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Cambridge’s Independent Student Newspaper since 1947 No. 814 Friday 21st October 2016 varsity.co.uk
Referendum fever grips Cambridge ● CUSU sets November date for Class Lists referendum Ankur Desai Deputy News Editor A referendum to change CUSU’s stance on abolishing Class Lists will run from the 1st - 3rd November, it has been announced. All students who are members of CUSU will be allowed to vote in the election, presented with the question: “should CUSU campaign to keep the Class Lists, with an easier opt-out process?” It is understood that the ‘Save the Class List’ campaign will become the main campaigning group in support of an opt-out system. A bidding process to become the official group for supporting the ‘No’ option will open shortly. This is the third referendum of the calendar year, following a vote on CUSU’s affiliation to NUS and on the creation of a full-time Disabled Students’ Officer for CUSU. This vote will not formally decide whether the Class Lists will be abolished or not, which will be decided by a vote of the University’s Regent House – comprised of over 5,000 senior academics and staff members – towards the end of Michaelmas term. However, it has been suggested that the referendum held by
CUSU will give an indication to the way students feel about Class Lists, and so could influence the way members of Regent House vote. CUSU initially voted to oppose public display of Class Lists at a council meeting in November last year, where there were 20 votes to zero in favour of abolition, with four abstentions. This came after a petition by ‘Our Grade, Our Choice’, which called for the University to allow students to opt out from the Class Lists based solely on their preference for doing so. This petition was sent to the University, who then backed a review of the usage of Class Lists. However, the move to abolish the Class Lists was opposed by the campaign group ‘Save the Class List’, who created a petition that gained more than the 350 signatures needed to trigger a CUSU referendum. The group supports an opt-out system, as opposed to complete abolition of the Lists. In April, results from the University’s internal consultation on the future of the lists, revealed by a Varsity Freedom of Information request, revealed that none of the stake-holding bodies consulted supported the idea of an opt-out system. Reasons for the lack of support have not been fully laid out, but may relate to extra costs which could be incurred.
● ‘Sex Club’ prepares for Pexit vote Harry Curtis Senior News Editor peterhouse In what seems to be becoming something of a Michaelmas tradition, a Cambridge JCR will be asking its members whether or not they ought to remain affiliated to CUSU later this term. This year it is the turn of Peterhouse’s JCR – the grandiosely named Sexcentenary Club (or, less grandiosely, the ‘Sex Club’ for short) – to decide whether their future lies with or away from the University-wide union, when they vote in a referendum on the matter in Week Four. The referendum, which is scheduled to run between the 28th and 29th October, with a debate to be held on 26th October, comes on the heels of a letter sent to the Sex Club’s Committee in Easter term, claiming that CUSU had “let down Jewish students” in the way they had dealt with the furore over Malia Bouattia’s controversial election to the presidency of the National Union of Students (NUS). Could Peterhouse be heading for the exit?
(JOHN TURNER)
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