Issue 8, Semester 1 By Cam Doig Melbourne Law School has two class problems. One: class is invisible to most children of privilege here. Two: some MLS students are doing so well, they’ve decided their classmates don’t need lecture recordings. PROBLEM 1: MLS AND CLASS As one of the last bottlenecks for Melbourne’s elite, it’s only natural that MLS is a petri dish for some of the most privileged and unselfcritical people in the state. Leaving aside overt Toryism and RM Williams-onomics, some students just feel they’re better than the plebs. Understandable. We have our own building, silent study room, and lounge. We spend much of our time elevated from the street level. Many of us will end up at the levers of corporate and political power. In our minds, we already move in circles of influence and esteem. You can see why some well-heeled students can’t put themselves in the place of a mature-age student, working student, parent, carer, or student experiencing hardship. It’s just never crossed their minds that the world might look totally different to some people. All up, there’s three types of well-off MLS students. Type one are aware of their class status. They may do community legal work, try influencing policy, or just try to avoid becoming Julie Bishop, defending companies against asbestos-related illness claims. Type two are old-school reactionaries: young Libs, crypto-fascists in the DM comments section, and culture warriors screaming about hegemonic political correctness. Their view on class is timeless. Type three are the folks who just ignore class. To advocate restricting lecture recordings, they lean on well-worn tropes: there’s nothing structural about unequal access to services, and barriers to basic rights can be overcome through individual endeavour. This demographic is the true obstacle to meaningful change on lecture recordings. If we can show them that there are two sides to this debate – students in need, and students who already have everything they need – we may win them over. PROBLEM 2: RECORDINGS Argument 1: Laziness and participation The MLS website solemnly warns, “Class attendance is an important part of the learning journey at MLS and attending classes should be understood as a serious responsibility.” This infantilising language assumes mounting HECS debt is insufficient to make students acutely aware of their responsibilities. It makes attendance a moral means-test: there shouldn’t be universal access to lecture content, because only some earn it by showing up. The policy’s more enthusiastic cheerleaders in the student cohort assume their classmates just want to laze at home on the couch, alternating between lectures and Netflix. It’s a cynical ploy to justify a microcosm of “incentive-to-work” welfare regimes. It makes the same assumption that everyone could put in the effort, and the only reason not to is laziness. This Hobbesian view of people’s motivations doesn’t consider that some people have other, legitimate demands on their time. Further, the elitist argument that recordings threaten our “strong culture of scholarship, commitment and community” assumes students don’t want to be in at uni, fully engaging in class. It’s a coded appeal to class identity; an attempt to wedge lecture recording advocates by suggesting they don’t care about creating an environment of excellence where students thrive. It posits that withholding recordings has “more or less created one hundred percent attendance”, ignoring what people had to miss out on because they had no choice. It predicts, without evidence, that providing recordings will empty seminars. As Academic Board stated in a 2013 policy outline, “there is little empirical evidence to suggest a negative relationship between lecture capture and diminished lecture attendance.” The argument relies on the resilient intellectual virus that students are consumers, giving us two choices: voting with our feet on the policy by leaving MLS; or grappling with special consideration. Argument 2: Special consideration MLS will only give you recordings in three scenarios, where:
For recordings, you need to miss 11 consecutive business days, or 15 calendar days. You’re already behind by that stage. This remains unacceptable, despite the university’s indication that “in limited circumstances” they’ll make the 11 days cumulative across 3-4 weeks, instead of requiring consecutivity. “Limited circumstances” may indicate a more onerous evidentiary burden on students. Either way, it’s a humiliating exercise of power over voting-age adults, displaying breathtaking contempt for human need. It makes a mockery of the MLS “therapy dog”, showing cosmetic change is easier than trying to meet people’s actual needs. Further, the warning that “[e]vidence must be provided” assumes students are feckless, tech-happy loungers willing to manufacture crises and cheat recordings out from under the university’s nose. They’re treating us like children. But some people in the cohort seem to love that. For ongoing support, it shouldn’t be on students experiencing hardship to bare their problems to the university, and beg for recordings. TIME FOR CLASS The university’s uncritical student partisans must explain why these abstractions are more important than making a publicly funded institution maximally open and welcoming to people experiencing hardship. If they can’t, then the need for accessible education outweighs the niche cultural values of our ivory tower. Will lecture recordings hurt your cohort, more than they will help your classmates who need it? If yes, keep banging the drum for the status quo. If no, start a conversation with the class agnostics. Ask what we can do to help out our class.
Tim
24/4/2018 06:14:11 pm
Cam, this is an excellent piece, particularly on how it acknowledges the intersection of class disparities and consciousness with the lecture recordings issue at MLS. This article should be read by everyone at this law school.
Daniel
24/4/2018 06:27:09 pm
I like this article
Not Daniel
24/4/2018 06:39:48 pm
I dislike this article
Daniel
24/4/2018 06:45:23 pm
Shame about the name
Laura
24/4/2018 06:30:03 pm
Awesome article!
Big fan
24/4/2018 06:40:33 pm
I love you Cameron
ANON
24/4/2018 06:44:58 pm
An additional note on recordings, the recordings that are provided are from one lecturer of the subject so not necessarily from the lecturer of your classes!
Tim
24/4/2018 07:44:26 pm
Good pick up and under emphasised point . Pretty arbitrary when it won't be the lecturer marking your work
Jessica
24/4/2018 06:51:32 pm
This article really resonates with me.
Go team
24/4/2018 07:01:38 pm
Glad that although there seems to be millions of articles on the topic of lecture recording, they're becoming better researched by the day. Well done, Cam!
