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St Andrews, UEL, Byam Shaw and Manchester occupations in for the weekend

picture: Byam Shaw under occupation

From UEL occupation blog
Just a quick plea to all of you who are in support of our occupation and following our blog to email our acting vice chancellor stating that you unconditionally support our demands and our occupation!

This will be extremely helpful to us, particuarly as we are meeting with the vice chancellors group on Tuesday morning and have to have support from them over our demands.


Our Vice Chancellor Professor Susan Price can be contacted at s.price@uel.ac.uk and her phone number is 020 822 34159.

Any pressure we can place on them will help us win success on each of our demands.
Please be polite in your emails. It doesn't have to be long - just a clear message that you admire our actions, and believe that the University should meet our demands - and be proud to do so, as so many institutions did in reponse to white South African Apartheid.

Byam Shaw College of Art had a meeeting with their principal A. Warman and R. Imeson theDean of Students on Thursday. This occupation is centred around immediate student concerns over course closures and inadequte funding. There are no specific Gaza demands but hopefully the students will include them at some stage.

St Andrews opened negotiations on Thursday and here's a taster:
Principal Louise Richardson and Vice Principal (External Relations) Stephen Magee, and Proctor/Provost of St Leonard’s College/Dean of Graduate Studies, Christopher Smith.

Speaking with the students the Principal stated that she “absolutely believes in your right to exercise civil disobedience and your point of view”, mentioning that she had done similar activities as a student herself.

The Principal reasserted that the University would not take a stance on the conflict in Gaza and commented that other University’s Principals (Professor Sir Timothy O’Shea) were “inappropriate” to do so. The Principal said that she “feels very strongly that the university cannot come out and make a statement about a political situation”.


Manchester University management have still not opened negotiations with the students. Manchester is in its 17th day of occupation making the longest running, and largest, occupation so far.
Despite our perseverance, the strength of our numbers, and our vast support from the student body, our Vice-Chancellor continues to ignore us. The hard-line approach that he pursued when we occupied his boardroom in the John Owens building (which culminated in him threatening to expel the protesters if we did not vacate the building), has been dropped in favour of a policy of simply ignoring us, aside from the occasional, impersonal letter. We have repeatedly offered to vacate the building temporarily if a firm timeline of negotiations is laid out; this offer has been refused.

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