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Day: 17 February 2017

Exec elections: Low candidate turnout

Written by Jennifer Sterne on . Posted in News.

Standing for the Exec elections closed last Friday at 5pm, with the final number of candidates standing at 48, with all the positions contested.

In 2016’s elections 105 candidates stood for the Exec positions, with 10,169 students voting in the elections, short of the record-breaking 13,500 from 2015.

The Exec Officers of the University of Manchester Students’ Union are the eight full time representatives of students at The University of Manchester. The roles are General Secretary, Education Officer, Women’s Officer, Diversity Officer, Wellbeing Officer, Activities & Development Officer, Campaigns and Citizenship Officer and Community Officer.

The position with the highest number of candidates this year is Diversity, with nine running for the role, while Campaigns and Citizenship only has three candidates standing, the lowest of the eight positions.
The current Exec Team were hailed last year for being the most diverse in Union history. The breakdown of this year’s candidates show that 42 per cent of candidates are white, 10 per cent black or black British and 21 per cent Chinese.

Naa Acquah has held the position of General Secretary for two consecutive years, and therefore is ineligible to run again, and seven students have put themselves forward to replace her.

Events will be happening across campus in the run-up to the elections to get as many people involved in the election activity — if you are interested in setting up your own event the Students’ Union urge you to get in touch with your society co-ordinator.

A spokesperson for the Students’ Union told The Mancunion: “We’re pleased with the number of candidates standing this year and we look forward to seeing them out and about engaging with students finding out their needs and wants.

“These elections are at the heart of why we as a union exist and look forward to what the candidates will bring”.

They also stressed the importance those who are elected will play “in the development of the new Students’ Union building. This is the first time the building has undergone such a major investment since 1957 — your vote in deciding this team will be crucial to the future Union’s development”.

Finally, they add that “whilst recognising that numbers were lower than the unprecedented numbers last year, the group overseeing the elections this year have heavily invested in raising potential candidates’ awareness of the different roles on the University of Manchester’s Students Union’s Executive team, and their key role in representing student views to the university”.

To see whose running visit the University of Manchester Students’ Union website: manchesterstudentsunion.com.

Voting opens on 3rd of March at 12:00pm and runs until the 9th of March 5:00pm, with the results being announced that evening.

Bristol student accidentally synthesises dangerous explosive

Written by Charlie Spargo on . Posted in News.

The University of Bristol was forced to evacuate a Chemistry building earlier this month, after a student inadvertently produced a dangerous explosive.

A statement by the university revealed that the chemical triacetone triperoxide, TATP, “was unintentionally formed during a routine procedure” being conducted by a Ph.D. student on 3rd of February.

The building was evacuated, and emergency services were called to the laboratory and carried out a controlled destruction of the substance.

TATP was the same substance used in the Paris attacks that took place in November 2015. It is easy to avoid detection as it does not contain hydrogen, but is also highly unstable.

Often, the illegal premises where bombs are being made are destroyed when it detonates early.

“Following a full investigation, we can confirm that the chemical triacetone triperoxide (TATP) was unintentionally formed during a routine procedure carried out by a Ph.D. student,” the university’s statement said.

“The student was following a published literature method and the risk of TATP as a potential byproduct had been identified during the risk assessment process.

“We have robust contingency plans in place to deal with incidents of this nature. As soon as the presence of TATP was identified, the student immediately notified those responsible for laboratory safety in the school.

“A series of actions were then taken which resulted in the precautionary evacuation of the chemistry building and surrounding buildings and the controlled disposal of the substance by the emergency services.”

They will review the risk assessment process to see if further steps can be taken to prevent a similar situation in future.

Woman found ‘bleeding heavily’ in Manchester’s Arndale Centre

Written by Yasmin Mannan on . Posted in News.

A 30-year-old woman has been hospitalised after being found seriously injured in in Arndale shopping centre on Friday morning.

According to The Manchester Evening News, an ambulance and police were called to the Arndale at approximately 8.45am and the woman was taken to North Manchester General Hospital.

Customers reported that the area around Topshop had been cordoned off while emergency services attended to the woman.

The casualty had apparently suffered severe cuts to her wrists and was bleeding heavily.

A spokesperson from the Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said “We were called to a shop on Market Street at 8.45am to concerns for a women’s health.

“We discovered a woman bleeding heavily from her wrists and she was handed into the care of the ambulance service.”

