Student suspended for "damaging University league ranking"

by Louise Michel Kanak - Bullied Academics Sun Apr 06, 2008 15:41

We are aware of other instances where a higher education institution bullied students and threatened them, because the management did not agree with the student's freedom of expression.

In our experience such management perceives students not as learning human beings, but as pawns for their poltical and social empire-building.

If a university student starts asking questions, then he/she are treated in a similar bullying and harassing manner as academic and other staff - the system closes on them and they become stigmatised. Not unusual either that grades and other means are used to intimidate some students into sumbission. For reasons that should be evident we are not able to provide details, but it is sufficient to say that other cases in different variations exist out there, i.e. students being bullied by management.

In such instances, we believe what prevailes is a short-sighted management view or groupthink that has no creative awareness of how best to tackle such issues. Their normal response is to close ranks and make legal threats.

It would have said more about this particular university if it had tried to find a creative and positive resolution to the particular problem, and made some mileage out of it, instead of going down a negative road.

by NaomiAnna Sat Apr 05, 2008 17:32

I have set up a facebook group called "Unhappy with the way your course is run at ARU?" There are 48 members which may not seem like a lot but think of all the money we have invested in the uni!!
Nothing that I am saying is untrue. It could not be published in a newspaper if it were as it has to be fact checked at least twice. No wonder people are scared about the repercussions of complaining. Just look at me. I'm the face of the campaign so I am getting the brunt of all of it. I don't mind as long as it gets the story out there that they cannot keep doing this. Had I known this was going to happen when I joined the university I would have gone straight into employment or paid to do a degree elsewhere. There are more and more cases of this happening and they cannot silence us forever. I just want to thank everyone who has been supporting me and taking the time to leave comments on this website, my facebook and youtube.

by Dark ages student Sat Apr 05, 2008 14:44

The state paid for my studies, but in this age of consumer education the students should be entitled to the full protection of the three Rs - refund, replacement or repair. If the university is not abiding by its contract to provide a service, it is worse than faulty goods in having wasted the students' time and alternative opportunities, so they should be entitled to the other remedies of ensuring that the contracted service is supplied in a timely fashion.

But threatening the students into silence and harassing staff into forcing only complimentary feedback is fraudulent and disgusting. Anglia Ruskin deserves to drop down the leagues if their "customers" are dissatisfied, and even more so if they indulge in vindictive retaliation against those identified as complaining.

by CV-fakir Sat Apr 05, 2008 00:36

Let's be 21st century 3rd/4th/5th level education here!

She's an unhappy customer & this is a consumer affairs issue surely. After all we've long gone past the stage that most university faculties offer anything over than superficial educational promise or even the former guarantee of a higher rung on the ladder of socio-economic exploitation or future for the spawn. She wanted to buy the time & library hours for her degree / masters / doctorate - she provided the readies - and now they refuse her custom?
If you buy a quarter pounder and cheese and then complain it's shite - do they set the mosquito acoustic weapons on you?

I think not.

Give her a refund!