SJ Cuthbertson

Everybody knows that students like nothing more than a good protest, right? Right? Well, I do seem to remember a lot of “worry” in both the student press, and among the NUS, that we’re all far too apathetic these days. It seems Peterhouse can put those worries to rest: as most people reading this will know, we had our May Ball cance–, I mean, postponed, at some slightly vague, ill-defined time in the last month or so, and when College actually thought to tell us (via the JCR president)… we protested. Varsity, TCS and The Grauniad can tell you more if you don’t know the details.

Although I’m certainly of the opinion that the system in place until this date (bi-annual Ball, on the alternate years to Magdalene and the same day) is preferable to the system College seems to want (tri-annual, which will clash with Magdalene every six years, and create a massive discontinuity in the flow of advice from Committee to Committee), I do think we need to give the Ball up as gone this year – and indeed, in the last day, that seems to be the case. At the JCR Open Meeting on Thursday, the overwhelming opinion was that we’d prefer no Ball to a Ball with attendence limited by degree classification; and we have since had an early-ticket offer from another College, which will, I believe, lead all but die-hard protestees away from the cause – after all, when it comes down to it, all Balls are pretty much like one another, on the grand scheme of things, and once dress code and price are put aside.

Instead, what us as an undergraduate body should really be considering is how to make sure we can, erm, pick the ball back up (sorry, that pun is far too subtle) having dropped it. The fact is that the next Ball is, with 99% certainty, going to be in 2009, so the current Committee should, in my opinion, be spending the time they would otherwise spend on organising, in making sure there are clear written guides to aid the next Committee, who won’t be necessarily able to benefit from the previous experience directly. Without repeating the many things that were said at the Open Meeting, I do think it is stupid in the extreme to retaliate against College in any way that harms the College’s reputation and future recruiting ability. College is doing a pretty good job of harming it already, by demonstrating that they don’t want to listen to us. We should be trying to help get the Collegiate academic status back on track, so that in future years, students will be able to put forward a strong(er) case for a bi-annual Ball not affecting our Tompkins position. Sure, College has a long list of other reasons why they are going tri-annual, and are not going to be swayed on their validity or lack thereof; but I suspect if we were back in the top half of the Tompkins Table, the rest of the items might seem somewhat less of a problem.

I’d also like to publicly note that I still don’t think the JCR Committee acted incorrectly in deciding not to act on the issue of the May Ball until we, the student body, had made our views clear. They are a representative Committee and for them to act on their own feelings about the postponement/cancellation would have been irresponsible: much as they could guess what our response would be, I’d have been more angry if they acted without checking. It is however the case, I feel, that the JCR should not be allowing itself to exist as a screen for the College authorities (in particular the Bursar) to hide behind when making announcements. They should be emailing us directly, and as such, claiming direct responsibility for the decisions they make. The counterargument to that is that, as our representative body, the JCR should be used as a go-between in the other direction – that’s what they’re there for. If these two different directions of communication were more clearly demarcated, perhaps the undergraduate body would have been quicker to contact the JCR formally explaining that they had a view on the May Ball that they wished to be passed on to the College. And then the JCR would have known where we stand, and started acting as such, sooner.

This post was originally going to go in somewhat of a different, albeit still student-political, direction; it hasn’t, so I shall round it off there. As ever, I’m just-a-little apathetic about such issues in a Daoist way, and inclinded to say “Que sera, sera”. In the end, there are more important issues than May Balls in the world, and as mature undergraduates, we should all be able to keep that perspective, know when we’ve been beaten, and get back to real life. Will this decision of College adversely affect our life at any point post-graduation? I doubt it, other than possibly causing a few people to be more demotivated in Exam Term and get a few less points in Tripos. Will it seem significant in 10 years’ time? No, and we’re kidding ourselves if we think otherwise. What might be significant is the ways in which our actions now are interpreted, for good or bad, by those outside the Cambridge Bubble, and our how our choices affect the JCR’s standing in College for future undergrads; most of all, what we can learn from this – about tactics, politics, debate, how to lead a meeting well, whatever – that are, in fact, as crucial life skills as anything we’re learning in lectures.