North West Ambulance Service (NWAS) further stated that: “We sent a rapid response vehicle and an ambulance to the scene and a woman in her 30s was conveyed to North Manchester General Hospital.”

David Allinson, Centre Director for Manchester Arndale, told The Manchester Evening News:

“We can confirm ambulance services attended the centre this morning. The safety of all involved and our shoppers and staff remains our first priority.”

Reporters at The Manchester Evening News discovered that both Arndale and GMP received tweets from concerned customers:

Tommy Jack posted: “@GMPCityCentre any update on what happened this morning in the Arndale? Is she at least ok?”

Lydia Titterington wrote: “@manarndale what’s happened in @Topman…. no one is allowed to walk past the store.”

The Arndale replied: “Our team dealt with an incident in that area early this morning, and the area has now been reopened for shoppers.”

International students’ English “inadequate”, say a third of academics

Written by Charlie Spargo on . Posted in News.

A study by Times Higher Education of over 1,000 Higher Education staff has shown that academics have serious concerns about the readiness and ability of most students at their institutions.

According to the THE Teaching Survey 2017, one-third of academics believe that international students’ English is not adequate, and less than a quarter believe that students are in any way well prepared for classes.

The survey, which collated feedback from 1,150 academic staff from universities across Britain but also a few from the USA, Asia, Europe, Canada and Australia, heard that the vast majority of academics still enjoy and feel the benefit of lecturing, despite expressing concern about slipping standards of assessment, bureaucracy, and limited time to prepare their teaching.

A senior lecturer at an English university told the survey “few students will read the material on the reading list, [relying] instead solely on lecture handouts or PowerPoint slides”, while 52 per cent of academics said they knew students were turning up to seminars without preparation.

“We were told we are not allowed to ‘draw attention to’ those students who turn up to seminars having done no preparation whatsoever because it might deter them from attending future seminars,” said another, “and then the Key Information Set data for student attendance would be adversely affected.”

For almost half of academics (48 per cent), students’ schooling does not prepare them sufficiently for university, while one lecturer blames falling entry requirements for the high number of “almost illiterate” students who arrive.

9 per cent of academic staff “strongly disagree” that international students display the adequate level of English, with one lecturer telling the survey they did not understand “how some [postgraduate] students got their first degrees, as the quality of their written English is really poor.”

Academics lament the move away from the focus on teaching quality at their institutions, with 47 per cent of respondents not agreeing that good teaching can lead to opportunities for promotion. The focus instead on results and targets disappoints them — three-quarters of academics think that the Teaching Excellence Framework being introduced at UK universities will inaccurately assess teaching quality, while 43 per cent think the NSS gives students too much power.

“It seems that institutions are doing lots of evaluation, but they are not using these evaluations to promote people,” says Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute.

Women in Media Conference 2017

Written by Jennifer Sterne on . Posted in Features.

At the end of last year’s Women in Media Conference, I received a message from one of the delegates. She wrote to tell me: “I only recently started being honest to myself about my interest in getting into journalism… I used to play it down and hide behind by lack of confidence.”

However she went on to tell me how “being around likeminded people really has made me more confident”.

It was after reading this message that I decided that the conference could not be a one-off. Building the confidence of female students considering a career in the media is exactly why the conference was born, and even if we had succeeded in boosting the confidence of just one delegate, it was worth the energy.

More women than ever are entering into the media: 65 per cent of journalists entering the profession over the past three years have been women, and our own Mancunion editorial team has more women on it than ever before, so it may seem from this fact alone that our work is done. Women have the confidence now to not see their gender as an initial exclusionary barrier to entering the media.

The keyword here, though, is ‘initial’. While at the lowest levels women now outnumber men, they are still on average paid significantly less than their male counterparts and only 22 per cent of female journalists are in senior management positions.

With the large numbers of female journalists coming through the ranks, the next generation could potentially see these figures toppled. However, it is because of this that events such as Women in Media Conference 2017 are so important — with real change on the horizon, it is not the time to be complacent.

Until those in the lower echelons of the media are encouraged to realise that the current statistics do not represent how the media should look, and as long as they are not introduced to role models who have reached the level they aspire to, then many may not be able to imagine that this could change.

While teaching a class of Year 9s last year, one told me simply that journalism was not a job for women — we need to make it easier to prove to this 13-year-old and many more around the world how wrong this is, and to do this we need more visible role models in senior levels of the media.

