www.thecourieronline.co.uk Tuesday March 6 2012 Issue 1247 Free
STUDENT UNION ELECTIONS 2012
Combined Five-time Stan Calvert honours students face Champions Exclusive mistreatment pull-out inside
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Diminished access to marks, modules and choice of dissertation topics
By Wills Robinson News Editor Combined Honours students are enduring unjustified discrimination within their course, as schools choose to prioritise single honours students. During the last academic year many students who have chosen to study combined degrees have faced problems of unfair treatment due to their lack of direct association with a single school. This has included being unable to register on certain modules, reduced opportunities to attend course related workshops, failing to be included within distribution lists and not having access to relevant Blackboard information. Other students studying joint courses have received their assessment marks later than those doing single honours, with some exam scripts going missing altogether; causing much distress to those involved. One third-year, studying History and English Literature, who chose Newcastle specifically for the strength of the School of Historical Studies modules looking into American Civil Rights, was told that single honours students took priority over combined students. The email from a senior lecturer read: “I am sorry to hear about your disappointment in not being able to study your first choice module, but as you must appreciate, students studying History as a single honours must have first claim on the available options”.
This particular student was then cautioned against pursing a dissertation on a topic in which they had already shown a vested interest, with the email reading: “It is not the case that you will be debarred from working on Civil Rights. If anything we tend to caution against work across two modules”. This was not the first time the student was left disappointed, having missed out on a first choice module the previous year, even though the application was made only two minutes after the module choice selection opened. Problems of module selection has also arisen in the past, with combined students receiving emails regarding a module briefing just fifteen minutes before it was scheduled to start. There has also been a problem between two different schools when exam papers were misplaced. Five students studying English and Classics received an email with the rest of the students, informing them that they had feedback to collect. However, when they arrived to pick up the marks at both the Historical Studies Office and the English Office, they were unaware as to where the papers where. They were told how they had been lost in the internal postage system. As a result, the students were sent photocopies a week after the rest of the students had received their results, with still no sign of the original transcripts. continued on page 4
Photography: Moises Bedrossian
Union Pres held under spotlight By Helen Lam Online News Editor
Elections “hampered” by decision to rerun The attendance of NUS President Liam Burns to Student Council last week was overshadowed by the heated interrogation of current President Laura Perry over an explanation for the poor promotion of elections. The March student election, which covers both full-time Sabbatical Officers and part-time Officers, originally had the date for when voting was to take place as this week, had the
original deadline for nominations set as 10am on Monday 20 February. However, after the first meeting of Elections Committee it was decided that the deadline would be extended until 10am on the following Wednesday. No official reason has been given, but it is believed to be due to the low number of nominations. continued on page 7