Freshers Review Freshers
Your take on Heythrop Freshers Week
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An Election to Remember
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Chloe May talks Aussie Politics
The Volume 4 Issue 1 8th October 2013 theheythroplion.co.uk
Breaking Bad
A review of the hit series - watch out for spoilers!
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Lion
President Leaves Office One Day into Freshers’ Week • Peter O’Neil publicly states: “They Knew What They Were Getting” • No Confidence Vote Passes - Only Two Executive Officers Vote To Keep Him On • Executive Remains Silent on the Reasons Behind the Vote Daniel Tripp Editor-in-Chief Peter O’Neil was removed from his position as President of the Heythrop Students’ Union, after a single day of Freshers’ week. As already reported by the Heythrop Lion on the day of the occurrence, Mr. O’Neil, who rose to the position on the basis of his work as Academic Affairs Officer and being President of the Heythrop Philosophy Society, was subjected to a vote of no confidence by his Union Executive, a grouping of ten elected officers and one appointed officer, which he was not present for. As such, it is unclear at this time whether Mr.
O’Neil was granted right of reply during the meeting, though differing accounts by the Executive and Mr. O’Neil’s side are confusing matters to an extent. Mr. O’Neil has spoken on frequent occasions now of how he did not fight the decision, but has stated that he believed the actions to have possibly been unconstitutional. Previous Vice-President, Alex Hackett, has explained to the Heythrop Lion that the actions of the current executive were, in his opinion, most certainly constitutional. The constitution does indeed state that the President of the Heythrop Students’ Union can be removed by the executive, and Mr. Hackett has claimed that Union Executives have followed the constitu-
tion rightly in this instance. Samuel English, current Vice-President, spoke to us regarding the issue, and stated the following: ‘ ‘The Union Executive have been allowed to speak freely about the reasons for Peter O’Neil’s no-confidence if they so wished. The Exective Officers have up until this point refrained from commenting in order to allow Peter to return to his studies unihibited by the events of recent weeks. The Executive Officers took that decision of their own accord and I would like to commend them for their professionalism thus far. We do intend to release the minutes of the meeting in which the... Continued on Page Three
Heythrop College Invests £500,000 in Staff and Student Facilities Daniel Tripp Editor-in-Chief Heythrop has spent the summer investing heavily in enhancements to the college, including many of great benefit to students. The most prominent improvement has been the Heythrop JCR, or Common Room, which has received a complete makeover, including a fully stocked bar. The old sofas have also been replaced with more modern furnishings and the lighting has been improved. There is now also disabled access to the front half of
the common room, something that many Sabbatical and Union Officers campaigned for, before the start of the summer break. Other improvements have included a refurbishment of the bathroom facilities in the basement to a much more modern standard, a new cooling system in the philosophy and theology libraries, and a remodelled front entrance to college, which has preserved Heythrop’s antique front door, but has added an electric glass door which has provided the college with a more welcoming feel. There has also been a great deal of work in St. Catherine’s House, which has recently been refitted in order
to house new students and guests. The College has now increased its number of available rooms to 109 single study rooms. Fifteen of these rooms are now available with en-suite toilets. Judith Crimmins, Facilities and Services Manager, stated that, ‘We are very grateful to the Maintenance Team who worked very hard to ensure that two of these floors [in the St. Catherine’s Wing] were ready in time for the students moving in at the start of the term.’ It has also been revealed that the cost of these new rooms with be £6,750 for the academic year, which is higher than a room in the standard Alban Halls build-
ing. It was also noted that there has been a 40% increase in Heythrop Students living in Alban Halls compared to last year, a comforting statistic. The total investment, as stated by Martin Grundy, director of finance at Heythrop, has been over half a million pounds, which has been made possible due to donations received from the Society of Jesus. He went on to state that ‘We expect further refurbishment work to take place over the course of the next 12 months as part of a longer term project to improve the quality of facilities on site’. The changes have been well re-
ceived by many current students, and looked upon with poorly hidden envy by alumni. The bar opening event, which took place on Friday 27th September, was a great success, and it was noted by many that amongst the current Heythrop students there was a fair number of ‘students’ attending who were in fact alumni who had come to inspect their old common room. There was also a fine game of table football which took place between the more junior staff of Student Services, which the marketing team won after a nitterly fought contest. Photos of new rooms on Page 3