The Cheese Grater THE OTHER MAGAZINE OF UCL UNION Issue 37 — Spring 2013
ALL HAIL KING ARTHUR UCL’s new Provost profiled
KNOW URANIUM This and more in our UCLU round-up
THE MCCARTHY ERA
www.cheesegratermagazine.org
THE COSTA
PROGRESS
Mick stamps his authority on UCL
GOLF WARFARE Dispatches from the Crazy Golf World Championships
TOP GUN FAN Interview with NRA head
WILLING TO DIVE FOR YOUR COUNTRY Making a splash in Syria
PANDA SUTRA Saving the species Oscar Webb UCL has entered the initial phases of its £500m “Bloomsbury Masterplan”, management’s strategic plan for the future, and it’s not looking too pretty out there. In September it was made public that UCL management will close the Gower Place Practice next year. The service is nowhere mentioned in the Masterplan. “UCL has informed us that it has no plans to renew our lease when it expires in 2014. It does not wish to provide a space for the NHS practice on the UCL campus”, Dr Clare Elliot, a partner in the practice told us. 15,000 UCL students who use the practice will
Beloved bins to be replaced by world-class coffee shops have to look for a GP elsewhere and the staff at the practice will lose their jobs. This magazine has gained special access to a full draft of the Masterplan document - only the summary is available to the public - and baby, we ain’t seen nothing yet. UCL management’s vision is of a shiny, colourful, airy new campus with open-plan seating, “student-hubs” and coffee bars galore, but the cost of these new developments will be immense. Libraries, lecture theatres, offices, classrooms and labs will be moved, downsized and in some cases lost altogether. The most ambitious project will be the
merging of the main library and the science library. The science library will be moved into the basement of the Wilkins Building. “Releasing and reconfiguring” the building’s basement will apparently create enough space for the entire science collection, believes the Masterplan document. One doesn’t have to be a scientist to realise that the amount of shelf and work space will be reduced considerably. Much of the collection will go into stores, possibly on the new Stratford campus, the plan suggests. Entire departments are to be moved and downsized; academics and students (Cont’d on page four)