PALATINATE The UK and Ireland’s Best Student Publication, 2021
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Thursday 13th October 2022 | No. 853
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Sport interview cricketer Issy Wong
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Profile speak to Sir Anthony Seldon p13
Freshers greeted by chaos
Students stressed and confused by poor organisation • Late campus cards • Mid-week moves • Freps under pressure
Nicole Wu Editor-in-Chief During Freshers’ Week this year, freshers were greeted to Durham with a host of administrative and welfare issues. Confusion regarding the number of freshers arriving in Durham put pressure on a number of college’s Freshers’ Representative Committees (freps) as well as college staff and caterers. The University made the decision to reopen Riverside accommodation on the main site of Hild Bede College less than two weeks before Freshers’ Week began. In a message from the Hild Bede SCR President, freps were told “we’re looking at a potential 160 extra students, and with that, some very significant challenges around how we run the week.” In light of this news, the Hild Bede frep team made the decision to attempt recruiting 10-15 lastminute freps in order to manage the increase in numbers. They were also required to restructure Freshers’ Week in preparation for the entire Caedmon complex to reopen including the bar, hall and dining rooms. Due to increased numbers of students, the University also chose to open other college’s rooms which were intended to be closed for this academic year in order to carry out maintenance. 36 of the 90 rooms in Deerness Block at Van Mildert College were scheduled to be unoccupied but these plans have since been postponed and the rooms have been allocated to incoming students. The University responded: “We made the decision in early September to re-open some accommodation on the Hild Bede Riverside site, in order to ensure that all first-year undergraduate
students who wanted to were able to benefit from living in Collegemanaged accommodation in Durham City, having experienced an exceptionally high demand for University accommodation.” “The Hild Bede college community responded brilliantly to enable the accommodation to be made ready at short notice, and to prepare to welcome additional numbers of freshers to the College.” Upon arrival at Durham, many students experienced administrative issues, including extensive delays for students receiving campus cards. Typically, students are able to collect their campus cards and finish enrolment after move-in day; in many cases it took the whole week this year for freshers to receive their campus cards. This caused stress and confusion amongst students, with one first-year remarking: “I have my first induction lecture on Tuesday and don’t even know how I’ll be able to get into the department building without a campus card.” In an email sent out on Tuesday 27th September, three full days after freshers had moved into college, an email sent to students at Van Mildert College said “We know that many of you are still waiting for your campus cards and we’re working hard to resolve this as quickly as possible with CIS and Student Registry.” Some students were asked to move rooms mid-Freshers’ Week to a completely new college after already moving into a collegeallocated room with all their belongings. A student who was told to move from St Aidan’s College to Van Mildert College described the process as “disorientating” as they felt left out of their corridor’s Continued on Page 3
St Mary’s College freps line the way as freshers make their way to matriculation (Laura Murphy)
Overworked and underpaid: plight of Durham’s Postgraduate Researchers PALATINATE INVESTIGATION Waseem Mohamed News Editor From leading seminars to marking first-year essays, Postgraduate Researchers (PGRs) form the backbone of Durham University’s teaching provision. Even though they face the additional challenge of balancing their teaching duties with a full-time degree, many PGRs are extraordinarily passionate about their work, and without them the University would likely cease to function. However, a recent Palatinate investigation has uncovered a series of issues surrounding the working conditions of PGRs. Over the past few months, several PGRs from a range of
departments have anonymously reached out to the paper to reveal their individual experiences with working conditions, and the consequences this is having on their own wellbeing. Some PGRs reported issues with their contracts, such as the use of casual contracts instead of fixed-term employment contracts - a practice the University said it would review back in 2020. Many PGRs also said that their required workloads means that much of their work often goes unpaid, as their contracted hours do not reflect the time that PGRs actually need to prepare for their teaching duties. PGRs also mentioned a multitude of administrative problems within their
departments. Some PGRs have dealt with their pay being delivered considerably late, and several departments have had problems with communications to PGRs. While there are signs that some improvements to overall working conditions have been made, every PGR who spoke to Palatinate reported large issues with their current employment. A University spokesperson said that Durham values “the work that our PGRs undertake in the University on teaching and related work.” The University says that they are taking steps to improve conditions for PGRs, such as holding a monthly meeting with representatives from the University Continued on Page 4