The only way of doing this is working from the bottom up — ensuring that women entering the media are doing so with an unflinching drive and determination to reach the top, and the belief that they will not be held back.

Ultimately, the conference aims to celebrate the incredible successes women have had within the media, to ensure that people are inspired and not deterred by discussing the obstacles or difficulties they may face. Our speakers will be living proof that our position within the media has vastly improved — the statistics may still be far from perfect, but instead of dwelling on the negatives, let’s highlight how far we have come to ensure that it keeps improving.

Last year’s conference was incredible, with over 70 delegates attending from all over the country to listen and learn from some of the very best women in the media.

This year it is only going to get better.

Our venue for Women in Media 2017, the People’s History Museum in Manchester City Centre, could not be more perfect, as the museum’s championing of “ideas worth fighting for” perfectly encapsulates the motivation behind the conference. What began as a realisation that less women, even at a student level, were embarking on careers in the media then turned into a few speakers coming to encourage our team, which then became a national conference, now supported by Amnesty International UK and the NUS. For us, it is clear that our ideas were definitely worth fighting for.

Guest speakers for this year’s conference include: Harriet Minter, the BBC’s Shelley Alexander, Kate Cocker, Nazia Parveen from The Guardian, Youtuber Grace Victory, BBC Breakfast’s Steph McGovern, Megan Lucero, Sue Turton, Channel 4’s Karthi Gnanasegaram and we even have our very own Polly Bartlett, one of last year’s co-founders, returning to speak about having ‘just made it in the media’.

The conference will include a diverse range of panel discussions with speakers from BAME and LGBTQ+ communities, and a talk on entering the media from a working class background. Alongside these we will have workshops on data journalism, developing ideas, getting into documentaries, and Q&A sessions on sports journalism, political reporting and a special Amnesty International panel ‘Journalism Under Threat’, where Sue Turton will discuss her experiences as one of the Al Jazeera journalists convicted by an Egyptian court on terrorism charges.

Students and young women from around the UK will get the opportunity to hear about and learn from these inspiring and successful women in media, as well as the chance to network and take part in this pioneering event. These speakers are just a few examples of what the conference has to offer, and there are still some very exciting announcements to be made.

Hareem Ghani, the NUS Women’s Officer, said about this year’s conference: “We know that women and their skills are under-represented at all levels of the media industry, which is why it’s so amazing to see what started as a small group of student journalists become such a ground breaking event.

“Hosting high profile inspirational speakers from journalism, TV, radio and blogging, the day allows young women thinking about careers in media to gain key skills and leave feeling empowered about their future.”

The conference will be held at the People’s History Museum in Manchester on the 4–5th of March 2017.

To see the full timetable so far visit our website at womeninmediacon.co.uk and join our Facebook event, and follow us on Twitter @womeninmediacon for all the updates about the conference.

Weekend and individual day tickets, at student-friendly prices, are still available on our website.

A student life: UOM Board Games Society

Written by Emma Shanks on . Posted in Features.

Picture this: Tuesday night, 8pm, Woolton Hall dining room, Owens Park. 20 to 30 students gather for a non-stop night of entertainment — and no, this is no boozy pre-drinks, this is the University of Manchester Board Games Society weekly meet-up, and I caught up with Jon Bebb, its Social Sec, to find out more.

“Once all the students who’ve eaten have been cleared out we just hang around for hours playing anything that takes our fancy from the massive collection of games.” He describes it as a place to relive the simpler old-time party classics, like Codenames, as well as an opportunity to discover a range of newer more complicated material, like The Game of Thrones board game (which takes 8 hours on average to complete).

“Sometimes people will turn up to play and not leave till about 3’o clock in the morning. The latest we’ve had was when a few guys were playing a game about shipping and stayed until the following morning when the kitchen staff were coming in to arrange breakfast for the next day.”

Jon is quick to emphasise how much of a casual environment the society seeks to create, something that appealed to him back when he joined two years ago. “A lot of people are a bit worried because they come and might have only previously played games like Monopoly, which we don’t play by the way because it’s not a good game —  hard to say that without sounding like an elitist twat — but we always try to be accommodating and we always make sure to thoroughly explain things.”

“I know when I first turned up I’d never played, or even heard of any of these games, but everyone was so welcoming and happy to explain things. I never felt as if people were looking down on me for not being familiar with stuff.”

