Archive for the ‘News’ Category

A Kings College graduate will be cycling 480km across the North Indian state of Rajasthan this November to raise more than £2,500 for The Institute of Cancer Research.

Rosanna Moseley, 23, who witnessed both her grandmothers die from breast cancer at a young age, joined the Charity Challenge team to help other cancer patients.

Moseley said: “According to the Office of National Statistics and Cancer Research UK, more than one in three people will develop some form of cancer during their lifetime.

“This being so, I’m prepared to cycle any distance, endure hellish amounts of pain and jeopardise my ability to walk normally again for the slight chance that the money I raise will help advance research in the prevention and treatment of cancer.”

Charities like the ICR have a particular significance for Rosanna and her family. Her mother survived breast cancer ten years ago thanks to medical advances facilitated their research.

So far Rosanna has raised around 30% of her target sponsorship. She needs an additional £1500 by mid-September to qualify her for this impressive challenge. To sponsor, please visit www.justgiving.com/Rosanna-moseley.

Rosanna graduated from King’s this summer with a Human and Political Geography degree and will be starting her new job at Steelhenge Consulting in September.

A student from King’s College London (KCL) has sparked off a sexism row after claims he verbally abused a female member of Oxford University Conservative Association (OUCA).

Vitus van Rij, 18, allegedly told Isabella Burton, a second year Oxford theology student who was giving a speech during an OUCA education debate, to “shush”, adding “you’re a woman”.

Van Rij, a member of KCL Conservative Society, seems to have arrived in Oxford from London with a delegation from UCL Conservative Society, invited guests of OUCA. He is said to have then started chanting “kitchen, kitchen, kitchen, get back to the kitchen”.

The Daily Telegraph reported that he went on to tell her to “go back to washing the dishes” instead of debating political topics.

Many students reportedly felt that the event organisers were slow to react to the sexist comments, but he was eventually ejected by Oxford Union president Laura Winwood who also publicly condemned the incident on stage. She and OUCA President Natalie Shina said that “misogyny is not tolerated” on Union premises.

Mr van Rij, understood to be from Belgium and studying in the War Studies department at King’s, is now banned from UCL Conservative events and OUCA events.

According to the Daily Telepgraph, Kieran Weisberg, the president of UCL Conservatives, said he was not sure how van Rij came to be at the event, but may have heard of it through Facebook.

OUCA founded in 1924, is one of the oldest student political organisations in the country. It has only recently been re-affiliated as a society – and is once again able to use the university’s name – after a racist joke was told at a hustings event last year.

Past presidents of the association include former Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and Edward Heath, as well as current Foreign Secretary William Hague.

Van Rij is said to have refused to apologise for his comments.

The President of KCL Conservative Society, Simon Moorcroft, told London Student: “Obviously I want to stress that he was attending as an individual and not representing our society. Clearly the comments are unacceptable and certainly we will not tolerate this sort of behaviour. He has caused distress to the individual who these comments were directed at, and again, it’s not acceptable, it goes against everything that the Conservative Party and King’s College Conservatives stand for.”

He said that van Rij would be banned from attending future events and that the society’s committee “intend to terminate his membership as soon as we can”, following the Students Union’s procedures.

“We don’t want him as a member”, he said.

The University of London Union (ULU) has agreed to let Birkbeck College top up the wages of staff employed in Birkbeck Students’ Union bar so the latter can live up to its commitment to the London Living Wage (LLW).

The contract to run the Birkbeck SU bar is held by ULU which currently pays staff there the same basic wage as on the ULU site, £6.10 an hour. Since Birkbeck SU and UCU passed policy on becoming a Living Wage employer, and Birkbeck governors recognised this, the issue has been a point of contention with ULU.

Sean Rillo Raczka, Birkbeck SU Chair, said that Birkbeck had threatened to break off the contract and bring its employees in house.

He said: “We first raised this with management about six months ago because we weren’t implementing in practice our policy commitment to the Living Wage. The ULU Trustees felt it wasn’t fair to pay different rates but technically and legally the Birkbeck bar is separate to the ULU bar. Although the contract is run by ULU, it’s a different site and so different wages can be paid.”

The Trustees say that ULU can’t afford to pay the full London Living Wage, £7.60 an hour, to all its staff, but ULU will not be financially affected by the new deal. Birkbeck will cover the cost of making up the difference from August 1st, when the higher rate will be paid to staff working at Birkbeck bar.

Rillo Raczka said the details of where the money would come from were yet to be decided, but he believes the college and not the SU should foot the bill.

ULU is also likely to increase staff pay on August 1^st, but it maintains that it cannot afford to pay all bar staff the full LLW. In April ULU announced that it would be able to pay cleaners the LLW after signing a contract with LPM Ltd; the new deal also saved the union £30,000.