Agenda Volume 3 - Methodist Conference

57. The Fruitful Field Project
nature of the student accommodation
market and the profile of overseas
students have changed significantly.
Several commercial providers
now provide high-quality student
accommodation, and several
universities have developed their own
student accommodation services in
order to enhance the quality of the
student experience. The Methodist
Church’s own experiences both
at the University of Roehampton
(through Southlands College) and at
Oxford Brookes University (through
Westminster College) testify to
the advances in the provision of
appropriate student accommodation,
either by universities themselves
or by third party providers and
on commercial terms. Similarly,
the profile of overseas students
has changed. The Management
Committee of MIC reviewed its
activities in this sphere in 2010 and
reported to the Methodist Council:
The world of student needs and
accommodation has changed
beyond recognition in the last
ten to fifteen years. Today, the
foreign student is part of a vast
student market, highly sought
after and very well provided for
by universities and the private
sector and at levels of comfort
and with a range of facilities
beyond that which MIC could
provide. The students at MIC are
from wealthy families and / or
supported by growing economies
in Asia and even parts of Africa.
Therefore the [Management
Committee has] had to face the
fact that the original reasons
for MIC providing student
accommodation support have
now all but disappeared. Such
issues have been at the heart of
the search of the [management
Committee] to discern the Will of
God for this place over the last
few years. 24
Furthermore, the provision of student
accommodation as a separate
activity and on separate sites to the
Church’s own activities which regularly
require residential and conference
accommodation (namely those
learning institutions undertaking
ministerial formation and delivering
other courses) does not allow for a
cross-fertilisation of activities and a
considered use of residential space
on a cross-institutional basis.
215 Consequently it is advisable
to discontinue the provision of
subsidised student accommodation
at MIC, and to continue to develop
the site’s existing successful
activities as a social enterprise hotel.
This will enable MIC to become an
institution which generates an income
to support the wider activities of the
Network, including supporting the
valuable role of the centres within
the Network as places which are
able to provide residential hospitality
24
MC/10/53, “Spirituality of Hospitality: A 21st Century Interpretation of Hilda Porter’s vision”
732 Conference Agenda 2012