When asked how he first got into the UOM Board Games Society back in his third year as an undergraduate, Jon told me that he had just been looking to get out and do something “a bit different. I was following certain people on the Internet who were talking about video gaming but who were also into board games, so I thought if there’s a society I’ll just turn up. Then I started getting so into it to the point where everyone kind of knew me and I felt obliged to take over”.

Though these days university funding is not given out based on membership, the society has over 600 affiliates on their Facebook page, from which a solid 20 to 30 are regular attendees — “this year I’ve tried to really push the idea that people can turn up whenever they want to make it more of a casual thing”.

The society has little interest for introducing tournaments into their program, and though there is certainly a feeling of competitiveness from time to time, “it never feels hostile, it’s more just a bit of fun between friends. There are plenty of other societies out there who do that rivalry stuff, so I don’t think we need to do”.

While the UOM Board Games Society is not big on socials, it does occasionally hold special holiday events of weekend-long board gaming marathons, starting at 10am and continuing into the early hours of the morning.

When asked if Jon had ever considered incorporating drinking alcohol into the society’s setting, he said: “I’ve always thought that playing board games is a good place for people who don’t drink, because that’s getting more common these days, and it’s nice to be inclusive.”

“While it’s always nice to have a small group of people who know each other and a given activity very well, if you want to actually grow as a society, you’ve got to make sure that you’re trying to appeal to as many different people as possible.”

Take for example his experience a few months ago at the Freshers’ Fair — “I found that it was very easy to profile people as they were walking past, according to the sort of person who looked like they might play board games (you can guess what I had in mind – white nerdy guy), so you have to be careful of that.”

As for funding, the society does not charge for entry. The Students’ Union usually allocate them the few hundred requested each year — “we don’t ask for much compared to other societies since we use the hall for free. All our money just goes to buying games and a few other minor things, like when we had our banner stolen last year and we had to buy a new one — that was annoying.”

The UOM Board Games society is open to everyone, whether you are an enthusiast or complete beginner so head on over to the next session and give it a go.

For more information, follow them on Facebook or Twitter.

Where from: “A small rural town called Taunton, Somerset — not a lot happens there, but I’m sure they’re proud of me.”

Course: PhD student in Philosophy

Balance between work and study: “It’s not a huge commitment actually, which is something that I’ve quite liked about doing it. We have quite a nice little deal with the people who run Woolton Hall, where they just let us use it, as long as we don’t completely trash the place, so the events just organise themselves. It’s on the same day every week, so it’s not like we need to plan anything. It’s pretty easy really, in that it doesn’t take up too much of my time, and it’s actually nice having that one day of the week when you know that you don’t have to work as hard as usual.”

Where he sees himself in 15 years: “Currently I’m pursuing the academic line, hence the PhD, so we’ll see where that takes me, but anything could happen right?”

Swastika and ‘Rights for Whites’ graffiti at Exeter University

Written by Iona Taylor on . Posted in News.

Exeter University has come under recent scrutiny after a swastika and ‘Rights for Whites’ sign were found graffitied in a halls of residence.

The swastika was carved on the doors of the campus hall, Birks Grange, and has since been removed.

This comes after the criticism of an Exeter Fresher’s Week sports social that included T-shirts emblazoned with handwritten racist slogans including the words “the Holocaust was a good time”.

The University of Exeter’s spokesperson has responded, saying that: “The university believes any form of racist or discriminatory behaviour is unacceptable and the actions of those involved are in contrast to the vast majority of students, who help to build our tolerant and inclusive university community.”

One student from Birks Grange described the “confusion” over the offensive images, pointing out that the swastika carved was slightly obscured and may have been there for some time. Upon noticing the sign, the university immediately conducted interviews of each member of the corridor in an attempt to find the culprit but have, as of yet, been unsuccessful.

This has come at a time where many of the leading Russell Group Universities are facing allegations of on-campus racism, leading to questions regarding the anti-Semitic nature of Britain’s universities. Baroness Deech, former senior proctor at Oxford University, has warned that Britain’s top universities are becoming no-go zones zones for Jewish students.

According to Baroness Deech, “amongst Jewish students, there is gradually a feeling that there are certain universities that you should avoid”, and she continued to include both University of Manchester and Exeter in her list. These comments have been contentious however, with the Union of Jewish Students arguing that the “UJS rejects the notion that there are ‘certain universities that you [Jewish students] should avoid”.

