► Intercollegiate Halls

01/02 Policy

Valid AULUC 2007

 

INTERCOLLEGIATE HALLS [ALLOCATION OF ACCOMMODATION] MOTION

Proposed by Sumon Banerjee, [CSAM] and King’s College London

Seconded by Ian Campbell, King’s College London

 

THIS UNION NOTES

 

1.          That London University has 8 Intercollegiate Halls of Residence and places in them are divided between the Colleges and Institutes on a quota system.

2.          That until very recently, Hall Wardens selected all students.

3.          That this subjective process in College residences was abandoned a very long time ago, and places are normally allocated objectively in the College Accommodation Office.

4.          That when the Intercollegiate system changed, Colleges took over admissions for new students. However, Wardens continued to handpick returning students.

5.          That at the moment the entire structure of the Intercollegiate Halls is being reviewed with a likely move towards Colleges allocating all places (except Senior Students etc).

 

THIS UNION FURTHER NOTES

 

1.          That on 23 January, the KCLSU Equal Opportunities & Welfare Committee decided that the subjective process “was unacceptable and could lead to a manager bringing any discriminations he might have into play when allocating rooms.”

2.          The Committee referred the matter to the ULU VP Welfare (2000/01) but no reply was received.

 

THIS UNION BELIEVES

 

1.          That the objective system for new students has worked well.

2.          That the concerns quoted above are valid. Whilst single-sex corridors etc would lead to male/female quotas eliminating sexism, racism is certainly possible (though could perhaps be detected). There are other forms of discrimination, such as homophobia, where detection by statistics is impossible.

3.          That a student who complains about services could be deemed a troublemaker and unfairly rejected.

 

THIS UNION FURTHER BELIEVES

 

1.          That the Halls should remain Intercollegiate, but if the central institutions cannot fill College quotas objectively then the proposal to give Colleges themselves the power to decide how to fill their quotas should be approved.

 

THIS UNION RESOLVES

 

1.       To support the call to remove the right of Hall Wardens to determine student admissions in the Intercollegiate Halls.

 

THIS UNION MANDATES

 

1.       The Executive to make these views known to the University.

2.       The Executive to write to each Warden in March of every year until an objective system of allocation is in place for all students, explaining the above concerns and the Union’s belief in equal opportunities for all its members.

 

PASSED: 3^rd December 2001