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The Problem with HuStu
16 Comments. As any student will tell you, every hall has its reputation. And as any young lady from Rutland will tell you, some are more salacious than others.
For many in their first year, ‘hall life’ is synonymous with ‘university life’. But it seems wherever you end up, the routine’s the same. A stop at Ocean, Oceana, NG-1 – a Campus 14 if you’re lucky to still have a pulse. Each year, like cattle to the charnel house, a new generation of fresh meat is indoctrinated into this pitifully middle-class tradition. Of course, some people will tell you Fresher’s Week is the best week of their lives. Then again, they’re sort for whom the word “cunt” would be a term of endearment.
However, considering my experience in halls was, like for many others, an unremittingly joyless one, it seems strange to admit that my concerns today are predominantly centred on their social composition.
Hailing from a small, conservative neck of the West-Midlands, I recall embracing the notion of Nottingham as a diverse, internationalised university. What I instead discovered leaves no doubt that some of our halls-of-residence – namely Hugh Stewart and Cripps – serve as sorry examples of how, in an age of putative equality in education, the student body can still be stratified according to socioeconomic status. Translating, of course, to a thinly-disguised form of racial segregation.
Objecting to the current condition of hall life is not simply a case of over-zealous multiculturalism, however – the statistics just don’t add up. According to recent polls, 7% of British teenagers graduate from private education. Oughtn’t we to question, then, why a significant proportion of a single hall is comprised entirely of members of that small, privileged minority?
Again and again, certain ‘problem halls’ seemed to have immunized themselves against the fact of social diversity in an eerie microcosm of the white-flight mentality which plagued Britain ever since the first wave of post-colonial immigration in the 1960s.
Right of access to a hall should not be prohibitive. But this is exactly what appears to have been happening. It’s been suggested that certain beneficiaries of Hugh Stewart Hall have imposed a caveat on their contract which guarantees a 70% quota on private-school entrants. I spoke to older undergraduates and, while none could confirm these rumours, they had indelibly become part of university folklore. “I’ve heard that and it definitely makes sense”, says one third year English student, “The same sorts of students keep turning up each year and most of them are from private schools.” I contacted representatives from the hall and they refused to comment.
These stipulations, if true, would demonstrate a deliberate attempt to circumvent the progress made to diversify the student population. And with a proliferating ethnic minority population, is it really appropriate for two of our halls to be seemingly ‘whitewashed’ and middle-class? The university has reformed the admissions process on the website to make it harder for prospective students to specify their preferred hall, but results appear to have been unforthcoming. One student, who has asked to remain anonymous, informed me: “People find ways to get around it. If you really want to go [to a particular hall], there’s nothing in place to stop you.”
The current state of hall-life bolsters anxieties that leading British universities are still elitist in character, and it is our responsibility, as students, to raise awareness of this in an attempt to combat the prejudices that lie within higher education.
Izzy Scrimshire
Someone upset they didn’t get to be in their hall of choice?
I hadn’t thought of it as a conpsiracy, allthough coming from broadgate to visit Cripps the change is noticeable. I think the catered aspect has a big effect. Lot of international students (quite rightly) don’t seem to want to risk catered food
Is this article a joke?
Could it not just be that Cripps/Hu Stu attract more independantly-schooled students because they look like Eton/Oxbridge etc..? Although I admit that there is a trend, I find it difficult to believe this would be actively enforced by the halls themselves…
Apparently you know nothing about halls… Of course people with a higher income are in the so called ‘best’ halls. They take a gap year, which means they can apply earlier. Frankly you seem to be clutching at straws.
+1 Alex Turner’s comment
good article. The RAHs will be up in arms about this.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150612764253846&set=o.107569332701954&type=1&theater
Haha check out this related meme on cripps…
can somebody point out to me the intrinsic evil in lots of rich people congregating in a few halls? also, bad idea to hang an argument on the hunch of an unidentified third year, aren’t you supposed to be at university, izzy? real arguments, please.
Since last year applicants are unable to apply to a specific hall of residence, so the social makeup of Hu Stu and Cripps this year will be little different to any other hall on campus…
@Jim
Don’t be so sure. Hu Stu and Cripps were very much the rah halls in 2007, which was the year before they brought in individual hall selection.
@2007 Fresher
Sure, I was in Hu Stu in 2008 and it was a bit like that. Although I don’t think it was really as bad as this article suggests – perhaps it had a slightly higher ratio of private/state schooled students than some other halls, but only slightly. I knew plenty of people in Hu Stu (myself included) who weren’t privately schooled or from privileged backgrounds at all.
My point is that the uni has now addressed the problem and nowadays, aside from choosing a room type, you can’t express a preference (unless you have a good reason, ie disability or alumni). I’m happy to be proved wrong, but the article offers nothing more than a student’s opinion to back up the claim that this policy has been ineffective.
@2007 Fresher
Ah, I’ve just realised what you mean – because in 2007 you couldn’t choose a hall either, I’d forgotten that! I think I was the first year who could choose a hall.
The only explanation I can see is that Hugh Stewart and Cripps have a lot of Large Single Study rooms – so if people apply to those rooms you are likely to end up in one of those halls. But then there are also large single studys in other halls, Lincoln and a few others I think?
Some people are very naive. Despite the random hall allocation this year, Hu Stu and Cripps are predominantly still very ‘rah’-ry in comparison to the make-up of other halls.
Are we equating middle-class to white?
As a HuStu resident myself it’s easy to go along with the hypothesis. However, isn’t the fact that halls charge such high fees, much higher than student incomes, something to do with it?
As a fellow Cripp with a working-class background, it was a culture shock having found myself suddenly surrounded by a majority of students with a very privilege background.
However it is pointless complaining about the generic demographic of Hu Stu and Cripps. The real scam is the lack of achievement from students who come from a disadvantaged socio-economic background.
Also tackling the ‘white’ demographic comment. There appears to be a loose correlation between ethnicity and whether the accommodation is catered or self-catered.