News – Page 20 of 37

Innovative Documenting: RHUL Student Wins Film Award

22Dec

By Michele TheilNo Comments

News

Innovative Documenting: RHUL Student Wins Film Award

A PHD student here at Royal Holloway has been awarded with the ‘Innovation Award’ at this year’s AHCR Research Film Awards. The winners were announced earlier this month, with Iris Zaki’s short documentary Shampoo Summit winning overall. Zaki directed, produced, wrote, edited and filmed the documentary by herself. The documentary was filmed in the Israeli city of Haifa, where Zaki is originally from. Zaki got a job in a hair salon in the city and subsequently placed a camera on the edge of a washbasin so that it would face a customer as their hair was being shampooed by Zaki. Judges said that this was an “innovative technique” to use in this type of filming. Zaki would talk to the clients about a myriad of topics, including but not limited to, Israeli history and politics, general li...

RHUL Historian Awarded Prestigious Prize

19Dec

By Michele TheilNo Comments

News

RHUL Historian Awarded Prestigious Prize

Earlier this year, Daniel Beer, British historian and History lecturer here at Royal Holloway, published his groundbreaking book The House of the Dead: Siberian Exile under the Tsars. It is an insight into Russian history and the Tsars’ role in exiling people to Siberia under brutal conditions. The book is meticulously researched and showcases the revolutionary spirit and the regime’s desire to quell it as quickly and effectively as possible. Since its release, the book was shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize 2017, the Pushkin House Russian Book Prize 2017 and the Longman-History Today Book Prize 2017, all of which are extremely prestigious historical and literary prizes. It is an amazing achievement for Dr. Beer to have The House of the Dead chosen. On Nov 17, The House of the De...

Royal Holloway Alumna Makes The Apprentice final

17Dec

By Joanne ArcherNo Comments

News

Royal Holloway Alumna Makes The Apprentice final

Lord Alan Sugar is searching for his next business partner in the BBC’s popular reality game show, The Apprentice. The series, which spans 14 weeks, puts businesspeople through tough trials of elimination to find the candidate with the best skills and business model. The winner will secure a £250,000 investment into their business, shared with Lord Sugar as a 50% stake holder. Former Royal Holloway student, Sarah Lynn, has made it to the final round against competitor James White. Sarah Lynn studied at Royal Holloway from 1999, graduating with a degree in History and Politics in 2002. In June 2010 Lynn set up her business, Sweets in the City, which she has been working to improve over the past 7 years. The company produces “hand-picked and hand-packed” sweet b...

Residents Dissatisfied over Ashdene House

14Dec

By Michele TheilNo Comments

News

Residents Dissatisfied over Ashdene House

Ashdene House on St Jude’s Road, Englefield Green is being considered as new student accommodation flats. Planning application for the building to be demolished and then rebuilt as 29 student flats was registered a few weeks ago. Many residents in Englefield Green were not pleased with these proposals. In fact, at a public consultation on Oct 4 of this year, 89 people were asked to fill out a questionnaire regarding the issue. 83% of the respondents did not want Ashdene House to be turned into student flats and would prefer it to be given over to social housing schemes. People in the popular Facebook group ‘Englefield Greenies’ have commented their stark objections to this student accommodation. One person said that “the green is fast becoming a campus”. Others spoke up about the noi...

9Dec

By Shannon GrayNo Comments

News

Sign Here

Royal Holloway has recently been subject to several petitions, created by students attempting to instil the change they’d like to see at the university. In early September, student Phoebe Dormand created a petition that asked for the Health Centre on campus to be improved. She cited 8 issues that she felt warranted the petition, including but not limited to response time, lack of sympathy, being refused appointments and having only 5 doctors and 1 nurse covering over 9000 students. Comments on the petition found that there were many other issues with the Health Centre that Phoebe had not touched on as well as increasing solidarity between the students. Phoebe’s petition gained over 1500 signatures and led to the SU releasing a survey asking students to review the Health Centre in an ...

