Issue 1425 Monday 21st March 2022
Free every week
thecourieronline.co.uk
Easter food around the globe
Students as scapegoats
Find inspiration in three top-tier Easter treat suggestions
The reboot rationale
Food & Drink | page 23
TV | page 26
Misbehaving Kermits or easy targets? Sam Norman discusses Campus Comment | page 6
John Heycock dissects this trend
City Council gives students a say at ‘Shape of the City’ Joseph Caddick - Puzzles sub-editor
The event surveyed student opinion on a range of key issues
S
tudents, Sabbatical Officers and staff from Newcastle University, Northumbria University and Newcastle College met with Newcastle City Council for their Shape of the City event. Taking place on Wednesday 16th March at the Civic Centre, the meeting aimed to discuss how to create a better environment for students living in Newcastle. An important aspect of the event was its collaborative approach; people from different institutions and the Council were encouraged to work together to identify the key issues students faced, and any potential solutions for these. Each group had members from most of these branches, in order to encourage a wider variety of viewpoints.
people from different institutions and the Council were encouraged to work together Lasting three hours, the event was split into a number of different topics, including housing and transport, welfare, employability and climate change. Attendees had to discuss these topics one at a time, raising any issues they could think of. There was then a vote for the students to take part in, with each group putting their issues in and any that students agreed with being upvoted.
Some of the most highly-voted options as part of the student votes included dealing with dishonest landlords, introducing welfare spaces in nightclubs, safer cycling routes and more water fountains being introduced in the city centre. Many more issues were raised for each of the topics, with a large proportion receiving interest from voters. This could have been a methodological issue due to the ability to upvote as many options as possible, rather than being restricted to only a few.
the discussion routinely returned to students’ sense of belonging within Newcastle The final topic concerned citizenship. This is a term that was loosely defined, and a number of people suggested different interpretations of the word, but the key theme was to do with integration. Tensions between students and permanent residents was discussed here. Another issue that was raised regarding this issue was how international students have their attendance monitored, with their VISAs being revoked if they are unable to attend a certain amount of lectures. By the end of this event, each group had covered a broad range of issues within each of the given topics, and there was more time at the end for any uncategorised issues to be raised. Throughout, the discussion was routinely brought back to ensuring students felt a sense of belonging within the city, with the long-term goal of many being comfortable enough to stay beyond the point where they end their studies.
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