Vol XXII - Broadsheet - Issue 2

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The University Observer

OCTOBER 6th 2015 Volume XXIi issue 2 universityobserver.ie

uo RUGBY An insight into Ireland’s progress at the rwc

US AND RUSSIAN RELATIONS TENSIONS ARE HIGH IN THE UN

LGBT TAkE A LOOK INTO IRELAND’S LGBT JOURNEY

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RUAN McGUINNESS p28

DANIEL SINNOTT P4

MICHAEL O’SULLIVAN P8

photo jAMES HEALY

THE CLINTON SCHOOL OF AMERICAN STUDIES

Delayed Student Advice Centre to open within six weeks THE LONG-AWAITED Student Advice Centre, initially promised to be in place by September, will be open within six weeks according to UCD Students’ Union Welfare Officer Clare O’Connor. The Student Advice Centre will be located in ‘The Trap’ in the Old Student Centre, and will have one student advisor in place. According to O’Connor, “We put forward an idea that we would fund a Students’ Union Advice Centre and the University decided that they’d take it on and actually just provide a student advice centre. We were told during the summer it would be here by September, by the time students got back… That was Dominic O’Keefe [Director of Student Services], he told

us it would be here by the time students got back… and then he kind of pushed it back to the end of September.” The Student Advice Centre is now due to open before the start of November. Dominic O’Keefe said that “The plan is to move the pool tables out onto the balcony area. So it’s a win all round.” O’Keefe did not respond to a request from the University Observer to clarify the reasons for the delay. Neither the Student Counselling Service or the current Student Advisors have had any input into the Student Advice Centre. In a statement to the University Observer, Medical Director of the Student Health Service, Dr Sandra Tighe, said that “The Student Counselling service has not had any

UCDSU Launch Consent Campaign UCDSU are set to launch ‘Not Asking For It’, a campus wide campaign this week to promote the conversation about sexual consent. It will be introduced at a reception this Thursday, 8th October, where celebrated author Louise O’Neill will speak to launch the campaign. Representatives from the Rape Crisis Centre and the National Women’s Council of Ireland will also be in attendance. The campaign will run over the course of the academic year. It focuses on three main elements: a poster campaign, a selection of focus groups and a survey on sexual assault. In an official statement released by the Students’ Union, they explained the importance of starting this conversation: “We’re looking to promote a definition of consent as elementally clear, active, adult and unmistakable.” The posters will showcase anonymous stories “where consent was assumed rather than asked.” The idea is that this should prompt people to ask the question of what constitutes consent and what qualifies rape. The focus groups and the survey will contribute to a new sexual assault policy that the Union hopes UCD will adopt. The groups are based on similar formats used in other Universities and direct the conversation to consent. Hazel Beattie, the Postgraduate Officer, says the University has been receptive to their proposals. She notes that “things are beginning to change and I think they are open to change and open to working with us.”

input into the Student Advice Centre.” The addition of the Student Advice Centre has brought the lack of resources for student mental health in UCD sharply into focus. Dr Tighe continued, “For the last number of years the demand for counselling has exceeded the available supply and unfortunately long waiting lists developed. We have taken a number of measures to address this issue including the two intern posts, locum counsellors and providing a subsidy for an external service. The ideal would be to have sufficient resource to meet student need within the in house Counselling Service but this is not possible with current resources.” When questions were raised as

Roisin GuyettNicholson

News Editor

The title of the campaign comes help victims. Beattie says “It’s good to have everyone…know from the book Not Asking for It by Louise O’Neill, about the what supports are out there.” experience of a girl in a small Irish This consent campaign village who deals with damaging follows on from the work societal perceptions after being last year’s Welfare and sexually assaulted. The book is the Equality Officer Maeve second by O’Neill looking at the DeSay began in initiating pressures put on young women. Her Sex Out Loud week. This debut Only Ever Yours was set in replaced Sexual Health and a dystopian world where a young Guidance (SHAG) week last woman’s worth is based solely on year and focused on consent. how attractive she is considered. As a part of UCDSU’s campaign, Louise O’Neill is interviewed in our arts and culture all members of the union will be supplement, OTwo. trained in how to deal with the aftermath of sexual assault and how to

