The Salient Stay Home Club

Burnout is real babes. We need mental health days! 

If the pandemic taught the world anything, it’s that it’s very possible to work and study from home. Lockdowns and online lecturers, for a lot of us, made getting degrees much easier. Society was starting to realise it wouldn’t collapse if someone works from their bedroom, and not from the office, and finally, a 9-5 could be doable.  

But unfortunately, the ableism and ignorance so core to people in power has sprinkled its way back in. Te Herenga Waka has provided us a great example of this by robbing its students of university-wide dual delivery. As Teddi mentions in their feature, the Disabled Students Association had been urging the university to provide guaranteed dual delivery for years before the pandemic, just for them to give it to us for a measly two years and take it away again. 

Salient has covered the lecture recording debate at Law School since our first issue, when the powers that be took away access to lecture recordings on the basis that a butts-on-seats learning model was more effective. It was met with student uproar—not  surprising that we didn’t take lightly to the study rights we had earned and grown used to being taken away. An NZ Herald article last week reported that this may be about to change, with a review of the faculty-wide policy. 

As a Co-Editor duo made up of a chronically ill gal who did 95% of her degree online, did no readings, and still got As, and a campus addict who loved in-person study and conversation, frothed a good reading about capitalism, and also got As, we both agree this was a fucked decison on the uni’s part. In this boiling climate filled with eight-thousand societal crises, uni should have dual fucking delivery. C’mon John and Nic, it’s the least you can do, you’re already giving us chunky loans a good portion of us will never pay off. 

Let’s do an imagination exercise. Us, Maia and Fran, are now the new world leaders of everything. Get ready for this absolute utopia y’all… four day work weeks, three if you’re naaasty. Only one of those days has to be in person, y’know, for your meetings with your cool boss where you just end up eating chips and gossiping the whole time. 

It would benefit our democracy and our environment too. If we have a five day work week (that, let’s be honest, spills over into our weekend lol), then all we have energy to do on the weekends is sleep and do laundry. If we have a four day work week, we have extra time to engage in our democracy and decision making, to work in our local gardens, to volunteer and contribute to our community. 

Six words: better productivity, better attitudes, less ableism!  

In this issue, Cassia ranks where her insulin pump best fits into her outfits, maintaining her fashion-girly aesthetic with disability supports. Jamie talks to Endo Warriors Aotearoa about endometriosis, and the strides we need to back with diagnosis, research, and support for people with endo. Niamh dives into the discrimination against those with disabilities in many countries immigration policies, including Aotearoa. And Teddi looks at what happens when accessibility supports at university fail in subjects like TESOL. 

In our news section, it’s green eggs and ham at KJ again. Jamie looks at the impact of cuts on the New Zealand School of Music, Zoë breaks down the Greens’ #LandBack policy, and Ethan looks at the contentions raised over VUWSA’s Study Wage for All campaign. In between all this serious journalism, Maia has a bone to pick with The LAB and their falafel wrap. 

Also… have you seen the Barbie movie yet?!?!?

Look after yourself kid, and advocate for your rights and your health. We’ve got your back. 

Arohanui, 

Maia and Fran