The recent flurry of orientation activities on the NUS campus makes it seem like business as usual at the university, but it is not.

This is NUS’s first academic year after being corporatised in April into a not-for-profit university company.

When news of corporatisation was announced in April 2005, many students were very concerned its impact. To allay fears, NUS set up a website on its intranet to provide more information to students.

According to the website, NUS had various reasons for corporatization. The reasons include rapid changes in the global economy, transition into the knowledge-based economy, higher education becoming a global industry, and increasing competition in the higher education landscape.

In addition to setting up a website, NUS held two dialogue sessions with student leaders, one last November and another in February.

The efforts made by NUS to engage students before corporatization is commendable. However, it does not erase the fact that NUS has a track record of dropping bombshells on students, with the most recent being the fee hike last semester.

It is still unclear whether corporate NUS will kick this bad habit. What cannot be denied is that there may well be more opportunities for the university to drop bombshells, since corporatization allows NUS greater autonomy in decision-making, including fee revisions.

Therefore, students might expect some major changes to be announced this academic year even though, to date, corporatization has been a relatively quiet affair.

One foreseeable change is an increase in canteen food prices and hostel fees to commercial prices. A greater proportion of the cost of maintaining the internal bus services could also be passed on to students.

No matter what kind of changes NUS decides on, it would do well to first conduct a proper consultation with students. The consequences of the school’s neglect to consult students on the fee hike last semester should still be fresh in the minds of the NUS administration.

The lesson from the fee hike episode is that students want to be treated as active participants of the university’s decision-making process, and not as an afterthought.

Whether this lesson has been learnt or not, only time will tell. For now, let’s enjoy the peace and quiet on the corporatization front.