Miscellanea Cantabrigiana
The rise of RON
Don’t blame institutions for uncontested elections; blame yourself
Education Officer candidate Maria Helmling speaks during Hustings at Trinity Hall
The candidates for this year’s CUSU elections have just been announced, and we now know that RON will be coming second in at least three contests: the job of Co-ordinator, responsible for the internal working of CUSU, is uncontested, as are those of Access and Welfare, arguably the most important roles. This echoes last year’s elections, where both the Co-ordinator and the President were elected unopposed. Most will agree that this is a negative development; no matter what one thinks of CUSU, it is in everyone’s interest that a number of good candidates should be in contention, forcing each other to raise their game and prove themselves in a way that is now unnecessary.
Some may be inclined to blame CUSU itself for this state of affairs. This is unfair, however, for it is not only the students’ union which is afflicted by this apathy. The Union Society last had a contested presidential election four terms ago; political clubs like CUCA rarely have to turn away candidates for office; and Varsity has not had multiple applications for its editorship since 2007. This is not to suggest that those who are elected/appointed unopposed are not good at their jobs, for it takes a huge amount of skill and effort even to be in the running for these positions; indeed, some might argue that as long as the best people put themselves forward, it doesn’t matter if they don’t face a contested election.
Yet this lack of competition threatens to take the life out of leading student institutions and those who run them. If a candidate knows he will be unopposed for a particular post – even if he is the best candidate – he will have no motivation to make plans, come up with ideas or explain why he deserves the position. Unopposed elections can create a sense of entitlement and complacency in their beneficiaries, and give institutions the impression of being a closed shop where you need contacts to get ahead, even though this is rarely true. More than that, election campaigns are fun. My mother talks with fondness of her (failed) attempt to stop Benazir Bhutto becoming president of the Oxford Union, using all kinds of dirty tricks; and in days of yore Varsity could fill multiple pages with election-season gossip. We could judge our peers, play our part in determining their future. Now, the fun is over.
So why do so few people appear to want Cambridge’s most prominent jobs? It is not, I would argue, because people are uninterested in the institutions: thousands vote in CUSU elections, Union debates are always heaving and hundreds of people want to write for Varsity. Still, though, people are unwilling to commit to the hard graft of actually running these things, for the simple reason that we refuse to be diverted from our degrees. Tripos takes such overwhelming priority that Cambridge practically shuts down over exam term, and this mentality encroaches on the rest of the year too. Take a week off work to campaign for CUSU? Spend four hours a day at the Union? Unthinkable! One’s DoS would hardly approve.
Yet this is the wrong attitude. Yes, this is a place of learning and it would be a shame not to take advantage of the academic opportunities here. But to plough blindly along the path to a 2.i is to ignore much of what has made Cambridge great. Besides, getting involved outside the library may even help one’s work; a recent survey by Oxford’s Cherwell suggests that those with multiple extra-curricular commitments are fifty per cent more likely to get a first than those with none. So stop using work as an excuse: our institutions risk becoming clubby and sclerotic, just because no-one wants to disappoint a supervisor.
Topics: Cambridge, CUSU, Politics