Gráinne Loughran

Editor Poetry and Fiction

to whether one additional student advisor would be sufficient to cope with demand, UCD Students’ Union President, Marcus O’Halloran, said that “The university is probably opening with a single student adviser in anticipation that it’ll take time for word to spread of this new service. I’ve no doubt that should initial demand exceed expectations, there’ll be new hires.” O’Connor said that “I’d imagine so [that the Student Advice Centre will be busy], especially because of the increased demand on the counselling service, you can imagine that there’s going to be a lot of footfall, yeah, heavy traffic.” However, O’Halloran is happy with the progress that has been made. He

continued, “As the SU will be referring many students to the Advice Centre, reporting lines necessary to gauge areas of high demand and demand itself will run between Student Advice Centre staff, SU President, Graduate, Welfare and Education officers and Professor Bairbre Redmond - Dean of Undergraduate Studies.” “Overall, we’re happy UCD is working on our call for a professional service in proximity. We had hoped that the centre would be opened before the start of term but in order to create the correct reporting lines of communication and lines of responsibility, it took longer than expected.”

UCD rise in Times Higher Education Rankings Roisin Guyett-Nicholson

THE TIMES HIGHER EDUCATION (THE) released their world university rankings last week which show a jump for UCD. The university has risen 53 places to 176th in the world, a rank it shares with Eindhoven University in the Netherlands. The recent rankings list 800 universities, their largest compilation yet. UCD recently dropped in the rankings of another standalone organisation, QS. Both ranking systems use different indicators to compile their lists. THE rankings include research output, citations of the university, international outlook, industry income and teaching. One area in which UCD fell down in both lists was staff to student ratio. President Andrew Deeks welcomed the announcement and noted that recent cutbacks had affected UCD’s standing: “What is keeping us back is the deficit in State investment in our universities in comparison with other countries.” He claimed that Ireland needed to look at the European model of investment in third-level “such as the Netherlands, which has 12 universities in the top 200.” Trinity College Dublin (TCD) has fallen in both rankings and now stands at 160th in the world according to THE. This narrows the gap between UCD and TCD to just 16 places. Overall nine Irish universities are included in the most recent THE list with NUI Maynooth and University College Cork between 351 and 400 in the world. This sees a fall from 276 to 300 for UCC in THE’s last rankings. NUI

Galway and the Royal College of Surgeons fared better, with both between 251 and 300. The lowest ranked Irish institution is Dublin Institute of Technology which comes in between 601 and 800 in the world. THE rankings show an improvement for European institutions in general with a greater number of UK, German and Dutch universities in the top 200 than last year. The USA has seen a fall in the number of their institutions in the same quarter with 63 institutions listed this year, compared to 74 in 2015. Despite their fall in THE rankings, UCC has recently been announced as the Sunday Times University of the year. This accolade is based on the “Good University Guide”, published by the Times every year, which focuses on Irish Institutions. This year, Cork Institute of Technology was named IT of the year, with IT Sligo the runner up. UCC President Dr Michael Murphy welcomed the award saying it “recognises UCC’s tradition of independent thinking, exceptional student experience, considerable track record for innovation and particularly our rate of graduate employment. It is also welcome recognition of the hard work of staff, students and all those who contribute to our success.” The Times’ guide is based on both university profiles of success and student experience. It takes into account the amount each institution spends on students combined with student engagement.

Submissions of poetry and fiction from UCD students

otwo p14 & p15

LOUISE O’NEILL an interview with the AUTHOR

EVA GRIFFIN Otwo P17

GRUNGE Fashion

THE LAtest in fashion LUCY COFFEY Otwo P24

WYVERN LINGO

Music editor talks to wyvern lingo AISLING KRAUS Otwo P22

IN Photo: Asking for it by LoUIse O’Neill

september 15th 2015


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