"It is difficult to imagine York students hanging panties from the water tower or painting rude slogans on the Minster walls," wrote The Guardian on 22 October 1965, damning with faint praise the University's first cohort.
However, York was soon to experience its fair share of the unrest, and over the decades, protests, sit-ins and demonstrations have been staged over a wide range of issues from the local - the secret files on students supposedly kept in Heslington Hall - to the international - Vietnam and South Africa.
One of the first confrontations was over catering prices; students objected to paying an all-in-one price for meals in the dining room - a campaign they won. Students also wanted to have more of a say in the running of the University. Forty years ago, this was unheard of; today, it is taken for granted, and York was among the first to accept student representatives on most committees.
 |
 |