Menswear - The Founder

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4 The Founder | Wednesday 23 February 2011 News RHUL Computer Scientist Murtagh honoured Noor Mansour Royal Holloway academic Professor Fionn Murtagh from the Department of Computer Science has just been elected into the prestigious Academia Europaea, an organisation of distinguished European scholars. The Academia Europaea, which was founded in 1988, has members from a wide range of academic fields including engineering, medicine, mathematics, humanities, as well as physical, life and social sciences. His nominators have declared that “Professor Fionn Murtagh is a leader in the field of pattern and data analysis and classification. He has contributed a variety of mathematically motivated methods to data analysis, often involving massive, high dimensional data sets, and has contributed novel algorithms and evaluated their performance both by using mathematical statistical methods such as Bayesian analysis and by conducting experimental evaluations and operational deployment”. Despite this achievement, Professor Murtagh stated “I am delighted to be elected into the Academia Europaea. The success is, however, tinged with sadness as my nominator for this was Professor Robin Milner, who died in March 2010 in Cambridge. Robin was without doubt one of the greats of computing and of scholarship”. Professor Murtagh’s latest book, ‘Sparse Image and Signal Processing – Wavelets, Curvelets, Morphological Diversity’, co-authored with Jean-Luc Starck and Jalal Fadili, was published by Cambridge University Press in 2010. Professor Fionn Murtagh Small fire in Gowar Egham Fire Station, whose fire crew was called in to Gowar Hall Courtesy Kevin Hale Elinor Gittins A few weeks ago, a fire broke out in Gowar Hall. It occurred on the fourth floor and was caused by an unattended pan on the hob. Fire crews from Egham and Staines ran in to tame the fire. No one was seriously injured, and no evacuations were needed. However, a female student was recently treated for smoke inhalation. The kitchen was also severely damaged and is not being used anymore. Most of the fire alarms are set off in kitchens and caused by students cooking. These alarms should not be necessary. This story should be a warning to us all: do not leave cooking unattended.
The Founder | Wednesday 23 February 2011 Sabbatical Officers 2011-2012 5 Following their recent success The Founder interviews next years sabbatical officers So Dan How does it feel to win? Fantastic I’m over the moon. You know I think we won convincingly, I’m hugely proud of my team because they put so much into it and I’m looking forward to working with the other Sabs. What’s the first thing your going to change in September? For me Royal Holloway University isn’t going to be immune to the budget cuts. I think the role of the students union next year should be about defending education and I’d really like to set up education assemblies, which is something really quite significant to do. I really want to make the students union interesting again with performance, presentations, theatre nights etc. Look at different universities, they have so many events going on and I think this would all be possible here and at an affordable price as well. Do you think students are paying too much for services on campus? Certainly yes. I’ve been here for three years, and for particularly those coming from off campus or from Kingswood it’s a huge burden to pay so much. I’m not entirely sure my remit and how much I can influence this but there could be campaigns about these issues as well as cuts to libraries, courses and facilities which can be very effective an effect change. I know many people who live of campus and it causes many problems like where you leave your stuff, the food where you pay five quid for a sandwich and a hot coffee, its ridiculous really. Libraries are a sticking point for many people, how would you want to improve the libraries? It’s a question of more study space and getting the appropriate books in. A lot of people need to go to Senate House and I think we should look to that as a supplement to the library as opposed to being an alternative. It’s the basic things like getting access to books, access to journals and the fines, which I think we should look into. I think the union is the place they should go to as opposed to just talking about the problems amongst their friends. It’s about making these things all quite visible. Would you push for 24 hour opening throughout the year or just keep it in exam time? I wouldn’t want to promise 24 hour opening I think its something we should look into, especially over the weekend. We want to look for slightly later hours through a process of consultation with the current staff. For me its all about the small things, the bloody plugs don’t work, printing is a nightmare, the computers so regularly never work, just kind of basic things we need to look into. No admittance after midnight on Union nights has created a huge amount of anger, would you change this? We want re-admittance, and speaking to a lot of people in the union that’s certainly possible. I’ve been frustrated many, many times at the union. My vision of the students union is to be a cultural and social centre for it to be a place where people go to relax and listen to interesting music, go to see interesting things, regular talks, poetry, satire. We are so rich in that respect and we should celebrate this diversity as well. Bake and Bite is set for redevelopment, how would bake and bake look under a Daniel Cooper Union? We have had a number of discussions with the students union and with bake and bite, I like the emphasis on sort of lounge place and I think we can make more of it. But not another Imagine? No no I don’t think it would be another Imagine. The SU President sits on over 20 committees, that’s an average of 3 a day, is that too many and is it stopping the president from talking to students? Yes! I say flippantly but I mean it in a serious way. I have a lot of experience in these kind of things, in terms of organising and I’ve said time and time again I think the SU Daniel Cooper - President shouldn’t be nervous to get out of the office. There is an importance to these committees, we talk about everything from the environment to putting books in the libraries and we need that space to discuss things, though in no way should that stop us from being active. For me one of the big criticisms is that they [Sabbatical Officers] don’t get out enough and are not physical and not active enough. They work incredibly hard and do all of that admin and bureaucratic stuff, but we need to be leading the campaigns. I want to be central in all of that particularly in the college council and where things are decided upon, but that shouldn’t in any way get in the way of campaigning. I found speaking to a lot of different sabbaticals that they have been told to go to meetings just to shut them up, and that shouldn’t be the case. If anything I would prioritise spending far more time with the students and being active around the campus. If there is one thing you think college to do, and that you would lobby them to do, that would improve student life what would that be? There are a number of issues. Defence of education and stressing cuts are unacceptable particularly when they affect students here. We would call for collective decision making public and open meetings on critical decisions. London living wage for me is something crucial. I would want to work with the cleaners and the admin staff, with lectures, with the workers union on campus for this. We should be academically world leading and we should be ethically as well. To me it makes ethical and financial sense to have everyone well paid and in acceptable conditions and to be unionised. All of this recognition is tangible and can be done. One of the big things is that we want to introduce a black and minorities and women’s officer. So for the women’s officer it would be about establishing crèches and advice and services and resources, especially for mature students. Health and social care at the moment is being completely hit, and a lot of the women here have kids and don’t know what to do with them. Also we want to be lobbying the college about more scholarships greater bursaries and importantly to provide access especially for kids from working class backgrounds and black and ethnic minority backgrounds. In British universities 66% of students are British and affluent you know we should look to widen access. For me the significance in getting the candidacy is really been that we have run explicitly on an anti cuts platform and combing that with making the SU an interesting place, a cultural and social centre as well as London living wage, all of these things, and that for me is the significance. Royal Holloway has had a history of un-involvement and apathy to me this is indicative for a desire for something different. We have received hundreds of messages of support from across the country. I think this is volcanic. I would use the term volcanic in terms of the way it goes and its direction. In ten words what, in your ideal world how would the Students Union look a year from now and what would it have done? Defend education. London living wage. Widen access. SU as a social and cultural centre. So many ideas. Something! I do apologise! Something about the SU that is quite critical. We have this building with so many unelected, unaccountable people, and we have processes that perhaps have been uncontrollable for Rachel Pearson but I think we have to make the general manager all of the types, and they work bloody hard, but lets make them accountable as well for me that’s crucial. We have general managers in universities preventing Sabs from acting. That cant be the case.
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