Raising the bars a 'moral' matter
V-c: London Met's large Muslim population makes booze 'culturally sensitive'. David Matthews reports
The vice-chancellor of London Metropolitan University is considering banning the sale of alcohol in some parts of the institution's campus because a "high percentage" of his students consider drinking to be "immoral".
Malcolm Gillies said he was "not a great fan of alcohol on campus", adding that the issue was one of "cultural sensitivity".
Noting that about 20 per cent of London Met's students are Muslim, he said that "because there's no majority ethnic group, I think it [selling alcohol] is playing to particular parts of our society much more [than to others]".
"It's a negative experience - in fact an immoral experience - for a high percentage of our students," he told an audience at the Association of University Administrators' annual conference in Manchester on 3 April.
Professor Gillies said he would work with the student body to move towards having areas on campus where "one serves alcohol and others don't".
He questioned whether the university should subsidise student bars, although it was not an issue he felt "too strongly" about.
"Many of our students do come from backgrounds where they actually look on [drinking] as a negative," Professor Gillies said.
"And given that around our campuses you have at least half a dozen pubs within 200m, I can't see there is such a pressing reason to be cross-subsidising a student activity which is essentially the selling of alcohol."
The vice-chancellor also said that London Met was "much more cautious" about the portrayal of sex on campus than universities had been 30 to 40 years ago.
"Now we've got a younger generation that are often exceedingly conservative, and we need to be much more cautious about [sex] too," he said.
He argued that universities had to cater for a wide variety of students with different attitudes and experiences.
The majority of London Met's Muslim students were female, and many of them "can only really go to university within four miles of home and have to be delivered and picked up by a close male relative", he said.
"Their student experience is going to be different from someone gorging out in the Chocoholics Society or someone who is there to have a...libidinous time."
Times Higher Education was unable to reach London Metropolitan University Students' Union for its reaction to Professor Gillies' comments before the magazine went to press.
david.matthews@tsleducation.com.
Readers' comments (2)
12 Apr 2012 8:44pm
Malcolm seems to be unaware of the history of tolerance towards alcohol in Islamic culture, as described by Khaled Diab in the Guardian last year ("A drinker's guide to Islam, 8th October 2011): http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/oct/08/drinkers-islam-palestinian-beerfest-alcohol But like my colleague Rob Thoyts, I suspect there is a hidden agenda behind this laughable pretence at 'cultural sensitivity'. But in any case, an alcohol ban on such grounds would have exactly the opposite effect from that intended. You can't create a tolerant and sensitive environment by behaving in such a dictatorial fashion. Tolerance is about accepting that other people may have different beliefs and different ways of behaving from oneself - that acceptance is the only way forward for a democratic multicultural nation, and it is that acceptance that needs to be nurtured. What a shame that the vice-chancellor doesn't seem to understand this.
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13 Apr 2012 12:11pm
Please find below a London Met UCU statement with regards to the current row initiated by the VC in terms of alcohol at the university. 1. London Met Uni has some 25,000+ students studying in over a dozen buildings - all of which have alcohol-free coffee bars/student areas, across two distinctly separate campus areas in North and East London, with only a single student bar at each campus (the only places that serve alcohol at the university). 2. There have been no complaints or demands from students directly or via the students union for alcohol to be either banned, or partially-banned, on campus. 3. Gillies is currently selling off large sections of the university estate, including 'The Hub' - the student union facility (inc student bar) at the City Campus. The VC's comments need to be seen in that light - i.e., they are simply a convenient cover for reducing student social facilities. 4. The language adopted by the VC in this regard is extremely divisive and is already stoking tensions where none had previously existed between the multiplicity of London Met's student constituencies. The fact that the EDL (English Defence League) and other extreme Right and fascist groups have latched on to this is a major concern. 5. If Gillies were serious about student welfare and wider social and cultural equality and fairness, why has he personally defended the following university management decisions: i) direct links with the Uzbekistan regime - noted for the torture of its opponents (primarily Muslim incidentally), and forced sterilisation of woman (see this week's BBC report on the issue - www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01fjx63 ) ii) cutting of most of the university's student chaplaincy service - including the forced redundancy of the Imam; iii) the drastic reduction in the opening hours of the Women's Library (down to only 1 day per week), and its eventual closure; All of this is happening at a time of huge cuts to student courses/modules - including the majority of the 'critical' subjects - such as philosophy and history, and mass redundancies amongst staff - both academic and student service related. At best, Gillies utterances are a crass example of the disconnect becoming more and more evident at London Met between university management and the staff and students they supposedly represent. At worst, it is a quite cynical attempt to stir-up a divisive atmosphere in order to deflect attention from the far more serious issue of the deliberate destruction of a once proud inner city ethnically mixed and vibrant modern university. Mark Campbell - UCU Coordinating Committee (Chair)
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