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Reflections on the LSS Elections: Is the LSS our 'Peers'?

19/9/2017

 
Vol 12, Issue 9

GEORDIE WILSON

This year’s LSS election has prompted me to think and note upon the LSS election process and student politics more generally.
​

The first interesting thing to note was the style of promises this campaign cycle. The palpable electoral theme this year was accessibility and humility. Promises were made, like pledges to keep the office open, to be friendly, to stop the ‘LSS from being a closed off club’, to be a conduit for students to raise issues rather than acting as gatekeepers.

​
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I think the reason this was such a prominent campaign issue was because of complaints about the LSS within our peer group over the past year. Varying in their fairness, these complaints substantially were about LSS members being arrogant, cliquey, or aloof.

I think these complaints vary in their fairness. On the one hand, over the last year myself and others have indeed experienced a post-victory coldness emanating from a tiny number of people who were friendly, sociable, and ready to extend invitations to fun events in the lead-up to needing votes.

However, on the other hand, I think that it ought to be said that this isn’t the case with most members of the LSS. In fact, the LSS group in my experience is, and has been, one of the least aloof and cliquey of student political bodies I have come across in a half decade of university life.

Perhaps the grumblings that drove the campaign theme should be embraced as the natural and inevitable result of the tense, competitive, type A peer environment that is MLS. People who do well in school often chase law for the tantalizing status seemingly provided by the profession rather than for lucrative reasons. It’s natural then, that a relative social benchmark like the LSS that elevates some peers above the rest of us by granting titles will be met with some scorn.

Still, I think that campaign theme is a bit of a funny  thing to have as the main promise in a political campaign. An open-door policy is one thing, but the kind of intimacy promised from some of the candidates would lead me to believe I’m welcome to set up camp in the LSS office next year and save myself some weeks of rent. Of course, this level of intimacy (even in the less extreme forms that were actually promised by the candidates) isn’t possible.  To be frank (aside from a few explicit portfolios) it’s just not the LSS’s role in our lives.

A lot of the LSS’s value comes through the separation, and perhaps (gasp) elevation of some student peers above the rest of us. Having trustworthy, approachable, and declared representative people working behind the scenes and representing us to outsiders and insiders of this law school is useful. This work is made easier when the LSS can talk, organise, and get on with the job in a separate group and area.

I think also something to be kept in mind is our 2016 president’s parting words about what our social idea of ‘a leader’ is. Certain qualities of personality that are associated with leadership should be examined alongside other personality qualities that can be also effective ones for leadership roles, but just aren’t assumed to be that way. I find this idea compelling, and I encourage all who do to think deeply about the qualities in personality that all our candidates have this year, and resist the urge to satisfice through reference to stereotype or a general social consensus.

Whoever wins, I hope they remember to be humble, kind and welcoming to the first years as Anna was to me in 2016. Many in this school uproot their lives to come here, and a figurehead that sets the tone of the student body in such an excellent manner has immense value to give to people.

Good luck to all the candidates.

​Geordie Wilson is a second-year JD student

More articles like this:
  • Making the LSS More Representative
  • Putting Student Engagement with the LSS in Context (pt 1) and (pt 2)
The rest of this Issue:
  • Does MLS Have a Collusion Problem
  • Reclaiming RU OK Day​
  • Why We're Probably Wrong About Everything that Matters Most
  • Gym Memberships should be Covered by Tuition Fees
  • Negative Comments
Current and future LSS member
19/9/2017 07:25:19 pm

Thank you for writing this article. I have to say I've been shocked by a lot of the angry comments about the LSS, just because I see first hand how hard everyone works and genuinely wants to give the best they can back to the other students- but maybe I'm caught in the bubble too

Either way, we are doing our best and there is always room to improve. I hope next year people feel better about us!

Good Heavens! Those Plebs Want Change!
19/9/2017 07:31:35 pm

Could the author not think of something more interesting to say about the situation confronting law students, and their representative body the LSS, than 'all quiet on the western front....'

The author, quite cleverly, has adopted a tone that is marked by the air of an old English judgment, where the judge pontificates to great lengths, soaring high above the earth to very great heights only to realise that the plebs in the world below have moved on without them.






Ew
19/9/2017 11:45:02 pm

This comment was so smarmy and pretentious it made me squirm

Edward Cranswick
22/9/2017 02:23:12 pm

Amusingly, the commenter's longed-for "more interesting" observations were conspicuous by their absence in her/his reply. One would also do well to note that the Western Front was a rather hairier locale than the MLS - thus Mr. Wilson's quiescence more fitting.

I'm also unsure as to where the "plebs" are supposed to have moved. Nor can I extract any meaning from the statement other than the commenter's self-identification with said group.

LSS Can be Frosty But It's Not Intentional
20/9/2017 01:14:15 am

I don't think the LSS does this more than most student groups, but a lot of student group committees tend to get cliquey.

Considering how hard the LSS members work (and I think they work very hard), members spend a lot of time together in meetings and prepping events. Just like any other committee, this means you get to know each other better than you know most of the people you are serving.

Unless you get militant about it, it's easy for members to forget that 'committee hanging out with each other at events' functions the same as 'being cliquey' when there are non-committee students who come to an event looking for someone else to socialise with. It's totally understandable but it's still a problem.

As for LSS being separate, maybe I didn't understand your point but I don't really agree. Representing and serving student interests is hard but student committees are not Cabinet departments. The primary focus of the Law Student Society is social, and members volunteer to provide all sorts of social activities for law students, in exchange for professional development and a committee of friends. It benefits students to be able to talk to the LSS freely during class hours/lunchtime to get information and (for some) be less alone. If a committee member wants to sit in the office but really isn't up to performing this social role, maybe they should go into a different kind of student group next time.


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  • Home
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