Students occupy contemporary, flexible conference space
Free education protesters occupied Warwick’s newest, most individual conference space on Friday
The Slate, Warwick’s beautiful and marvellous new 650 square metre flat floor venue is currently host to a number of student protesters, enjoying genuinely exclusive use of the lakefront location as they demand that the university opt out of the Teaching Excellence Framework, agree to the six demands of Warwick Anti-Casualisation’s campaign for postgrad teachers, and scrap the injunction against protesting on campus.
The university received a further blow on learning that, as the occupants of the ‘blank canvas’ space, the protesters were entitled to some of Warwick Conferences’s 358 hotel bedrooms at the Scarman and Radcliffe conference centres, as well as wide-ranging sports facilities including gym, pool and sauna.
A Hoar reporter learned from a protester reclining into a hot tub that the space also offers modern, choice-based dining, with seasonable produce expertly cooked on-site by chefs.
“We were expecting more hostility from management, but once we were in the space the staff were too professional to refuse us anything,” the masked individual said. “Since we arrived, they’ve been focused entirely on helping us build a tailor-made protest experience.”
Early reports suggest access to the building was obtained while everyone working in it was distracted performing the ‘mannequin challenge’, incapable of moving to stop the protesters until it was too late.