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.
We will be speaking to the students running to be their college’s chair or president, and finding out more about their campaign.
We kick off by interviewing Roberto Powell, the only person running for Halifax College President.
Powell is a second year PPE student who has worked on the Halifax College Students’ Association (HCSA) since January, as one of the bar officers.
Why are you running?
Participating in the HCSA the past year has led me to be heavily involved in the running of the college. Through working with Sharpy [current HCSA President David Sharp], I've gained a knowledge and understanding of all the work the Chair/President of a college does.
Though it is arduous and a lot of the time thankless work, I see it as a great challenge that I would relish; taking Halifax College forward and improving it for the students that are a part of it.
What do you think is the biggest issue for your college this year?
Currently I believe it is adapting to the loss of our bar and ensuring that our students are compensated adequately with the renovation of JJs into a common room that no member of Halifax would hesitate to use.
This is being done through (hopefully) the installation of Sky and games consoles which would go quite a way to improving it. In the future, when major buildings work is planned I will strive to ensure that our students are consulted throughout the process.
Along with this, I am also concerned with the quality of events provided by Halifax now we have lost the bar. I will be focusing on improving events by exploring all possibilities and not being limited to merely campus venues.
What do you think is the biggest issue for the university this year?
I don't think there is only one prominent issue that needs focus this year but a number of issues that the whole university needs to take a close interest in.
Firstly, the transformation of the Sports Centre, how that has been achieved along with the AU turning into York Sport and charging substantially increased fees to be a member.
Secondly, I am concerned with the recent events concerning more bar closures and Commercial Services' lack of acknowledgment of the importance of student welfare of which a bar is a central tenant.
And thirdly and finally, I am probably most concerned about student safety on and around campus and feel that more needs to be done to protect and reassure students in the face of assaults and attacks around campus.
Halifax students can cast their vote now at http://www.yusu.org/elections/vote
Some impressive answers there.
Having met Roberto a couple of times I reckon he'll be a decent chair.
Just a shame that the influence/reputation of Halifax chairs is practically nil compared to the powerhouses of Derwent, Goodricke etc
Its just shocking how few people are going for Halifax council positions. There are no candidates for male and welfare officer, no equipment officer, no secretary, no bar reps (well I will give them that), only two candidates going for Vice Chair and one didin't turn up to Hustings...... roughly 15 people across 30 positions.
For a college with more than 1000 members that is a bit of a disgrace isn't it?
I agree with #1 that I think Roberto has the potential to be a good president. I think he's very much in the Sharpy mould, meaning that he has an easy rapourt with the other students in the college.
I'd also agree that the influence of Halifax is waning, but I feel this is down in part to the way in which the last couple of Presidents have been disengaged from the running of YUSU.
There is also the ongoing problem with the tendency of YUSU to favour the big 3 "on-campus" colleges; although it was refreshing to see YUSU Ents take them on over the issue of events next term.
As for #2's point I think there have been major issues with the advertising of the elections, in part due to the lack of action by the returning officer, leaving other members of the HCSA to pick up the pieces. Hopefully the by-elections in Spring will fill many of the vacant places.
Will the moderator offer an explanation as to why 5 consecutive comments were removed?
Whichever moderator deleted all those comments should calm down. I would have liked to read them.
#10 & #9, no doubt they violated The Yorker's Comments Policy, which effectively means they're probably the type of comments that could potentially land people in sticky legal trouble and not ones to leave lying around for curious readers.
Sure, but they were all submitted at different times and were removed in one batch. Meaning, they probably weren't all by the same person. What are the odds that they were all so inappropriate? Let us not forget we are talking about elections here, deleting so many comments from a candidate's interview does looks suspicious.
and there we have it.. thank you #12, it was clear something was wrong
and congratulations to the yorker for censoring information about a prospective college chair :/
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i completally agree with #1, roberto has been a key figure on the HCSA for the past year and has always shown true dedication to Halifax College; he has always done far much more than he "has to" especially helping in the past 2 terms when my VPs have become non existant (and i thank him for this).
I beleive that he will make a fine president, and he can count on my continued help and support whilst i am stil around.
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