Excerpts from Student 1968

Sponsio Academica

I, student of the University of Edinburgh, do give my sincere and sacred promise and wish this my signature to testify thereto forever, that I will be dutiful and industrious in my studies: and by this promise I acknowledge that in all material relating to the teaching and discipline of the university I have willingly placed myself under the jurisdiction of the Senatus Academicus, and I recognise that if, in the opinion of the Senatus, my studies or my conduct are unsatisfactory, it has authority to forbid my continuance upon courses qualifying me for a degree; and I engage that as a deserving alumnus of my university I will pay my debt of gratitude and good will on every occasion to the best of my powers, so long as I live.

Sponsio Academica (pledge of allegiance to the University Flag)

The SPONSIO reproduced above is printed on the card you sign on matriculation.

To call it the “SPONSIO ACADEMICA” is highly misleading. If you sign it, you allow the university authorities, and ultimately a few men, to define the terms in which you conduct not only your academic but your personal affairs.

If you sign, you allow these men total control over you. You have none over them.

If you sign, you cannot protest any rights vis-a-vis the university authorities. You are here at their discretion.

This SPONSIO is their Catch-22 that permits them to punish you for doing wrong. It also allows them to decide what is wrong after you have done it.

Society preaches that free access to education is a right. By signing this SPONSIO, you are admitting that it is a privilege.

Members of the Law Faculty have their doubts as to the validity of the SPONSIO. Do you?

The SPONSIO is the cornerstone of the brave old world. Ring in the new. Refuse to sign.

These short extracts are taken from work in progress from David Adelstein's first book, to be published by Penguin in September. Adelstein is 21 and a sociology student and the London School of Economics. He was President of the Union during the demonstrations in 1967.

The rapid expansion of higher education automatically brings about a change in the students' view of the process. Whereas higher education was previously seen as a privilege, it is now taken as a right. This follows both from the Government's justification of the expansion and from the justification of the various student policies on higher eduction. Both rest upon the social value of expansion. This transformation of student attitudes takes place even as students are still, despite the vast expansion in numbers, a relative elite. For previously, as only a tiny element of the national elite, graduates were assured of automatic status and self enhancement through the possession of a degree, no matter what its quality.

No longer is this the case. A good or a higher degree is now the deciding factor for social status and the possibility of irrational rejection by the system is thus greater. The student who regards his study as a privilege or a means of social mobility is likely to be very passive towards the system, to assiduously learn what he is told, never questioning its validity. In contrast, the student who takes higher education as a right will respond much more assertively. He will demand his “rights,” adopting a generally critical approach to all he is taught or expected to know. Methods of teaching the content of the courses, the entire system of examinations will all be called into question.

At its base, “student power” means the ability of the students' block to inflict, if necessary, sanctions of sufficient economic, social, or political magnitude to force its opinions to be heeded. At a more operative level, it implies the participation of student in, or the joint participation by students and staff, of the internal authority structure. “Student power” is difficult concept to use, linked as it currently is, to all the other power slogans on the scene. “Student control” might have been more appropriate but it excludes the defensive aspect of the power concept.

There can be little doubt as to the authoritarianism of our education. All staff appointments are made through authoritarian procedures. The same holds true to a certain extent for student selection. And of equal, if not greater, importance, all syllabuses are determined by the staff. There is no inalienable difference between academic staff and students but the authority structure makes it appear so.

The demand for democratic participation must not be reserved for institutions of higher education. It should embrace all socially necessary work. There is a danger that student power might become a conservative force if confined to the campus. The movement must widen its horizons in order to link up with other struggles.

It is essential that the student position be grounded not in the traditional myth of confined academia, but in social reality. It must not, however, descend into the narrow utilitarianism of the public sector. This would be to stultify the intellectual meaning of education. A critical awareness of the social forces behind the “knowledge industry” is needed. The response to problems must not be to retreat into self-deceiving isolationism, but to challenge the actual social forces creating the problems.