Jared
24/4/2018 07:18:02 pm
If a majority of the student body is adamant lecture recordings be provided the University should accommodate that request. Students are paying for a service and the University should, to a certain extent, respect what the customers want.
Tim
24/4/2018 07:45:56 pm
Nah it does, pretty much a guarantee you have Liberal party sympathies if youre against recorded lectures
Labor Voter
24/4/2018 08:57:39 pm
I’m in favour of a far more relaxed policy that genuinely recognises need - and the current one doesn’t. But I’m not in favour of universal access to recordings.
Tim
24/4/2018 09:00:58 pm
That's the idea. Making lecture recordings available doesn't imply that they become the dominant learning model. Live shows are better than the album
Labor Voter
24/4/2018 09:41:01 pm
Not convinced. And if the needs of the students can be catered to without running that risk, i'm still in favour of a more relaxed, but not universal policy of access to lecture recordings.
NPJ
25/4/2018 10:08:06 am
As a below the line, conspiracy theorist, piracy party voter, I don't believe Tim's analysis is correct.
Jimi
25/4/2018 10:31:57 am
Jeeeeeez Tim & Nick you guys get real harsh real quick. Your inability to conceive of anyone else's opinion as anything but satanic is probably the reason this article is getting more traction than any of your complaints ever did.
[CENSORED]
25/4/2018 09:09:07 pm
Jimi, you're a young liberal so of course you'd say that
Jimi
26/4/2018 08:00:11 am
*Gasps in horror*
Tim
26/4/2018 09:40:21 am
Jimi, you're right that my comment about liberal voters is hyperbolic and reductive. At the same time, you're aware that there are class and ideological issues underpinning the lecture recordings debate (as Cam is doing a fantastic job of identifying), and that Nick and I have both taken a number of constructive steps that, along with the voices of many other students and the work of student groups, has helped get the issue the awareness it's had at MLS and the beginnings of policy change it's had so far.
You go, Jimi
26/4/2018 11:26:49 am
Jimi was adressing the fact that you were being unpleasant and dismissive of differing views as inherently classist, not for being passionate about student access to lecture recordings.
Tim
28/4/2018 07:48:16 am
My concern with what you've said is that this is a battle that has already been fought and won by the students against the university. Lecture recordings are by default required across the university. The rest of the university is hardly moving to an "online" model either. This is why it isn't "extreme" to want universal lecture recordings access. What is being requested is quite modest - for the law school to adopt what is meant to be mandatory university policy.
Sigh
28/4/2018 09:17:18 am
I didn’t say your proposal was extreme. I simply said the uni has a reasonable interest in not making recordings universally available and that students’ needs can be met through a compromise that works for everyone.
Tim
28/4/2018 10:57:18 am
Why are you commenting anonymously if it is so legitimate and reasonable?
Labor Voter
29/4/2018 08:49:25 pm
I'm just not keen on revealing my voting preferences. If we ever meet at law school and you haven't jumped onto a new bandwagon by then, I'll tell you the same thing to your face and let you figure it out.
Tim
1/5/2018 07:52:59 am
Bandwagon? I've been advocating for lecture recordings since 2015. And we vote the same way.
Clare
24/4/2018 09:08:29 pm
This article is spot on!
Ayman (MULSS)
24/4/2018 10:30:48 pm
Thanks, Cam. Just a note on the inclusion of 'limited circumstances' and whether this suggests a higher evidentiary burden for cumulative absences of 10+ days: the LSS sought clarification from Faculty on this point and understand this to not be the case, by virtue of an amendment made to the subsequent sentence. That is, where a student provides evidence as to the cumulative impact on attendance, they should receive access to the recordings. We trust this to be the case in its application and ask students to consult the Assistant Dean (Teaching & Learning) and/or the LSS if this does not occur.
Anxious Adult Learner
25/4/2018 12:14:37 pm
Anxiety is blind to class.
Lily
26/4/2018 08:56:31 am
Tbh I am kind of sick of the assumptions that come with being against lecture recordings. I’m public schooled, from a lower socio econ background, special consid and against blanket access to lecture recordings. We exist!
Stefan P (LLSN)
26/4/2018 10:12:59 am
We aren’t saying you don’t exist. My reading of this piece is that it is addressing what advocates of lecture recordings see to be the bigggest hurdle (within our student cohort) to access to lecture recordings.
LILY
26/4/2018 01:03:15 pm
I understand the point of the article. Maybe you didn't understand the point of my comment. I've read the statement, I've engaged. In my opinion Francis' article last week raised a lot of interesting points. However again the comments section was reduced to the binary of lower class / upper class with it being assumed that the only students against lecture recordings were upper class liberal voters.
Stefan P (LLSN)
26/4/2018 04:03:56 pm
I understood the point of your comment and I'm sorry that this discussion has left you feeling disenfranchised, no one deserves to feel that way at MLS. As for my advocacy, it comes from a position of my personal experiences of disenfranchisement at MLS. Please don't feel like my comment or advocacy in any way attempts to speak for you or disenfranchise you in any way.
Francis Stagg
26/4/2018 02:06:54 pm
To the “social justice warriors” infuriated by my ‘elitist,’ ‘dumbass’ and quintessentially ‘liberal’ opinion.
peer into this mirror
26/4/2018 04:53:45 pm
https://www.reddit.com/r/iamverysmart/
JS
28/4/2018 02:44:15 pm
One point that seems to always be missing from this debate is the possibility of flexible class times instead? Comments are closed.
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