A group of York students has won the opportunity to have their very own I-phone application developed after winning The App Challenge final, held at the Ron Cooke Hub on Wednesday, January 18.
YUSU Welfare officer Bob Hughes has warned students to be vigilant after a student loans phishing scam has been revealed.
Her Majesty the Queen will be visiting York on Maundy Thursday, 5th April, as part of the 800th anniversary of York’s Charter for the traditional “Royal Maundy” ceremony.
A flood caused by a heating system “failure” forced the university IT services to shut down many essential systems on Sunday night, causing problems for many students on the eve of their exams and assignment due-dates.
Following a Heslington East briefing to staff and students by Vice-Chancellor Brian Cantor and Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Estates Elizabeth Heaps last week, Cantor answered a number of probing questions on the current state and future of the university.
We have no intention to become a big university.
When questioned about a drop in league table positions and a possible link with the Hes East development, Cantor replied: "I don't really accept that we have dropped in the charts to be perfectly honest."
This is despite the fact that over the last 5 years the University of York has dropped from 7th to 16th in The Times Good University Guide, from 6th to 15th in the Guardian University Guide, and from 2nd to 14th in the Daily Telegraph tables.
Cantor also said: "We don't really believe league table charts." He put the change in league table positions to the decision by many newspapers to use the National Student Survey results rather than the government's teaching assessments results last carried out between 1993 and 2000.
The Sunday Times University Guide, one of the few league tables to still include a "Teaching Quality" criterion, backs his claim: The University of York has only dropped 2 places to 8th over the same period.
On the impact on quality of life caused by the amount of time and money spent on the development, Cantor said that the impact is less than if more building work were undertaken on the current campus, labeling the recent works "disruptive".
On the overall development and the growing size of some of the departments, Cantor said that York is a small university both on National and International standards and said: "We have no intention to become a big university." He said the current plans were for the university to grow to a "sustainable size" while remaining a "small, friendly, collegiate university".
It's not that it's got worse necessarily, but in Computer Science at least, they're only just catching up with developments that other universities were starting to teach 3 years ago...
Despite any league tables, York still has an excellent reputation.
Yes, but it depends if those catch ups are good things or not. For example, the ADS module has switched from Ada to Java, but with that switch you lose the advantage of teaching in a language no-one is likely to know, and the Universities that have switched have slammed Java in the past - http://www.regdeveloper.co.uk/2008/01/10/academics_slam_java/
Could be wrong, but surely league tables have to accomodate other universities getting better as well as this one getting worse?
While I understand the need to invest in Hes East, I think that it has caused the university administrators to ignore existing problems that, if not rectified, will extend onto the new campus.
For example, why build more bars and cafés when the ones on Hes West a performing below expectations. Or, why open new departments when the existing departments are crying out for more funding.
no doubt when york were flying high in the tables he was saying - look at us, we are in the top 5 / 10 of the league tables.
you can't dismiss them now just because we are doing (relatively) badly
Cantor is viewing the uni on purely academic terms which only sees part of the picture. Well of course the teachers havent suddenly become rubbish, because in most cases we have the same good teachers that were here 5years or even a decade ago! But the reason why the league tables also measure student satisfaction, is because it is the students and how they feel about their university that determines what its really like to be there, not just the teachers.
I really cant believe Cantor is ignoring our calls to improve existing infrastructure especially with regard to bridges and their maintenance. When our uni fails to take care of the students that are here now and instead focuses solely on Hes East, we deserve a tumble in the league tables! Maybe when we hit the mid-20s in the table he may realize that maybe letting the uni infrastructure steadily decay isnt such a great idea after all!
DC
This article really shows how little he cares about the students. The reason York has dropped is because the students who come here are not happy. It seems to me that it should be incredibly important to make the students happy or we will end up without any!
I think it is a slightly bizarre argument that the inclusion of the National Student Survey explains the difference in positions. Yes, I'm sure it does, but that's no excuse for the drop in positions.
It appears York is let down in terms of student happiness and spend per student, maybe these ought to be addressed instead of being written off.
Isn't the student satisfaction thing a new addition to the league tables? Maybe that explains it...
The Times, where we've dropped to sixteenth, has student satisfaction at about the same as the other top unis. We're far below most on "Services and Faculties Spending" however.
When are the uni going get out in the real world and see the faults this uni has? I love this uni, unlike most of the people I know but I know there's a whole load of stuff that needs addressing in order for us to be in line with other Universities. Maybe Cantor spends too much time in swish hotels to get that.
When the uni was ranked 74th in the world by the QS Times supplement Cantor welcomed the news but now apparently league tables don't matter. What a hypocrite.
League tables are the first port of call for prospective students and the uni's drop in the tables will mean that more able students will be less likely to apply. This is already leading to disaffection amongst academics at the uni an in turn that will mean the quality of teaching and research which cantor clings to will subesequently decline. He needs to stop treating York students like customers and recognise this isn't simply a business. I didn't come here to be sapped of every penny so he can continue to lord it in top range hotels scoffing on vol au vent's and ferrero fucking rocher.
You must log in to submit a comment.
Report