Another year, another editor. I’m sure you’ve seen it all before. This time it’s me, Louise, an Asian from Dunedin. I’m swapping out sunny southern winters for earthquakes and constant politics. Wouldn’t you? 

This year’s Salient will see a return to our beloved A4 format, packed to the brim with juicy visuals and witty, thought-provoking content. And the best part about it? It’s gonna have your writing in it! That’s right. Come write for us. The world (or VUW at least) will hear your voice, we’ll (possibly) feed you baked goods, and you’ll get to see your name all shiny in print. How cool is that.  

In all seriousness though, Salient relies on its volunteers to run, so if you feel you’ve got something to contribute (or even if you don’t, and wanna write anyway) we’d love to hear from you. Salient FM will be expanding slightly next year too, so if talking, or music, or talking about music, is your thing, then go on, host a radio show. You know you’ve always wanted to. 

More details will be out in early January regarding paid and volunteer positions. For now, send through your pitches to editor@salient.org.nz and we’ll get back to you when the office opens on the 8th of January. You can also subscribe to our mailing list and keep up to date with the latest going-ons. 

That’s all for now. Stay hydrated. 

–Louise Lin 

V-ISA stands firmly against privatisation, and advocates a retention of the status quo. Our extensive consultations with current and former foundation students also reflected unanimous support for our position. While the proposal is beneficial to the school in terms of increasing enrolment and cutting costs (read: maximising profit), it is at the expense of the quality of education future students will receive, and prevents them from integrating into Victoria’s community.

When the programme was finally brought to Kelburn after over a decade of operation in a dying Karori campus, foundation students had more accessibility to student learning facilities and services. Close to 80% of the students we surveyed indicated that they use the Language Learning Centre and Student Learning Services almost every day. This has benefited them tremendously in their studies. Moreover, being at the heart of Victoria University, foundation students have many opportunities to interact with people outside their classrooms and integrate into wider community. In fact, many of them took up the foundation programme with the intent to further their university studies at Victoria. They value the support and the sense of belonging provided for them, and they want these benefits to be brought forward to future students.

By privatising the programme, the school is taking two steps backwards after it had taken a step forward. Future students are likely to be situated off of the Kelburn campus since the school cited a risk of capacity issues. This will seriously threaten the quality of education they will receive, especially when they pay for a Victoria-branded education. It also calls into question of the effectiveness of “Victoria Experience Enhancements”—an ambiguous initiative interpreted as a bridge to mend a broken link between school and student. Token gestures for future students cannot possibly replicate the unique experiences undergone by former students.
The foundation programme serves as a transition from high school to university. Without the people who have both the expertise of the school’s university curriculum and an understanding of the needs of students, the foundation programme will cease to be attractive. V-ISA hopes to project the voices of foundation students to the school. We hope that the school will consider our voices seriously in their decision-making process.

Salient TV’s Morgan Fowler goes and hangs out at The Big Dog Walk with Lots of Dogs, organised by Alice Brine. Watch here for a ton of dogs and a few interviews by Finn Teppett. There are so many good dogs! Look at them! LOOK AT THEM!

In an effort to stay relevant and interesting, Salient asked Finn to put his body on the aluminium line, and spend one weekend only eating food that could be found in a can. The experience was hard for Finn, the editors received messages of anguish as he faced the meals and endeavoured to keep them down. The whole experience; the harrowing sludge, the slimy salty shapes, the textures and forms, are documented in video format as well. So not only can you read about this experience, but you can watch it.

Click here to read all the glorious descriptions of the food Finn consumes.

According to a Police statement, “a note threatening the detonation of a bomb in the Murphy building was discovered”.

As a result, students were escorted from class and Kelburn Parade was cordoned off.

One student told Salient that “campus security burst into the class” and appeared “super concerned that we leave now”.

“Police were insistent that we move as far away from Murphy as possible…police were directing traffic and telling us to get up Kelburn Parade as quick as possible and as far as possible. No one knew what was going on because no one told us anything other than to move” the student said.

“Based on the information available, police are confident that any potential threat was localised to the Murphy building”, but “investigations into identifying the person who made the threat will continue” the Police stated.

Although Murphy and Kelburn Parade which were previously evacuated are now accessible, lectures and tutorials in Murphy have been cancelled for the rest of the day.

The threat comes two days after a gun threat aimed at the University of Otago was made on the social networking site 4chan.

Last Tuesday reserve soldiers from the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) spoke at Victoria as part of a nationwide tour, in what Victoria academics described as “an exercise in propaganda and apologetics for military violence”.

The controversial event, titled “Operation Protective Edge: An Israeli Soldier’s Perspective”,  was organised by the Wellington chapter of the Australasian Union of Jewish Students (AUJS), and sparked an outcry from student groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine, as well as a group of academics who circulated a petition to cancel the event amongst university staff.

Victoria University ultimately allowed the event to go forward, sparking a decision by several groups to protest it. Around 60 protestors turned up at the talk, lining the hallway as people made their way to the event. The atmosphere was highly charged, as a pro-Israel counter-protester walked through the middle of the group. Protesters infrequently interrupted as Raphael and Naftali spoke about their experience as Israeli Defence Force reservists to those who attended.

In voting against increasing tuition fees, you are asking the university to do more with less. You provide no choice for management but to engage in staffing redundancies and fewer tutorials, and you impact the quality of current and future students’ education. You shouldn’t vote against tuition fee increases without offering a viable alternative, especially when we face restricted government funding.

Yet if you vote in favour, the emotional reaction is that you are betraying students. It’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation that results in students resenting universities for a game governments have set. This allows governments to continue to escape the blame for their flawed funding system.

Victoria invests a significant amount of resources in a holistic learning experience, so you can get more out of your time here than just a few hours in a lecture theatre. But that costs money. If a marginal increase of 3% allows us to continue to attract quality lecturers in a globally competitive market, support student wellbeing initiatives, offer scholarships for disadvantaged students, pay our tutors a living wage, and have adequate spaces for things like the new vege market on campus, then I think most students would support quality over cuts.

It’s easy to conflate the cost of tuition and the cost of living when questioning how much we pay for studying. But it’s the latter that’s the problem and perpetuating social inequalities. The cost of your degree is less than the cost of borrowing to live in a mouldy flat while you’re studying. Unless we’re privileged enough to have parents to support us, or work at the expense of our studies, we’re forced to accrue even more debt. The investment in our education pays off over time, but the combined debt from the increasing cost of living is morally reprehensible and a complete intergenerational rort.

I’m not surprised by the initial reaction of some people on social media. If we want a better education system we need more people to engage in debate, but it needs to be informed. Resorting to personal attacks by falsely dismissing me as a “rich kid” says more about the depth of their thinking than it does about me.

If you are faced with a choice between cuts and quality, wouldn’t you choose quality too? If you’re angry at me and the current situation, by all means express it on the internet, but also consider taking that energy and channeling it into something constructive. Being intentionally divisive rather than informed and seeking common ground has resulted in this frustrating status quo, and it’s not going to change unless student leaders try a different approach.