Student Representation
As president of Imperial College Union (ICU) between 1969 and 1970, Corbyn was successful in establishing a sabbatical union president, enabling the elected student leader to be registered at the college without having to study or pay fees (in fact they received a grant from the college and union).
As well as laying the foundations for the future, Corbyn negotiated a retrospective sabbatical for himself, although he appears to have served as union president after completing his studies.
Corbyn set up a short-lived Imperial College Representative Council, seats on which were distributed between members of the college on the basis of their numbers, a system that almost gave students a majority. The ICAUT, a staff union, refused to cooperate with this student-led initiative. Although this particular council did not survive, increased student representation on college boards and committees became, like the sabbatical president, a lasting success of Corbyn's time as ICU president.
Corbyn's dress has been viewed as being a statement against upper-class formality. Corbyn, together with the rector at the time, Lord Penney, received the Queen, when she opened a new administrative building in 1969, wearing a cravat, long hair and a beard for the occasion. During the visit Corbyn petitioned the Queen in front of 900 people, asking for students to be given greater say in the governance of the college.
Read more about this topic: Piers Corbyn
Famous quotes containing the word student:
“The student may read Homer or Æschylus in the Greek without danger of dissipation or luxuriousness, for it implies that he in some measure emulate their heroes, and consecrate morning hours to their pages.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)