Students’ six-month sit-in victory

STUDENTS who ended their occupation of a Glasgow University building after six months said they were thrilled after the institution’s managers agreed to some of their demands.

The sit-in at the Hetherington building is being ended to allow management to convert the former postgraduate club into lecture space.

In return, the university has made a series of concessions, including the creation of a new postgraduate social space in the main academic building; no more cuts to courses or student services; no more compulsory redundancies, and no repercussions for staff or students involved in the protest.

Following a party on Sunday night to celebrate the successful end of the sit-in, the building’s main area yesterday was virtually empty, bar a few students who drifted in and out.

Although occupied continuously since 1 February, there was no apparent sign of vandalism or damage to the building’s interior, though it was filled with the clutter and detritus of student living: books, magazines, cups and plates, and the odd guitar lying around.

Among the tables and chairs, an old leather sofa was pushed against a cream-coloured wall, which, like every other, was plastered with hand-written notices and posters, as well newspaper cuttings, all relating to the protest, political activism generally and direct action.

Propped up on the back of the sofa was a child’s multi-coloured glockenspiel, a bag of plaster of Paris and a machine for producing soap bubbles. Nearby were two megaphones.

The large central bar in the room yesterday remained covered completely with empty beer bottles and glasses – the remains of the victory party.

One of the occupants, Suzanne Ross, 26, spokeswoman for the Free Hetherington Group, said that although the majority of the people present for the decision to end the sit-in had voted for it, a minority had called for the occupation to continue and to push for more concessions.

But Ms Ross, who had been involved in the occupation from the start, said the students were delighted by the extent to which the university had agreed to their demands.

“We’re absolutely just thrilled about this. The six original demands we made when we moved in, we made with the idea of ‘demand the impossible and hope we get somewhere’. We didn’t think we would win all of them, but basically at least some element of each of them has come through.” She added that while they failed to get the university principal Anton Muscatelli to resign, he had been openly criticised by the Scottish Government over cuts to the university and felt that

She said the Hetherington building had become a hub for political activism against the education cuts for both students and non-students, and that though the main focus of the protest had been Glasgow University. This had sent a warning to the city’s other universities that they could not impose cuts on students and expect to get away with it.

It is likely to take several weeks for the students to vacate the building – a planned two-week “Radical Summer School” has been cancelled in favour of cleaning the property, while details such as who will get the substantial library of books donated to the sit-in had yet to be worked out.

But Ms Ross said the occupation had been a “radical school of lectures and workshops” and its end did not mean students were abandoning activism.

“We’ve been talking a lot about how we can keep this network of people going and what we can go on to do afterwards. It’s still an open question but people are really keen that we don’t just let it fall away.”

The occupation has been a tumultuous period for the university’s management, who want to redevelop the building for academic purposes.