I was going to write about the Panama papers today, but I've had to postpone that until my next blog in favour of an individual case that I came across on social media today. Whilst the Panama papers and David Cameron's association with offshore funds is of course of major importance, something lesser-known struck a personal chord with me and is relevant to a campaign I've been sitting on and quietly talking to a couple of people about for a while.
I was reading an article today concerning a student at London School of Economics who suffers from mental illness having been evicted from their lodgings. This was published on Beaver Online, the web edition of the college's newspaper, the Beaver (the full article is here, and I highly recommend it). Essentially, the unnamed student's studies were interrupted due to hospital admissions, and LSE has seen fit to evict them from Halls as a result. LSE apparently considered that for one reason or other its facilities would not cater to this individual, and it would not be able to give the support they required. This is despite the NHS recommending that the student stays in Halls, and the fact that having been evicted the student would be homeless, which needless to say would not be beneficial for their mental health.
I'm not going to re-write the article, but it is linked above for anyone who would like to read about the case in more detail. The reason I'm bringing it up is because it is sadly so consistent with things that I have both heard about and with my own personal experience. When it comes to pastoral care and social support on campus, many universities would appear to be strangely lacking. I cannot really give any clear examples of this other than the one linked as much of my evidence is anecdotal. From what I have heard though, it would seem that Universities put their own business needs ahead of everything else. Some do a better job than others of coming across as though student welfare is important to them, but for the most part it doesn't seem to be. For a few months now I have been talking to people I have worked with about launching some kind of campaign to tackle this problem. Uni life is such a fundamental part of making up who we are - I myself certainly never anticipated how much going into higher education would change me emotionally. It can be a time when one finds great strength in themselves, and it can also be where one's most concerning vulnerabilities come out more than ever before. In this instance, students need to have someone in authority with their best interests at heart, and I am very concerned that this is not happening. In this case, quite clearly, the extenuating circumstances for the student's absence was not considered to be important by the University. How many more students have suffered in a similar way?
I have my own experiences of feeling as though support for my mental and emotional wellbeing could be a lot better. I used to live in a flat of six, and in my first term at University, following arguments with a flatmate, I found myself in a state of almost total isolation from everyone I lived with. I would get home, go to my room and not come out again for six hours or so until everyone had gone to bed, before I would come out and heat myself some food, which I'd eat in my room. Occasionally those of my flatmates who I hadn't fallen out with would come to check that I was okay - I may not have seen them for several weeks, despite living together. The people involved were on my course, which meant that I felt unable to socialise with anyone and I became extremely depressed as a result. Looking back now, I cannot believe I ever let things get to such a ridiculous situation, but sometimes when living in a new environment it is possible to find yourself doing things you never thought you'd do. I never thought I'd be isolated for such a long time - at the beginning, I just tried to stay out of someone's way for a couple of days until things had calmed down, but frankly I had reckoned without how useless everyone in charge would turn out to be. I had been led to believe that what we called a 'Residents' Support Network' would help to arbitrate the situation, but save for talking to us and finding out what was going on, they did virtually nothing. Ultimately, the situation just burned itself out - the people involved moved out of my flat, and I was left to deal with things on my own. I'm proud of how I got through it, but having been locked in a room for two months impacted on my mental health for quite a long time, and I can't help feeling like if someone with some degree of authority had bothered to get properly involved, it would have saved everyone a lot of grief.
Obviously my own situation is entirely different from that faced by the student in this case - I was fortunately never at risk of being homeless, nor did I ever get to a point that I needed to be admitted to hospital. I feel that in the end though, it comes down to the same fact about Universities (save for a few individuals) being reluctant to get involved to help any student with any situation that might be slightly unusual. I don't know if this is because these days Universities are considered more as businesses than as educational establishments, but even if we are looking at it in that way it makes no difference. Customer satisfaction should be a key part of any business' list of priorities, and this should be especially the case if one's clientele consists mainly of young people starting to get a grasp on the real world. The one part of the article that really made me smile sympathetically was when the LSESU Welfare Officer said that all of the people she had communicated with had referred her to one another. This was exactly my experience as well - no one seemed to know whose responsibility it was to help me. My residents' assistant told me to speak to my course leaders, who in turn told me to go back to the people running Halls. I don't know why it is so disorganised, but I feel strongly that this has to stop.
When I finish University, I intend to run some sort of campaign to promote a better understanding of student security on campus. I haven't thought hugely far ahead with this yet, but I'm hoping that some of the people I have worked with on campaigns in the past will be willing to help me - some of them I've already spoken to, and anyone else who is willing and passionate about this cause, please feel free to contact me. In the meantime, if anyone else has had the experience of being overlooked unfairly at University, I strongly encourage them to come forward about it. This seems to be a consistent issue that not enough people talk about, and I hope to shine a light on it!
In other news, I just came across an interesting Facebook event. People are gathering outside Downing Street this weekend to demand David Cameron's resignation in light of recent revelations. I'm not sure whether or not I will be able to go, but I may do. If I do, I'll write about it. Hope to see you there!
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