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Cut the jokes, or get flushed
Out of print ... Speculum's former team, from left, Ben Magro, David Abkiewicz, Ben Landsberry and Cassandra Grant.
Harriet Alexander Higher Education Reporter
August 22, 2008
UNIVERSITY health services, sporting teams and social clubs have disappeared on many campuses as a result of voluntary student union laws. Now it seems undergraduate humour might be flushed down the toilet - as it were - as well.
The editors of Macquarie University's student newspaper, Speculum, have resigned in protest against their financial masters interfering with their editorial independence - sanitising stories and pictures, and mandating that some stories be marked "satire" in case the students take them seriously.
They reached the limit of their endurance over the August issue of the magazine, after the student services organisation, U@MQ, advised them not to describe childbirth as "excruciating" (because many women want to have children), not to use a photo of women with tubas in a bathtub (misogynist because there were no half-naked men) and not to publish a satirical guide to sex by "the Pope".
One editor, David Abkiewicz, said he thought U@MQ would object to the Pope's guide to sex on the grounds it might cause offence to Catholics, but instead the managers were worried it was offensive to women.
"It was mostly because they didn't get the jokes," Mr Abkiewicz said. "They failed to appreciate parody or humour. We were even told that 'by satyriasis, misogynistic or offensive views, you are contributing to them'."
The incident encapsulates the difficulties that have arisen when students have lost financial control of their affairs as a result of reduced funding under voluntary student unionism, and universities have been forced to take over.
Speculum's final editorial said: "Many don't realise that in our former roles as editors of this mystery publication, collecting, editing and laying out articles was only half our job. The other half was fighting an endless tug-of-war with our kind benefactors."
Deirdre Anderson, the chief executive of U@MQ, said students were never forbidden to publish anything, but they were asked on several occasions to reconsider articles that some students might not appreciate.
In future the magazine would be reviewed by a student ethics committee instead of U@MQ managers, she said.
"We haven't got it right but we're working very hard to make sure we do, and we're not going to please everyone along the way," Ms Anderson said.
The Rudd Government is considering reintroducing a compulsory fee for services, but with an opt-out clause so students have the choice of not supporting particular campus activities, the Herald reported yesterday.
The federal Minister for Education, Julia Gillard, declined to return calls yesterday.
Angus McFarland, the president of the National Union of Students, said he supported a compulsory opt-out system, though some services such as advocacy should be guaranteed funding.
But campus managers said the opt-out clause would be an "administrative nightmare".
Source.
Out of print ... Speculum's former team, from left, Ben Magro, David Abkiewicz, Ben Landsberry and Cassandra Grant.
Harriet Alexander Higher Education Reporter
August 22, 2008
UNIVERSITY health services, sporting teams and social clubs have disappeared on many campuses as a result of voluntary student union laws. Now it seems undergraduate humour might be flushed down the toilet - as it were - as well.
The editors of Macquarie University's student newspaper, Speculum, have resigned in protest against their financial masters interfering with their editorial independence - sanitising stories and pictures, and mandating that some stories be marked "satire" in case the students take them seriously.
They reached the limit of their endurance over the August issue of the magazine, after the student services organisation, U@MQ, advised them not to describe childbirth as "excruciating" (because many women want to have children), not to use a photo of women with tubas in a bathtub (misogynist because there were no half-naked men) and not to publish a satirical guide to sex by "the Pope".
One editor, David Abkiewicz, said he thought U@MQ would object to the Pope's guide to sex on the grounds it might cause offence to Catholics, but instead the managers were worried it was offensive to women.
"It was mostly because they didn't get the jokes," Mr Abkiewicz said. "They failed to appreciate parody or humour. We were even told that 'by satyriasis, misogynistic or offensive views, you are contributing to them'."
The incident encapsulates the difficulties that have arisen when students have lost financial control of their affairs as a result of reduced funding under voluntary student unionism, and universities have been forced to take over.
Speculum's final editorial said: "Many don't realise that in our former roles as editors of this mystery publication, collecting, editing and laying out articles was only half our job. The other half was fighting an endless tug-of-war with our kind benefactors."
Deirdre Anderson, the chief executive of U@MQ, said students were never forbidden to publish anything, but they were asked on several occasions to reconsider articles that some students might not appreciate.
In future the magazine would be reviewed by a student ethics committee instead of U@MQ managers, she said.
"We haven't got it right but we're working very hard to make sure we do, and we're not going to please everyone along the way," Ms Anderson said.
The Rudd Government is considering reintroducing a compulsory fee for services, but with an opt-out clause so students have the choice of not supporting particular campus activities, the Herald reported yesterday.
The federal Minister for Education, Julia Gillard, declined to return calls yesterday.
Angus McFarland, the president of the National Union of Students, said he supported a compulsory opt-out system, though some services such as advocacy should be guaranteed funding.
But campus managers said the opt-out clause would be an "administrative nightmare".
Source.
