Universally of Salford: May 2011

Saturday 21 May 2011

Those Dastardly League Tables

Yep. It's a race to the bottom again this year, as the Place We All Know And Love spirals down to 109th in the Guardian's rankings (which doesn't take account of research activity), whilst dropping to 97th in the Independent's rankings (which does).

So precisely how bad does it have to get before the institution is admitted by those in charge to be failing?

What is 'Universally of Salford'?

The openness of any social structure can be validated by how it treats criticism. A democracy would never be described as open or liberal if it failed to encourage a climate in which criticism and opposition to the ideas of an executive body can flourish. A University is no different.

During our experiences with the University of Salford, there has never been an effective outlet for the sort of objections to executive policies and decisions raised in this blog. Almost every attempt we have ever made to investigate any controversial decisions, activities, spending or events has been met with threats, derision and concealment.

The Students' Union – the obvious forum in which to raise these issues – remains silent owing to virtually the entirety of its funding being conditional upon donations from the University.

It is our opinion that the University of Salford can never improve if it, as an institution, cannot distinguish between good and bad decision making. Achieving this is conditional upon both the student and staff bodies being kept informed about both the good and bad within the University.

Since the University have a monopoly over their internal publications (including, we would argue, the Student Newspaper), and since this 'monopolised' publicity is almost without exception propagandist, it is our opinion that a purely critical alternative ought be available to staff and students to balance out this inequity and assist in keeping both parties informed.