opposite to that of the accommodation sub-committee, and this is very possible, this fragmentation in student opinion would be very dangerous.

Salient's poll on students' views on accommodation showed that many more students were in hostels than wanted to be and this feeling could well be reflected in accommodation sub-committee decisions.

A hostels organisation could be one of the greatest weapons available against sludcnt apathy, and a powerful force in creating a genuine campus atmosphere. But at present it would appear that the backers of this move are in it for their own ends and feel little sense of identification with the university—even to the extent of proposing that the first social function be held in a private hall instead of meeting on common ground at the university.