thewaterfront the official student newspaper of swansea university
Exposed! The older men preying on female students STUDENTS are being warned to beware internet hook up sites after a Waterfront investigation found that a website intended for students was being targeted by older men. A Waterfront investigator who signed up to the site shagatuni. com was bombarded by frightening messages from older men. One invited her to attend a gangbang, with transport and accommodation provided and a £500 wage at the end “for the party girl”. Becky Grimes, welfare officer,
said: “Websites promoting casual sex can be dangerous, and can put both men and women in vulnerable positions. The most important question is whether or not you really know who you are talking to on the internet,and whether it’s worth putting yourself at risk of serious danger. “As well as this, if you are going to use these websites, practising safe sex is vital due to not knowing anything about your potential new sexual partner’s sexual history.” •See our full report on page 17
DEAN WON’T LET STAFF ‘TANTRUMS’ STOP HIM by Chris Flynn & Josh Lovell
waterfrontci@swansea-union.co.uk THE dean of the new School of Management is unrepentant over controversial changes that have angered both staff and students. Prof Nigel Piercy (pictured) says the reforms brought in by himself and his deputy (and son), Prof Niall Piercy, will improve results and help grow the reputation of the school. But teaching staff say the changes have been made without any consultation and that the atmosphere in the school is now “toxic”. Seven staff have handed in their notice since the changes were introduced. In an interview with The Waterfront, Prof Nigel Piercy said there had been “a few tantrums along the way” but that the reforms were necessary because the school had “a lot of catching up to do”.
“We are not doing what we should do to be part of the global scholarly community, either in terms of teaching and global research,” he said. “We need a situation where a graduate sits in front of a potential employer and the employer has heard of the school and knows what it stands for. We want our graduates to stand out from the crowd. “So what we’ve done is we’ve put in seminars and tutorials on all programmes without option, as they have largely disappeared. There is a much bigger emphasis this year on small group teaching and more contact hours. “There is a guarantee that these seminars will be taught by Swansea staff, not by PHD students, that’s a promise to the students.” But some students are unhappy, complaining that they weren’t consulted on the changes made over the summer.
Economics students claim that the changes have devalued their degree with the shortening of the dissertation to a few thousand word essay. One economics student, who wanted to remain anonymous, said: “On this dissertation module, they’ve kind of told us funding had been cut for it, so we don’t have a dissertation tutor anymore. There’s just someone
who we see as a group of 20 every five weeks at most? Doesn’t really give us much of a chance to get anything from it. “Also, I went to the open day economics talk with my cousin, and they’ve cut down the economics courses offered. There used to be financial economics, economics BSc, economics BA etc and now they’ve just got economics BSc and PPE. “People are quite concerned whether they are trying to push economics out of the department; which would be odd considering economics is one of the things the university isn’t actually too bad at.” Mr Piercy said: “There was a fair amount of discussion mainly at an informal level with student groups. When you read the things people have said, it is chilling. And many of the things we have done hone in very specifically on those comments. “ Turn to page 2
Free Issue 234 2 December 2013 waterfrontonline.co.uk
INSIDE
We meet Gary Numan page 23
Fairy tale desserts
page 26
Photo hunting in London
page 32
page 29