Transparency within Dundee University; a Virtue or a Vice?

Opinion, by Eva Milne

With the recent birth of The Jute Journal, the absolute necessity of student journalism within Dundee University has become apparent.

Image: Eva Milne

As revealed in the Gillies Report, this institution is one which, in recent years, deems transparency as an annoyance and criticism is avoided at all costs.

DC Thomson and The Courier hold great presence within the wider city, as The Courier’s editor David Clegg noted in Monday’s paper. Clegg put it perfectly;

"journalists must be treated as a vital part of public life- not a threat to be neutralised".

The primary aim of any journalistic practice is to hold those in power to account, to ensure communities can make informed decisions. Dundee University has not had this since Annasach collapsed in 1995 and those in power have gotten far too comfortable with not being held to account.

Most Scottish Universities have a student newspaper, with Glasgow University even having two. It is time for senior management to get used to this because The Jute Journal is not going anywhere. We will continue to report on university events and notices which concern the future of our studies.

Since we founded The Jute in February, former and current senior management members have tried to suppress us. For example, former VP of Education, Blair Grubb told the room at the recent townhall meeting that all information discussed was strictly private and should not be released or reported on.

In another attempt of suppression, in an all staff email today the new acting Chair of Court Dr Iain Mair said:

Dr Iain Mair (Image: Dundee University)

“There is an understandable focus on the need for greater transparency in all that we do.

“Management of an institution of our size and complexity is not best served by the sharing of every document or a running narrative of every discussion that takes place, but our governance will only successfully function if the key decisions are well understood by all”.

In acknowledging the need for transparency, Mair utterly contradicted himself in continuing to promote a culture of secrecy which has led us to the exact situation we are in. How can ‘key decisions be well understood’ if people do not know the facts?

The Jute will continue to deliver the facts throughout this crisis.

We will ask the hard questions which the PR team won’t and track how recovery plan proposals will impact students and staff. This kind of ‘bottom-up’ scrutiny is crucial when ‘top-down’ governance has astronomically failed.

Dundee University needs independent student voices who are willing to ask; whose university is this?