Whilst they acknowledge that there has been a recent spike in anti-Semitism in universities, they deny the claims of Baroness Deech “fully portray the experiences of Jewish students. It does a disservice to the thousands who are able to freely express their Jewish identities in whichever way they choose”.

Nonetheless, this comes at a time where UK Universities are facing a definite increase in anti-Semitic behaviour. The police were called to UCL after a group of Jewish students were barricaded in a room in the heat of an anti-Israel rally — they were told it would be unsafe for them to leave the room alone, and were forced to wait for the police to escort them across campus.

The University of Cambridge has seen the distribution of leaflets that have denied the occurrence of the Holocaust.

The Community Security Trust recently reported figures showing that anti-Semitic attacks against students or professors have doubled in 2016 in comparison to 2015.

Danny Boyle to help set up MMU’s brand new media school

Written by Elise Gallagher on . Posted in News.

With the help of Bury-born director Danny Boyle, Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) is set to launch a brand new £30m media school.

Boyle, responsible for Oscar winners such as Trainspotting and Slumdog Millionaire, and the visionary behind the 2012 Olympic opening ceremonies, hopes the new school will encourage and enable home grown talent to make their mark in the industry.

The school expects to welcome 1,000 students per academic year, whilst working closely with existing media and arts institutions Manchester already can boast about, including: BBC, HOME, ITV, and Red Productions. It is predicted that the venture will accumulate a £13m boost for the local economy annually.

The International Screen School Manchester (ISSM) will provide courses in film, applied games, animation, sound design and special effects for screen, user experience design and immersive media content production.

Industry heavyweights from film, media and commerce have apparently already agreed to be a part of the school’s Industry Advisory Board which will be co-chaired by Boyle.

Speaking to The Manchester Evening News, Boyle said he was delighted to be a part of the International Screen School Manchester: “Manchester is a prolific centre of media production already and the Screen School will create the talent needed in the North to create even more success.

“I’m really keen to see young people from all backgrounds given the opportunity to learn to be the filmmakers and media producers of the future, and to have the opportunity to tell their own stories — but in ways that we’ve never experienced before.”

Though the funding decision is expected to be signed off next week, it is believed that the media school will be half-funded by MMU whilst the other remaining half will be covered by a pot of government money intended to boost the economy.

If agreed at a meeting next week, work will begin to develop the project on a site on Manchester’s Oxford Road.

Manchester council leader Sir Richard Leese told The Manchester Evening News: “The International Screen School Manchester will be a creative and digital skills powerhouse, supporting the creative and digital industries to secure the skills needed to drive innovation, growth, and transformation.”

Creative and industrial industries are one of the fastest-growing sectors in the region, with the industry growing faster than anywhere in the UK. Leese went on to say, “Manchester is Europe’s second largest creative, digital and media hub and the sector is growing faster than anywhere else in the UK.”

It is reported that the creative and digital industries are one of the fastest growing sectors in the Greater Manchester economy, accounting for over 55,000 jobs which in turn generates around £3 billion a year.

The Screen School will be a part of MMU’s world-leading School of Art.

Lecturers divided on the NSS boycott

Written by Rosa Simonet on . Posted in News.

The National Student Survey (NSS) is being used as part of the government ranking system, the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF), introduced this year. In response, the survey, now widely associated with the rise of tuition fees, has been met with nationwide boycotts and criticism.

The boycotts and campaigns, coordinated by the NUS, have encouraged students to ‘opt-out’ of the survey. According to the Union, if enough students boycott, the survey will become invaluable and the TEF unworkable.

The Students’ Union at the University of Manchester have been using their own #DontFillItIn initiative in support of the boycott. Their campaign includes a video, lecture shoutouts, banners and a blog created by Emma Atkins, Education officer. The blog not only addresses the questions and concerns about the boycott but also advertises the alternative Manchester Student Survey.

This week, concerns the University of Manchester have been pressuring various departments to oppose the boycott have been raised.

When asked, departments across the University of Manchester provided differing opinions on the NSS.
Many, including Arthur Garforth, Head of Teaching within Chemical Engineering, and Julie-Marie Strange, Head of History, have not taken clear positions on the survey but have encouraged students to make informed decisions.

However, Strange adds, unlike previous years, she has not “offered any incentives (e.g. iPad draw) to fill it”. Garforth, on the other hand, states “the dilemma for me is that we welcome all sources of feedback and act accordingly to develop future School and T&L Action Plans, so I will always be disappointed if NSS feedback is impacted on”.

