Student Radicalism

Lawrence Zeegen is our new "Head of School of Communication Design Kingston University", after a 12 year stint at Brighton, doing i think, the same job. We haven't had much contact with him as yet, other than a brief introduction from himself on the first day.
He seems like a nice guy, and after such a long time at what I believe to be another great university for Graphic Design and Illustration, definitely has the experience to make Kingston better still.
Today during my daily scan of "It's Nice That" I spot his name on an article he's written for their weekly discussion...so I read it with a healthy sense of interest. (I'll post a link to it at the end of my ramblings).
To summarise; he's talking about how he feels; "tomorrow’s mavericks and misfits are commencing three years of study knuckling down to the proposition of rowing boats rather then rocking boats". He isn't exactly saying that we are all boring, as being boring and not radical are definitely different; but breaking down boundaries it seems we might not be doing.
Questioning why us students haven't rebelled like in the "civil rights Berkeley student rebellion of 1964, the Parisian student revolt of 1968, the Soweto uprising of 1976, even the poll tax riots of 1990" ; is valid, as I have thought similar things on several occasions, and there is a lot to protest about at the moment. But, in my view these acts were radical and influential at the time, and the same demonstrations now, would provoke a far smaller reaction than was achieved then. Art is about progression and doing new things, rebelling in this manner now is not new and we'd probably all be arrested under the "Counter Terrorism Act" or some bullshit very quickly.
Of course there are new things us students could do, but "in recession-hit UK" no-one is going to care about students who get a six grand a year loan, interest free, when everyone else is scraping round for pennies in the sofa. It would basically cause more harm than good I think. There is plenty of fantastic new work out there, but we are in a saturated design student world with thousands more graduating every year with an art/design related degree than did 20 years ago, making it much more difficult to be spotted. Sieving through the sheep takes longer now than ever and more perseverance is required...I have faith that there is good stuff out there.
I must say at this point I haven't spoken to Lawrence about this in person yet, so I'm trying not to be bitchy and slag off his opinion behind his back.
I just feel that the YBA's he referred to later in his article are also not doing anything radical themselves at the moment. Some of their work came out after the countries finances' were in a similar state to what they are now. There is perhaps something to be said for students working in their comfort zone, I don't know, Mr. Zeegen is in a far better vantage point to see that; but this "world crisis" might prove to be the catalyst needed to kick start some more radical student output. Hopefully when my year graduates we can give him some hope that the new generation of students is still radical at heart.