UOW student appointed to national postgraduate body

Dec 09, 2004

President of the Wollongong University Postgraduate Association (WUPA), Mr Jason Hart, certainly has a busy year ahead of him.

He has just successfully contested the position of Vice-President of the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations (CAPA) at a conference held last week.

Mr Hart will begin his one-year term as Vice-President in January 2005 and is looking forward to addressing a range of issues affecting tertiary education, while continuing to oversee the postgraduate association at the University of Wollongong.

“So much for trying to get back into my law degree!” he joked. “It's going to be a year full of challenges, the main one being the opposing of the Howard government's agenda to implement Voluntary Student Unionism (VSU) which I believe will strip students of their right to democracy.”

Mr Hart said that he also plans to address the issue of “teaching only institutions” and will continue to focus strongly on representing UOW students and the community in his role as President of WUPA.

“WUPA's resource centre continues to provide unique services to the students of UOW. These services include free laser printing and the cheapest photocopying on campus, computers with language translation options for international students and regular immigration seminars. We also represent students in advocacy matters,” he said.

Mr Hart said it would be a rewarding year and that he was happy to be representing UOW at a national level.

“I'm going to continue to fight for what I, and the students, believe in and am looking forward to being able to do this on a larger scale.

I'm going to take the skills and knowledge I have acquired through WUPA and use them to further represent UOW within a national context,” he said.

-RP