8Dec

By Michele TheilNo Comments

News

Referendum on NSS Boycott Announced

Royal Holloway’s Student’s Union has called for a referendum to vote on whether or not the RHSU should continue to boycott the National Student Survey (NSS). The boycott was passed in a referendum in March of this year, with 282 votes. The original boycott was called for, in conjunction with the National Union of Students (NUS), in response to the NSS being used with the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) to possibly allow universities to charge higher tuition fees. The NSS measures student satisfaction while the TEF measures quality of teaching and results of study. Universities can score Gold or Silver and be placed on the higher end of the spectrum or they could be scored with a Bronze, which is a lower rating. Thus, those that achieved Gold or Silver, under the Government’s initiat...

1Dec

By Michele TheilNo Comments

News

Big Giving for RHUL’s Future Students

On Tuesday 28 November, Royal Holloway launched the Big Give Christmas Challenge here. It is an annual event in the UK that was founded by RHUL Honorary Fellow Sir Alec Reed in 2007. The premise of the Big Give Challenge is simple: any online donations made within the allotted time will be matched in funding, essentially doubling the donation at no extra cost to the donator. It is the UK’s biggest online match funding campaign. The campaign opened nationally on Tuesday at 12pm and will go on until 12pm on Tuesday 5 December. RHUL is attempting to raise funds for scholarships and work placements to be given to students that require financial support to attend university or undergo important work experience. The official statement on RHUL’s website regarding scholarships tells us th...

Offenders Sentenced in Sexual Exploitation Ring

29Nov

By Michele TheilNo Comments

News

Offenders Sentenced in Sexual Exploitation Ring

A sexual exploitation ring has been discovered in North Surrey and West London. Two people were convicted by a jury in Guildford Crown Court in April, finding them to be guilty of the exploitation of teenage girls in the surrounding areas. Between January and February of 2016, 21 year-old Daniel Pusey and 40 year-old Diane Chilcott would attempt to lure young girls to hotels in Staines, Twickenham, Tolworth and Heathrow. The victims were aged between 13 and 15 at the time of the incidents. They would first consume large amounts of alcohol and smoke cigarettes at Chilcotts House in Chertsey before being driven by the two perpetrators to various hotels. Upon arriving at these hotels, Pusey would subject them to sexual abuse. During the trial, Pusey was found guilty of seven counts o...

Model Defers Royal Holloway Due to Debilitating Illness

29Nov

By Michele TheilNo Comments

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Model Defers Royal Holloway Due to Debilitating Illness

Destiny Sedlacek, a 19-year old girl from Weybridge, Surrey was diagnosed with Ehlers Danlos Syndrome in 2016. Ehlers Danlos syndrome is a rare genetic disorder that affects a person’s connective tissue. It would lead to symptoms such as skin being stretched out, loose joints and abnormal-looking scars. Prior to her diagnosis, Destiny was previously a model featured in Vogue Magazine. She was the official model for films like The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and Fury. She has also modelled for popular make-up brand Rimmel London UK. She studied Forensic Science at college but her diagnosis meant she was unable to attend her classes. She “had to finish [her] college work in hospitals”. This has impacted her future ambitions, which includes to go on to Royal Holloway, University of London, to ...

Royal Holloway students win technology competition

29Nov

By Maria GreenNo Comments

News

Royal Holloway students win technology competition

A team of five Royal Holloway students have won the Cisco University Challenge. At the annual event, over 70 students from the UK’s top universities compete against each other in a two-day hackathon: a competition in which teams of developers build products to address a set of challenges. This year, Royal Holloway sent two teams of students to Feltham to compete in the challenge that took place on the 26th – 27th October. The winning team, referred to as Team Shark, comprised of Megan Goh, Hugh Wells, Dulcie Jackson, Awen Saunders and Shaurya Puri. The winning team’s entry to the competition was a programme called TrainShark, aimed at improving IT throughout the rail network in the UK. Their programme would allow train passengers to determine which carriage is least crowded befor...