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What’s this EU thing about anyway?

If we're expected to vote, we need to know what it is. And what it's becoming is something we may not initially expect

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Goodbye London Student and ULU

It's a sad time for the student activist moment as ULU and its one-of-a-kind student newspaper, the London Student, is shuttered by University management.

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London Student Newspaper Articles

Queen Mary Students' Union overrules members on sports team merger

By London Student, University of London News

Queen Mary Students’ Union’s Board of Trustees has overruled a vote at its Annual Members’ Meeting to keep the sports teams of the college and its medical school separate.

Members voted in favour of Queen Mary and Barts and The London continuing to compete separately in British Universities and Colleges Sports (BUCS) competitions in February. However, the trustees decided in June that the two will compete as a “single entity” under the name “Queen Mary (Barts and The London Medics)” from 2013/14 onwards.

Their decision follows a BUCS review which decided to prevent medical students competing for both their medical school and parent university.

Keeping the teams at Queen Mary separate would make fielding women’s rugby and basketball teams impossible according to Kayah Abdulmajed, the incoming Mile End sports officer. In the context of the union’s Diversity and Equality Policy, the trustees ruled that this would be unacceptable.

But Andrew Smith, the outgoing vice-president of the Barts and The London Student Association (BLSA), called for a delay on overriding the members’ vote until a “more objective review” took place.

He said keeping the teams separate “preserves the identity and heritage of both institutions.”

Sarah Sawar, the incoming union president, disagreed and supported the trustees’ decision. She said: “We have individuality across the campuses and that is something special, but that does not mean that we are separate.”

Michael Woods, president of Queen Mary’s men’s rugby, told QMessenger: “We fail to understand why BUCS have felt the need to enforce change when we feel there was no problem with the previous system”.

Eleanor Matthews, president of Queen Mary’s women’s rugby, voiced support for the trustees’ decision. She told the newspaper that “the other option would have completely devastated mine and several other sports club.”

Ivy Lim, from Queen Mary’s women’s basketball team, shared this view. She said that had the teams remained separate, “in terms of club development, our good work from the past three years would’ve been in jeopardy”.

Adrian Polglase, London Student: Issue 1 (16/09/2013)

16th September 2013
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Struggle for ULU legacy

By London Student, University of London News

Representatives from London’s students’ unions are at odds with the National Union of Students (NUS) over what should replace the University of London Union (ULU).

Following a University of London Council vote to shut ULU in May, sabbatical officers from unions in London met in July and founded the London Union of Students (LUS). It elected an eleven-member executive committee, with two of those members from unions outside the University of London.

The intention of the LUS’s founders is that, in the likely absence of ULU, it will be a union in the full-blooded sense, with democratically elected full-time officers.

ULU’s press release announcing the new union also said: “It is possible that LUS could lay claim as successor to ULU’s headquarters on Malet Street”.

The NUS held a rival meeting this month, proposing NUS London – an organisation that would be “democratic in nature” but lack full-time officers.

The proposal, made at a meeting of the National Executive Council (NEC), also made no mention of ULU’s headquarters.

A London union source described the NUS’s proposal as “watered down”, suggesting the NUS was reluctant to support a full union because it would be dominated by the left.

Michael Chessum, president of ULU and a member of the LUS’s executive committee, pointed out areas where he disagreed with the NUS plan.

He said: “The relationship between the new pan-London structure and ULU and its building is not yet formally established… There is also not yet a consensus on exactly what kind of presence full-time elected officers should have in the new structure”.

The proposed NUS London body claims to be “politically autonomous” and will act as “a legitimate voice” for London’s students. There will be an attempt to merge the two proposals when the NEC votes on an amendment tomorrow.

Adrian Polglase & James Burley, London Student: Issue 1 (16/09/2013)

16th September 2013
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Funding fears for Australian research

By International News, London Student

It is feared that humanities and social sciences in Australia could lose significant funding following the recent change of federal government.

The Liberal-National Coalition led by former Rhodes scholar Tony Abbott, who recently won the country’s general election, said it would carry out an audit of what it described as “increasingly ridiculous research grants” funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC).

Coalition figures gave four examples of “ridiculous projects, including a Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology study looking into how public art could allow people to adapt to climate change and an ARC project examining the meaning of “I” through the study of 18th and 19th century German existentialists.

The coalition proposed to “reprioritise” A$103m (£60m) of ARC funding to where it is “really needed”. They have also declined to reverse Labor’s A$2.3bn (£1.3bn) cut to higher education.

Academics in the humanities faculty at the University of Adelaide were warned via email not to speak to the media about the cuts.

The email, sent by two heads of school and an executive dean, warned that there was a “very real potential to undermine the faculty’s capacity to attract new students” if the media highlighted the cuts. It continued by saying lower enrolments would “make matters worse”.

The Australian reported that the university denied there would be any course cuts and that in fact new courses would be introduced.

However, several academics claimed proposals for new courses had been declined and that there appeared to be a clear “climate of cutting” in the faculty.

Adrian Polglase, London Student: Issue 1 (16/09/2013)

16th September 2013
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Notes on images

All main Adrian’s Word articles are works of Adrian Polglase with all rights reserved. London Student articles are also works of Adrian Polglase, and sometimes other news reporters on the paper, rights of which are reserved to the writers and the now defunct ULU London Student publication.

Images used on Adrian’s Word are either by Adrian Polglase with all rights reserved, in which case no credit is shown, or Creative Commons images. In these cases, the images are credited in the corner by viewing the full image. The license for these images can be found here. Please note that Creative Commons licenses only apply to images and media on Adrian’s Word not owned by Adrian Polglase, not Adrian’s Word actual and original content.

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