#newuni

UPDATE: Participants in LSE Occupation defy management's ultimatum. Please see pictures attached for management's statement dated 31/3/2015 and our response.

Dear Stuart,

We welcome and fully reciprocate your enthusiastic reception of the negotiations and discussions held with delegates from the occupation so far. In particular, we were very pleased to see this enthusiasm matched by actions, in the form of your proposal for formal tripartite discussions at the start of the summer term.

However, we would like to clarify how we feel our contribution to the democratic environment at LSE has worked and can continue to work, and how this relates to our occupation of university space.

To be clear, it goes without saying that the productive and encouraging dialogue that has come out of our occupation so far is an immediate consequence of our bringing direct action and direct democracy to the heart of the university. In the democratic and inclusive environment at LSE, and specifically in any formal discussion prompted by our demands, we believe it is essential that we continue to bring these key elements - direct democracy and direct action - to the table.

We have reached a consensus after extensive discussion that the assurances provided in your letter dated 31st March do not constitute a satisfactory response to our demands. To this end, full consensus has also been reached in the group that the assurances and clarifications listed represent the bare minimum of what the university should already be doing regardless of our ongoing occupation.

We understand that those delegated to negotiate with us have been limited in their capacity to to act more fully on our demands, and we would welcome a broadening of the participation from management at the proposed tripartite meetings, so that those who are able to make the relevant decisions are present.

Finally, we feel that it is important to acknowledge that the demands, concerns, and critiques which have emerged from our current occupation do not and cannot find their resolution in a discussion process alone. To this end, we wish to particularly redirect your attention to our demand for a permanent space for the pursuit of the aims of the Free University of London.

The process which has been initiated in the occupied space has been one of creating, on a prefigurative and propositional basis, a liberated and safe university space, run democratically by students and staff, and independent of the pressures of the market. We hope it is obvious that we cannot continue this process without access to a space along the lines of point 2) of the Liberation section of our demands document.

In this respect we believe it would be a dereliction of duty for us not to maintain an open space, providing opportunities for democratic discussion in the time leading up to the tripartite meeting, as well as opening up additional space for studying and alternative educational workshops, until the proposed discussions take place.

Yours sincerely,

For this one day brief, set by Joe Sheilds himself (@josephmsheilds) , we had to come up with how we would we pre mote smoking if we could. Each team was given a brand of cigarettes or tobacco, we had Golden Virginia. According to my team as Alicia put it, we would "throw a goat off a cliff" … and to some degree this is true. We decided to start off at looking at the obvious, what would everyone else do? First things first smoking is "cool", we thought about using inspiring people smoking cigs. This then changed too taking moments such as the Queens coronation and putting a cigarette in her hand. etc etc. We also then moved onto "Five cigarettes a day keeps the doctor away" and "one of your five a day". However after all of this we could still just think of the bad effects smoking has on us, which now people are fully aware of so know matter how 'cool' or 'healthy' it was people still wouldn't do it. This is then when we thought about playing on the word 'Golden'. After mind mapping a few ideas, such as golden eye- james bond and golden years, we came up with the golden eagle.  Joe showed us the way the birds hunt, by pulling goats off cliffs and then eating them … so we kinda got to this point throw all of above. Long winded I know. We started thinking about platforming and getting this interactive, for example #betheeagle. And being able to upload your own piss take videos of you being the eagle if you smoke Golden Virginia e.g./ Pulling your mate of a table as you kakar and they baa.