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.
Papadofragakis issued the following statement: "I am not withdrawing my nomination nor am I even considering to, but I am afraid that I do not have enough time to campaign.
"I am doing a bachelor of engineering degree, I am on a 60 credit term, my 15,000 word dissertation is due next Tuesday, its presentation is on next Friday and in the meantime I have a 1,500 word procedural essay to write and classes to attend.
"Over the last week, I simply did not have the time to campaign nearly as much as any of the other candidates. I have pretty much stopped campaigning since last Friday and I'm now just making it official. I am the only candidate for a sabbatical position who is doing a BEng degree, which I think is quite revealing in itself.
"Nevertheless, I know that many people have already expressed support for my policies and many have already voted for me, so I would like to stress that I am not pulling out under any circumstance.
"I will just strongly encourage all of you to take the time and read all the candidates' policies before you make your choice. Student politics should not be reduced to the level of a publicity contest - student politics should be a clash of ideas. It is up to the students themselves to ensure that by reading everyone's proposals and by choosing the best candidate, not just the one who has the most free time available to spend on campus."
The Yorker contacted Papadofragakis' opponents for comments, but at press time only Lewis Bretts had responded. Bretts said: "I'm really sorry to see that George has had to do this: I've been really pleased to see him running a 'democracy' based campaign. I feel like we've got similar ideas about how YUSU needs to change, and it'll be a shame if those issues drop from the agenda."
And George, I generally agree, although again with the generalisation of BEng/BSc - not all of these students have their deadlines now. Most of my science friends have most exams/deadlines next term, and I have BA friends with deadlines now.
Susie, I agree with you - it is never good to generalise. It is true that not all of BEng/BSc students have their deadlines now. And of course, the problem is not only restricted to us. There is no real dichotomy between BA and BSc/BEng students - there is only a dichotomy between students who have more free time available right now and those who simply don't have any.
The fact that YUSU elections are so time consuming for candidates is an issue that needs to be addressed, as it only serves to severely disadvantage so many students. For someone whose final dissertation deadline is in a few days, it is very very difficult to spend so much time doing all this - even though that person may really want to do it. My friends have indeed helped me a lot with campaigning - this is why I have actually done campaigning, in which I was hardly involved - but you would be surprised by just how much time is needed to organise and coordinate all this. Plus, going around campus and speaking to committees and students is something that I did not really have the chance to do at all.
I am firmly convinced that this process can be improved in various different ways. I have already discussed one previously and in fact, reforming YUSU elections is one my proposed policies. No matter if I win or lose, I would like to see this issue addressed.
I am sorry, but people in this thread are being extreme. ALL Beng students have no time? That's a complete lie. I admit that we have a lot of work, but I still attend weekly debates, I spend at least 3 hours a week with the ISA, I go to the cinema very often, and all this has not been translated in a bad grade.
No offense, but people who complain that they have no life are either not good at organising their time, or do not concentrate properly while studying.
The point remains however, that George does have a lot of contact hours, and other responsibilities (ISA, for one) on top of that, and is thus unable to campaign on campus nine-to-five, which is unfair.
A.
I'm going to try and be brief!
"a science degree is more likely to get you a job, so you don't need the "extra-curricular" stuff on your CV as much"
Agreed, but I for one am not involved with YUSU for my CV. My CV is already a beast from extra-curricular activity and further involvement won't add anything. A good degree would. It's about the students and the university.
"if BScs are so tough, why does Jason Rose have time to... (paraphrased as on previous page)"
Because I do physics late at night, skip lectures to go to committee meetings and write Yorker replies in free minutes. At 5 past I logged on, at 15 past I have a tutorial. I checked facebook, my emails and here. As I have been online for the last 6 years about 8+hours per day, I am used to typing quick replies and am fast at both reading and typing anyway. But some of my Yorker replies are at 4am, etc.
"Blah blah blah workload (paraphrased)"
I for one am not going to say that the workloads are different but they are VARIED. If you're writing an essay, you can choose the time to write it. If you are doing labs, as I was on Tuesday, you have fixed hours. With this case, the dissertation is due in at the worst possible time - if a BA student was in the same boat it would be horrible.
I think that there are many issues here that are not solely "BSc degrees are harder or more work than BA degrees" and the whole thing needs a thorough investigation.
Try finding time if you're a HYMS or health sciences student
It's already been established that the workload she has is one of the main reasons why Kath Mildon dropped out of the running for Sports President as well, which is a great shame, as her policy of making sports at York more fun and more inclusive was a great one.
I hope whoever becomes Sports President adopts it and runs with it. (Please pardon the pun!)
I don't know much about health sciences but HYMS definitely wouldn't be able to. I mean they spend half their time out of York so I don't think it would be feasible... which is why we need to get them involved in other ways - a lot of the time they won't be heard. And, of course, there are other sections that don't get involved too much - members of the ISA and GSA constitute a large part but don't have much YUSU involvement in general, for instance. Worth making sure that the new D&S Officer looks at improving democracy in these areas 
Jason, the GSA have taken it upon ourselves to a large extent to get more involved with YUSU and, to their credit, YUSU has been very receptive.
At the start of this term, Dan Carr, our Acting President at the time, requested that the GSA be allowed to sit on more YUSU Committees.
Since then, this has meant that, for example, Richard Mitchell is sitting on the YUSU Environment and Ethics Committee, and I am sitting on the YUSU Equality, Welfare and Diversity Committee and the YUSU LGBT Committee.
In time, I am sure this will continue to improve, as the GSA has been making great efforts to forge better links with YUSU since Dan Carr became our Acting President in December.
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