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Monday 25 February 2019 Issue 1384 Free
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Postgrad sabb most nominated ever The independent voice of Newcastle
It is the first year the paid role has been made available
Louise Hall Editor
Nominations for sabbatical and part-time officer positions at Newcastle University Student’s Union closed at 11.59pm last Thursday on the 22nd of February. After nominations closed all candidates received a list of those who have nominated themselves for all positions, and it was revealed that there have been ten candidates nominated for NUSU’s brand new postgraduate officer positon.
This is the most nominations a sabbatical role has ever recieved with ten candidates for the role. The closest to this was nine candidates running for President in 2015
Jonny Hall the Education Officer proposed an open debate on the Postgraduate officer at Council in 2018 Image: NUSU
Landlords can now be sued for mould Molly Greeves News Editor
For years, students have been at their landlord’s mercy when it comes to complaints about mould. This is all going to change on March 20th when an update of the Landlord and Tenant Act of 1985 will allow people to take their landlords to court if their home is not up to scratch. According to the charity Shelter, the new law will make mould, dampness, cold temperatures and the appearance of rodents a landlord’s responsibility. Many students have found their landlords to be dismissive of these issues in the past; an anonymous second-year student from Jesmond shared her experi-
ences. “Having a massive amount of mould in my room was terrible.” She told The Courier. “The
The update of the Landlord and Tenant act will allow students to take their landlord to court over mould
room and my clothes smelt damp all the time. I noticed it made me sick after a couple of
weeks... I contacted the estate agents multiple times and they said that there was nothing they could do and that it was probably my fault. I had to treat it myself with a mold spray that they provided. This spray was basically bleach which created an even worse smell.” The chief executive of Shelter, Polly Neate, claims that the new law will give tenants “the power they need to tackle bad conditionswhich is why Shelter campaigned hard for it to be passed as a law”. According to a blog post by the charity, there are “almost one million rented homes with hazards that pose a serious risk to health and safety”, meaning that around 2.5 million people, both students and permanent residents, will benefit from this change in the law.
This is the most nominations a sabbatical role has ever received, the closest being nine nominations for the president role in 2015, when Dominic Fearon ultimately won the role. This is the first year that the position has been made available to students. The postgrad sabb job description on the NUSU website states that the role ‘will focus on PG student issues and ensuring the University act on their concerns and difficulties as well as increasing PG engagement in events and activities at NUSU.’ Jonny Hall, the current Education Officer of NUSU has been overseeing the implementation of this role into the Union’s internal structures. The sabbatical team will now have 7 officers and will be one of the biggest in the Country. Jonny Hall told the Courier: ‘It’s genuinely incredible to see how many nominees we have for the brand new PG Sabb role. Just the quantity alone shows why there was
such an important need for this role to be introduced to the Sabbatical Officer team. Myself and other NUSU staff have been heavily involved in a consultation on PG issues this year, so with that and their own manifesto pledges there should be a lot of projects for the winner to look into once they take office.’ Some have said that the high volume of applicants points to how necessary this role is for postgraduate students, who may have previously felt underrepresented in the Union. Jonny Hall held an open debate on the concept of a post-graduate sabbatical officer at Student Council where he asked the room what they thought the key issues are for postgraduate students are and what the priorities of a post-graduate sabbatical officer should be. While only a small number of the students in the room were actually postgraduate students they generally agreed that the nature of postgraduate study is quite different to undergraduate and therefore students would need different kinds of support in their studies. Jonny Hall stated he believed the role was necessary because Sabbatical officers coming from a Bachelor’s degree ‘don’t have the experience of post academic research students.’ It is interesting to note however that the role of Postgraduate nominations superseded those of quite a few of the other traditional sabbatical roles, with the Athletic Union Officer and the Welfare and Equality officer roles only receiving three nominations each. However, the overall number of nominations for sabbatical roles was significantly higher than last years, with 38 nominations in total in comparison to last year’s 25. Last year a significant amount of candidates also dropped out of the elections in the run up to campaign week- some even during. The ballot percentage was at an extreme low as only 3387 students voted University Students’ Union elections, 2052 down on last year, as the overall turnout proportion dropped from 23% to 13%. Some argued this could be attributed to UCU pension strikes taking place during election week alongside severe weather conditions on campus. All the Part-Time Officer roles have at least one candidate this year, while last year the International Students Officer, Disabilities Officer, Racial Equality Officer and Students with Faith of Belief officer all had to be reopened and elected at a second cross campus ballot in May 2018. Voting will open in the cross-campus NUSU elections from noon on Monday 18th March and any Newcastle University Student is eligible to vote.
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