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March for Red October University of Glasgow students join thousands in protest Saturday the 23rd saw more than 20,000 protestors descend on Edinburgh in order to march on Princess Street to demonstrate against cuts to public services. Amongst those in the crowds were representatives from the Student Representative Council. Vice President for Student Support, Fraser Sutherland, told qmunicate that the SRC organised a bus of around 30 protestors from Glasgow, and joined the rest of the marchers, including representatives from the NUS. SRC president Tommy Gore has, despite the council’s partial support of a graduate endowment tax, said at a recent meeting in the University that the proposals in terms of higher education amount to “little more than the privatisation of the sector”. The SRC have been vocal advocates of the recent action proposed by Socialist Workers Party offshoot, the Anti-Cuts Action Network, with Gore appearing as a guest speaker at a meeting organised by the group. They also
lent support to a demonstration on campus the Wednesday before the Edinburgh march. However, senior administrators and academics in universities across the country seem to be in favour of charging graduates for their education in some form. Principal Anton Muscatelli has stated his support for a graduate contribution plan,.. The Scottish government have ruled out the possibility of charging up-front tuition fees to students while in university, a stance also supported by our principal who stated he believed tuition fees to be “against the spirit of Scottish education”. However the other options on the table will not be revealed until the SNP put forward their green paper on the issue this December. The SNP’s delay in putting forward this paper has led to some accusations of shying away from the debate and also serves to ensure that the controversy over the issue of Higher Education in Scotland will rage on for some time to come.
A History Maker... Former writer in residence to give Hillhead Subway a makeover University of Glasgow graduate, writer, and one time provider of decorations for the QM Christmas Ball, Alasdair Gray has revealed that he will be throwing his creative weight behind a project to re-decorate Hillhead Subway station. He and four assistants, will be painting a mural which will be based on an illustration of the area in his novel Old Men in Love. He has said that the initial plan was to expand the drawing out but the project has increased rapidly in size and complexity because his “crazy vanity wants to produce big and impressive things.” Gray would seem to be the ideal candidate to do up the much used station. Not only has he been described as a “creative polymath... a great writer, perhaps the greatest living in this
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archipelago today” but he has also spent most of his creative life in and around the West End of Glasgow, and the area features heavily in many of his novels, including the renowned Lanark and the award winning Poor Things. His latest contribution to the cultural landscape of the West End will add to his already iconic status, with his paintings found in many bars and restaurants, and his status as former writer in residence at the University of Glasgow. The work should illicit great excitement throughout Glasgow as it will be the most public work by a prolific artist often proclaimed to be among Scotland’s greatest. He can often be seen walking around campus, and is easily recognizable as, in his own words, “a fat, spectacled, balding, increasingly old Glasgow pedestrian.” [Liam Hainey]