In response to the original concerns, Richard Winpenny, Head of Chemistry, believed departments had not been pressured by the university but argued “the NSS is very important as it provides useful information to sixth-form students when they chose their university courses. As fees rise, it is ever more important students are as well informed as possible when they make choices”.

A spokesman from the university claimed  “the National Student Survey is an important way for the University to learn what it needs to do to ensure that Manchester students have the best possible experience while studying with us.  As a result, we encourage all eligible students to complete the survey”.

In strong support of the boycott, however, the English department, represented by Noelle Gallagher, have stated they “believe that the NSS does not provide an accurate or reliable means of measuring the quality of university education, and we object to the use of NSS scores as a means of evaluating teaching and assessing student fees”.

The range of responses has been said to indicate a lack of trust in the TEF amongst staff, who still wish to have some form of feedback structure still in place. Emma Atkins states, a recent unpublished survey, conducted at the University of Manchester, revealed an “unsatisfied picture” of staff with the TEF.

Instagram: The pros and cons

Written by Georgia Welch on . Posted in Arts.

In 2017 you would be hard-pressed to find someone who does not use, or at least is not aware of, Instagram.

The much-loved photo-sharing app was first launched in 2010 and later bought by Facebook in 2012. Since its inception, approximately 20 billion photos have been uploaded, with 90 per cent of users falling into an age bracket of under 35 years old.

With these figures in mind, it is clear that Instagram  has an enormous presence in the social media sphere of young people, so unsurprisingly it has garnered endless amounts of praise and criticism alike in its seven year existence.

Some have argued that Instagram detracts from the artistry of photography as a craft, to some extent, suggesting that the idea that anyone can easily take and showcase their own photos contributes to mediocrity in the field and also reduces the impact of truly great photography.

Naturally, of course, this calls into question what actually constitutes ‘good’ photography, seeing as though the art form is so inherently subjective and relies heavily on knowledge of both the photographer intention and the viewer’s perception, as well as the technical aspects of successful photography which tend to be learned or acquired in the study of photography as a medium.

Whilst Instagram may promote the art photography as  accessible for any young mobile phone user, why is this necessarily a bad thing? In the increasingly visual and technology-based culture we inhabit, the documentation and communication of one’s own life and interests through the most visual of mediums is something we ought to embrace, particularly if it allows users to develop their own creativity.

In addition, it is difficult to discuss Instagram without mentioning the concept of the ‘selfie’, which the app played an instrumental role in popularising.

Again, young people are criticised for the alleged vanity of celebrating one’s own appearance, but in a world where self-love and acceptance is largely discouraged and even shamed, surely Instagram’s propulsion of young people’s comfort in their own skin and exposure to a diverse range of people and body types, this is something that should be encouraged.

As one of the fastest growing social networks of the 2010s, Instagram ultimately has a positive effect on the art of photography, so long may it continue.

University of Manchester and SU “create a hostile environment for free speech”

Written by Tom Patterson on . Posted in News.

Online magazine Spiked has published an analysis of censorship across 116 institutions which ranked the University of Manchester’s Students’ Union (SU) as red in their traffic-light system and the University itself as amber. They are suggesting that the University of Manchester and SU “collectively create a hostile environment for free speech”.

Spiked points to the University of Manchester’s verbal harassment policy, the SU stopping a Charlie Hebdo front cover from being displayed during the 2015 Refreshers’ Fair, and the banning of Julie Bindel and Milo Yiannopoulos from speaking in 2015 as evidence for their ranking.

It was the SU’s Free Speech and Secular Society (FSS) that originally invited the speakers, and Edgar from FSS released the following statement to The Mancunion: “The University of Manchester has been supportive of free speech, in stark contrast to the Students’ Union.

“The Students’ Union has actively censored events. Some minor clarifications to the Safe Space policy have been passed last year, so we hope that the arbitrary, censorious attitude of the Students’ Union is a thing of the past.”

The Safe Space policy states that “freedom of speech is important, yet intention to incite hatred is never acceptable”. The SU detailed the reasoning behind banning the speakers in a statement released in 2015 which can be viewed on their website.

The SU’s Diversity Officer, Ilyas Nagdee, told The Mancunion: “The visiting speaker process is the same for all societies. They submit a speaker request, the Union and University have a system to look through all speaker requests to ensure they comply with all regulations”. He went on to highlight the SU’s opposition to policies which it sees as limiting to free speech such as the government’s Prevent Agenda. Ilyas said this has led to some Muslim students “not picking certain modules or feeling wary of engaging in political conversations in seminars”.

