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.
In a fairly uneventful few weeks, new GSA officers have assumed their positions quietly, and the only narrow victory was that of Heather Rowley over Tom Farnhill for the position of Welfare Officer. Rowley took the victory at the first ballot with only 53 votes to Farnhill’s 37, when the threshold is 50 for a first round win.
A post-graduate told the yorker that “this year's group truly represents a clean break and hopefully, fresh ideas”, with only a few previous members seeking a return to their old, or different positions in the GSA.
There is some concern over the apathy of the post-graduates toward the elections, with many students neglecting to engage with the process. It has been suggested that a role of the new executive should be to address this issue, or reconsider the representative role of the GSA with regard to those it represents.
Rui Huang was elected as GSA President, with Heather Rowley as Welfare Officer, Kieran Alden as Academic Affairs Officer and James Cousins, Rich Rhodes and Caroline Fielding as Services, Finance and Campaigns Officers respectively. The post of International Students’ Officer is held by Seemal Asif, with Pip Rackstraw, Lauren Sewell, Kelly Sinclair taking Events, and Shanila Ashraff and Samik Datta taking Sporting Activities. The Communities, Charities and Volunteering Officer is now Xin Zhang, with Senate Rep taken by Andy Suggitt. Matt Glover holds the post of the Chair of Association Council, while Hannah Boast, Louise Redsull, Natasha Khan and Beth Watts sit as the representatives for Gender Equality, Students with Disabilities, Students with Dependents, and PGWTs.
Post-graduate, Dan Horsfall, has confidence in the new committee, but believes that “they must work hard to ensure credibility in the face of what, electorally, can in some cases, be see as a rather weak mandate”. He cites the case of new GSA President, Rui Huang, who collected a “surprisingly comfortable victory, despite not compaigning at all” and “has left many to recall last year's farcical elections”.
Despite such concerns, highlighted especially by other student media, Finance Officer Rich Rhodes spoke up to defend the GSA, telling the yorker that “although there have been questions raised about Rui's election, due to his disqualification last year and his lack of campaigning”, Rhodes believes that this shouldn’t detract from the aspirations and efforts of all the (part-time) “sabbatical and voluntary officers”, who, he is confident, will turn out to be “an excellent set of officers” and work hard to continue the “positive progress” that the GSA has been successful in making over the past year.
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