As the current Sabbatical Officer the team, we understand and support the continued importance of interrogating the universities current thoughts and practices around critiques, with the goal of creating safe spaces for all students.  Crits are seen as an integral part of the art school experience and have the potential to facilitate great discussions, learning and growth for students. For this reason, it is vital that we are committed to ensuring these spaces, that we’ve seen can be potentially harmful, are regulated and evolve for the better. 

 

As a team, we wanted to thank students for participating, and invaluably informing the research and subsequent paper the SU's Policy Team has produced. 

 

The paper considers some of the existing academic and practitioner-led literature around crits, articulating some of the problems with crits. It also shares the testimonies of students at UAL that Arts SU have collected, to illustrate the lived experiences of marginalised students who have encountered crits. 

 

We are now in the process of presenting the research and our recommendations in university committees and working with the Teaching and Learning Exchange to review how crits are conducted at UAL.

Rachel Williams - Arts SU Education Officer

Read the full report here - Crits and Inclusive Learning at UAL Report