But not everyone is taking Spiked’s analysis seriously. WONKHE, the higher education blogging site, said in their Monday Morning HE Briefing:“The politically-charged magazine surveys universities, examining the policies and actions of universities and students’ unions, including anecdotes and press coverage, to rank them with a red, amber or green traffic-light award.

“The methodology may well be beyond proper scrutiny, but the rankings do have an ability to make a splash in sections of the press that are hungry to paint life on British campuses as chilling outposts of political correctness. Heaven forbid.”

Jeanette Winterson, Professor of Creative Writing at University of Manchester, talked to The Mancunion about the differences between private and public platforms.

“It’s very different if you’re behind closed doors thrashing something out amongst equals… [as opposed to] where there’s any hierarchical situation… you’ve got to be much more careful, because the person with the power has to be both better mannered and restrained and not always say the things that are in his or her mind.”

But with regards to guest speakers she believes that everyone should be allowed have a platform.

“If they’re saying it in private let them say it in public, I’d rather the thing had some good fresh air round it than it was festering away in some ugly corner. So this has to be allowed to happen but it also has to be countered and the business of allowing someone to speak is not the same as agreeing with them or welcoming them or not challenging them.”

“None of us is free from prejudice or cliché or assumption…[but] when we hear people who take an extreme position, it can often make us think how much we hate that position anyway and then we work harder to stamp it out in ourselves.”

She went on to say that it can also motivate people to think, “I want to stand out against that, I’m not just going to be a passive person”, and finished by saying: “Let’s hear what people have to say in the wider arena but in the private sphere of how we manage our lives in the workplace particularly, let’s be very careful about how we talk to one another because hierarchies of gender and of power are real. And to me that’s what you’ve got to watch every day, how you talk to somebody does matter.”

A spokesperson from the University of Manchester stated:”We reject the claims made about the University in this ranking.

“The University of Manchester is fundamentally committed to freedom of speech, and we have a Code of Practice to protect and uphold this and to ensure speakers act within the law. We work closely with students, staff and the Students’ Union to support hundreds of events each year and give as many people as possible the opportunity to debate a wide variety of topics safely and constructively.”

A round up of Manchester’s Fossip

Written by Miriam Mizzi on . Posted in News.

Sometimes the news is full of foodie related gossip, and recently it has been just so. Therefore, we have decided it is about time to round it up and fill you in. Here is what has been going on in Manchester’s ever-thriving food scene.

1.       The lip smacking street food, trendy music, and late-night bars that B.Eat Street brought to Manchester’s Great Northern Warehouse has been closed — after just seven months, the space will now be used as a private space for businesses to hire, and will no longer be open for large public events. Why oh why?!

2.       Parklife and Warehouse Project boss Sacha has invested in Manchester’s food scene by pledging himself to Eat New York — the butter-dunked bagel company can already be spotted in places like the pop-up events at SCRANcoats, but now, I’m sure, we can be expecting to see a lot more of their luxurious fillings, from hot salt beef to crab claw, all over Manchester — woohoo!

3.       Poutine pop-up coming to Didsbury — Poutine, that modern street food feast, constructed from chips, cheese, and gravy is set to turn up in West Didsbury. Head to Mary and Archie’s on the 26th of February, where Blue Caribou Canteen will be serving up some of this delightful new food trend.  See you there.

4.       Greggs have started a delivery service — Two city centre stores have started delivering our Gregg’s favourites such as the steak bake, the cheese and bean melt, and those greasy greasy pizza slices.  Put your hands up if you could easily reach that £20 minimum order.

5.       Fear not, all those belly-rumbling January deals may be over, but there are still some savings to be made. Head to The Pen and Pencil in the Northern Quarter where food is 50% off on Mondays. Or, what about Salvi’s two-course Italian lunch for £12.95 every day. I know, the weather’s too horrible, well, stay in and get 20% off takeaways from East Z East this month.

6.       3 AA Rosette chef comes to Koffee Pot — Ernest Van Zyl is coming to this Northern Quarter venue for one night only (Monday the 27th of February). Its £37 for four courses, this being a small scratch on what you normally pay for this chef’s food, so snap up a ticket and wander down to Koffee Pot.