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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume. 34, Number 8. 1971

Now you're in now you're out

Now you're in now you're out

It now seems certain that an upper limit will be set on the number of student enrolments at Victoria in 1972.

In a memorandum to the Vice-ChancelIor on accommodation problems, the Assistant Principal, Dr. S.G. Culliford, reported that "it would appear that the only practical step is the stabilising of enrolments at approximately their present level until facilities appropriate to larger numbers can be made available."

Last Thursday, a meeting of the Professorial Board, after considering the Culliford Memorandum, set up an Admissions Committee to review the whole question of fixing quotas on student enrolments in subsequent years.

There now seems little likelihood that Victoria will be able to continue as an open university. In 1963, when a deferment in the building programme placed considerable strain on available facilities, a set of exclusion regulations was formulated to give temporary relief. Last year these regulations, conceived of as an essential short-term measure, had assumed such a permanence that their replacement by more stringent provisions went virtually unnoticed.

Now the administration seems certain to press for the introduction of another temporary quota system to alleviate the accommodation problems within the university. As I.D. Campbell Deputy Vice-Chancellor and convenor of the Admissions Committee said (at a time when the Professorial Board seemed undecided on the desirability of setting up such a committee before the recommendations on accommodation from the Committee of Vice-Chancellor and Deans had been presented to the Board,) "if we don't set up a committee now, we won't be able to shut the door on anyone in 1972."

The Admissions Committee has provision for two student members: the immediate need is to determine whether or not any students should be appointed to a body of this kind, and if they are, how best they can represent association policy on the issue (if it exists) and what alternative programmes to the one apparently decided on by the University administration can be implemented. (It should be noted that, while there was no official University policy on the question of such quotas when the Committee was formed, heads of departments have already been circularised to determine what limit on the numbers of overseas students they will recommend for 1972 (as required by law) and also to advise on what possible upper limit in total enrolments their department is prepared to withstand in that year. It appears that unless there is positive action by students on this question, the administration will proceed to implement a policy of indiscriminate exclusions.)

Professorial Board meetings are in permanent committee; however it has been customary for student reps on the Board to report to S.R.C. on meetings. This is published in the hope that those reading it will come to the next S.R.C. to help formulate policy on the matter: and to give a wider circulation to the report than might otherwise have been the case.