Imperial College, here we come!

Tomorrow is our final Freshers fayre of the academic year at Imperial College London. Please come along to stall TR53 (The Tower Rooms) to sign up to our free mailing list and get some free merchanise!

Don’t be shackled

Our first campaign, ‘Don’t be shackled by politics on campus’ came about when we were thinking about what it is like to be on a university campus in a time where politics is the hot topic to debate for a lot of students. By no means are we advocating that you should ignore your political beliefs; we are saying you should embrace them and indeed stand up for them, but not be shackled by the idea of following the crowd or pander to so called fashionable political views. I am not condoning extreme groups who try and spread hate for their cause; what I am instead talking about the value of free and fair debate. One of the great things about university is that it is a place to debate ideas and beliefs, a place to deconstruct what your own views are, build upon them or change them. So when you are on campus, listen to other peoples’ views and calmly discuss your own; you never know, you might learn a lot off each other even if you initially thought you were diametrically opposed.

Discounts galore!

September 30th, 2009 Student Rights wants to help students with issues that matter to them as a student and we believe that one of the most important things to a students social life and budget is discounts and helping you to live for less. Below are some organisations that might be able to help…

From the mists of the internet comes Student Beans. A wonderful site which offers students great discounts at restaurants, pubs, cinemas. Think of it as the world’s largest and interactive coupon book.

The National Union of Students also offers an NUS Extra card which offers you discounts in loads of shops such as TopShop and Dorothy Perkins. Note though that just a bog standard student card issued for free when you register with your university will offer you most of the same discounts, and save you a tenner. Its still definitely worth a look at though.


Don’t forget to register for your Student Oyster card. It costs £5.00 and gives you 1/3 off on all monthy, weekly and yearly travel cards. However, it does not give you 1/3 off for day travel cards. To get this, you need to link your Young Persons rail card with it which you can get for free for 5 years when you open a student bank account with Natwest.

Back to the LSE

Its Student Rights first day at the LSE and a trip down nostalgia lane for me. I did my undergrad at LSE and I’m back to run our Freshers Fayre stand with my colleagues. I actually managed to get into my old Media Law class room for 9am for the first time, and ironically not for classes. Anyway, we are at LSE today so please do come along and sign up to our mailing list and collect some posters from our stall.
Helen
National Coordinator, Student Rights

External Advisory Board. Member profile: Dr Alan Mendoza.

Dr Alan Mendoza is a member of Student Rights External Advisory Board. In this role, and like all other members of our External Advisory Board, advice can be sought by Student Rights and there are opportunities for Alan to speak at our events and potentially on your campusus. Alan received his doctorate of from Cambridge University where he also studied his undergraduate and his Masters degree. He is currently the Executive Director of the Henry Jackson Society. The Henry Jackson society is a non-partisan think tank which aims to promote democratic geopolitics. The Henry Jackson Society advocates a positive approach to the spread of liberal democracy. The society is supported by a broad scope of politicians as well as journalists and government officials such as the former Prime Minister of Mongolia.
Alan also used to host programmes on ‘18 Doughty Street;’ an Internet based broadcaster, which he also produced. Additionally, Alan is a councillor for the London Borough of Brent.
Alan’s belief in championing the principles of a liberal democracy is something that Student Rights strongly adheres to and we are honoured to have Alan as one of our members of the External Advisory Board.

Kings College London Freshers Fayres

Yesterday and today we were at Kings Fresher’s fayre signing up new people to our mailing list. After a busy day of signing people up we are really pleased at all the interest in our new organisation. Thank you to all of those who signed up. If you missed us, please sign up to our mailing list online. We also got chatting with the President of Kings College Student Union, Ryan, the President of ULU, Nizam and some NUS executives. All in all it was a busy day for the Student Unions in London. Next week Student Rights is even busier as we are going to LSE, ULU, UCL and SOAS. Look out for us on your campus!

Queen Mary’s Freshers Fayre and beyond…

Thanks to all of you who signed up to Student Rights at the Queen Mary’s Freshers fayre. For the next two days we will be at Kings College London signing people up to our mailing list, telling you about what we do and how we can help you on your campuses and giving out some free merchandise. Please come along and sign up!
Helen
National Coordinator. Student Rights

Refocusing universities on student issues

I just read this article online and am concerned about priorities…Universities need to get their priorities sorted so that they tackle issues that are more important to students.Did you know that if you are an international student or a postgraduate student, you are, on average, paying £70 per hour for contact time at university in London? With teaching standards in university plummeting, why is it that university administration is stressing about the political correctness of calling the chair of a committee a chairwoman, a chairman or a chairperson? Surely teaching standards, better quality halls of residence and more sports facilities are far more pressing matters?

Resources

Resources
The following list of websites, organizations and publications have been identified by youth researchers at Freechild. We have listed them in useful categories for young people and their adult allies. Click on the heading for resources.

Point to Ponder

Point to Ponder

"Ironically, children are unsafe in public schools today not because of exposure to drugs and violence, but because they have lost their constitutional protections under the Fourth Amendment." - Randall Beger in "Expansion of Police Power in Public Schools and the Vanishing Rights of Students." Social Justice 29(1/2) (2002): 119-130.

Student Rights Information

Intro
The Freechild Project has found that students across the United States and Canada are standing up and demanding the schools they deserve. Part of those schools include the rights that every person is guaranteed as a human. Court cases, civil rights organizations, and young people have defended these rights time and again, yet many schools do not honor students' rights, as learners, as citizens, or as humans. So young people continue to rally for the acknowledgement, protection, and support of their rights in school.