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Salient. Victoria University Student Newspaper. Volume 39, Number 14, 5 July 1976.

[Letter from A really Pissed-Off Student]

Dear John,

This is yet another letter complaining about the bloody sociology department -and boy have I got complaints! The only hassle is, however that I'm going to have to be brief because if my writing style is identified God knows what is going to happen - rumour has it that if you speak out against the department you may as well say "bye bye" to those "As" or "Bs" or first-class honours, if not entirely to your 6 or 12 credits.

I reckon that SAG is slowly killing the SOSC debate and I don't really give a stuff what Crothers says about the "proper channels" for this type of debate being through Student reps or SAG, the facts of the bloody matter are firstly that the powers of student reps are far more limited than the power of the written word that may even incite action as radical as a "march on the sociology department" or a "sit down strike". Besides if student reps aren't even told when a bloody meeting is on they haven't got much power at all have they? And its not only this year where they haven't been told about meetings. Exactly the same thing happened last year!

Secondly, the really big things in favour of having the debate in Salient are that:
1)Knowledge of the existence of the debate and the bloody terrible state of the department in general is now wide. At Canterbury the Vic Sosc Debate occupies special space on the departmental notice board; the news of the debate has also spread to other New Zealand universities as well as universities in Australia, the USA and Britain.
2)Other debates about different departments are also beginning - a move I see as being bloody constructive and a move similar to that which occurred in Berlin in 1960s and led to the creation of the Free University in Berlin.
3)by discussing things at SAG, though it may be of real value what happens is people get bloody sich of talking and come to the conclusion that they won't get anywhere, so the debate fades (just what Robb and his bloody cronies want, I reckon - no wonder the Woody staff lackies say what they say at meetings like SAG "You don't understand" they say -in other words "Fuck off, you may as well give up")

Just before I get on to my hobbyhorse of Sosc 301 I'd like to point out that, thus far there has not been one letter from a student supporting the department (unlike the English debate) - what, may I ask the staff do they see that as an indication of? - Lobbying I suppose - (well mate, no-one's been encouraging me to write, I'm writing because I'm really pissed off.

Sosc 301: So far this really boring course seems to have been a bloody waste of time. First we went through the normal "shopping list" of theories - we weren't encouraged to apply them to everyday life - in fact there was little done about showing what relevance if any they had. Right now we're having pracs and saw a bloody amazing video-tape the other day which seemed to bring out Prof Robb and Lyn White as amazing actors...; the less said about their sociology the better. In all two hour lecture - there is one hour of the most incredible bullshit I have ever heard -and most students I have spoken to feel the same way. The other hour consists of making boring material interesting - and the lecturer's quite successful really. But my main points about 301 are:
1.very badly planned - which makes 301 fucking boring.
2.Little or no NZ material - students are encouraged to apply what they are learning to the world around them - which I always thought was an aim of sociology.
3.Abismal lecturers in the main, many of whom would appear to think only on a superficial level and can't really reply to intensive questioning.

So here I am bored and pissed off with 301 like so many others - its the only course I've really disliked at Vic and so far (and its half year) I've had no satisfaction from the course - and I don't think I'm entirely to blame.

I reckon Sosc 301 needs a bloody bomb put under it to smash it to smithereens so that the whole course and the whole department can be restarted from scratch after joint consultations between staff and students instead of what's happening at the moment where they're trying to cover up the flaws in the department by introducing yet another compulsory course the relevance of which to both society and the budding sociologist is questionable.

Come on Sosc 301 students - lets have a revolution!

- A really Pissed-Off Student.

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