In direct response to a commercialisation of our universities, and the commodification of education; we, Occupy Goldsmiths, hereby demand the following from Goldsmiths College, University of London Management—

Counselling services: 

• Recruit more counsellors to meet demand
• To be able see a tangible reduction in the waiting list for the service
• Resist the planned restructure
• Secure jobs within the service, and stop any redundancy

Disabled Student Allowance:

• Resist any cuts to the Disabled Students Allowance
• Increase investment towards making the university more accessible to students with disabilities
• Bring all services in-house and put an end to all outsourcing

Sustaining Goldsmiths:

• Establish an all union (UCU, Unison, Unite, GSU) committee to oversee the implementation of the sustaining goldsmiths plan
• Resist any increase in student numbers without matching it with an increase in resources
• Find a viable solution regarding lack of study space on campus
• Freeze Senior Management's pay for five years and reduce their pay before anyone else's

Lack of Space:

• Move the Senior Management Team to Warmington Tower to free up their spacious offices for teaching space, therefore maintaining Deptford Cultural Centre for Free Education (formerly known as Deptford Town Hall) as a student and community space

Curriculum:

• Allow the curriculum to be organised by students alongside academics, and not be from the top-down. Open forums should be held to consider what the students want to learn, specifically referencing moving away from euro-centricity in both the curriculum as a whole and specific modules and reading lists, as well as including queer theory and LGBTQ* voices
• Create better communication between lecturers and students through transparency within departments
• Fix the broken mechanism for communicating between students - that is the DSC system - as the DSCs are overloaded with work and not respected by management, leading to students to feeling alienated and disempowered from their departments
• Hold bimonthly, open, student forums to allow direct communication between the student body and the Warden
• Fully fund the Black British Writing MA programme and ensure its operation

Liberation

• Zero tolerance policies on all forms of prejudice, discrimination and oppression — this can be achieved through the provision of annual funding for a full-time Women’s Officer, as well as a full-time BME officer,  who would be tasked with campaigning on Women and Liberation issues
• Reject the counter terrorism bill must be explicit in mentioning that it institutionally targets BME students, and puts them at unnecessary risk
• Oppose any further amendments to the Post Study Work Visa program by the current government
• End racial tokenising in the university’s marketing strategy
• Better representation for women, and women of colour, in leadership positions
• Provide mandatory gender sensitivity training for all front line staff
• Provide gender neutral toilets in the RHB building, as well as women-only toilets
• Trigger warnings must be regular practice in lectures and seminars, as well regularly abiding by the safe space policy

Wider Aims:

• Tackling the attainment gap and drop out rate should be the responsibility of the University, and not the part time BME officers
• Commit to working towards a Free University of London
• Show full financial transparency
• Radically reduce the pay disparity of University staff, at the maximum of 6:1
• Cut ties with unethical companies in regards to funding including those complicit in fossil fuel investment
• Do not welcome police on campus
• Work towards free education
• Fight marketisation and privatisation of higher education
• Workers’ rights for everyone who works at Goldsmiths
• All on-campus staff, including security to be brought in house, receive a living wage as minimum and solidified union recognition.
• Be in solidarity with London School of Economics, University of the Arts London, King’s College London, and University of Amsterdam who are all in occupation

If anyone has any further queries please do not hesitate to contact us at occupygoldsmiths@gmail.com, or check us out on Facebook at Occupy Goldsmiths - Free University of London!