Saturday, June 13Royal Holloway's offical student publication, est. 1986

News

University heads’ pay hits average of £272k, whilst student fees reach record highs
2Mar By No Comments
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University heads’ pay hits average of £272k, whilst student fees reach record highs

A study by the University and College Union suggested vice-chancellors at UK universities received average salary packages of £272,000 last year, up some £12,000 from 2014. Vice-chancellors' pay has come under scrutiny in recent years, with ministers in 2014 raising concerns about the “substantial upward drift” of salaries. The UCU study based on Freedom of Information requests calculated university bosses received almost seven times more than the average wages of staff, with bosses receiving “inflation-busting” rises. Royal Holloway’s principal Paul Layzell received a 3% (£8k) pay increase in 2014, bringing his total salary up to £265k, according to Royal Holloway’s financial report. The research also suggests universities spent thousands more on hotels, flights and other expe...
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TV Licence Loophole Which Saves Students Over £100 is Set to End
1Mar By No Comments
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TV Licence Loophole Which Saves Students Over £100 is Set to End

News has come to light that the annual TV Licence fee is set to extend to those watching shows through IPlayer when previously it was only applicable to those watching live TV. Somewhat ironically this change comes just as BBC Three, a channel aimed for young viewers had been made solely available as on on-line exclusive. For a whole year, to have the luxury of watching your favourite BBC shows, such as Sherlock or Dr Who would cost you £145.50. A way that students escaped this fee was to watch the shows on-line legally after they had broadcast, for this did not require a TV licence. For a student £145.50 is a huge amount of money, and Charlotte Burns, the editor of Student Money Saver has argued that ‘many students simply not afford the £145.50 TV licence fee. Unlike older people wh...
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Disruption caused by 4 month closure of Harvest Road
22Feb By No Comments
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Disruption caused by 4 month closure of Harvest Road

It would be surprising if students, and Englefield Green residents, had not noticed the recent closure of Harvest Road. Work began on Monday 4 January and is in aid of creating a revised two way road which is presupposed to help with congestion on the A30 for those living in, and around, the area of Middle Hill. However this work has involved the closing of a major section at the end of Harvest Road to all cars and pedestrians until the middle of April. The university recognises that the work ‘will be disruptive for people living both in the immediate area of Harvest Road and the surrounding streets’, but they state this disruption is obviously unavoidable, ensuring they ‘will work hard to keep local residents updated on what to expect and when, with information through letterboxes and ...
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Penrose residents compensated
9Feb By Laura DenhamNo Comments
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Penrose residents compensated

Residents of Royal Holloway's Penrose halls of residents are to be compensated following a series on ongoing problems in the accomodate block this academic year. The Students' Union announced in February that alongside the College, they had collaboratively secured compensation for students who had experience continual problems with heating and water pressure in Penrose. It has been agreed that the students affected, of whom there are almost 200, will receive £250 of compensation paid directly to their College card. The £250 covers approximately two weeks rent for a student living in Penrose. The Students’ Union commented that they "Hope that these students feel that this is sufficient to cover the issues that have affected them while in their accommodation. "We feel that it’s impo...
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Publishers ‘Penguin’ ditch degree requirement for employees
2Feb By No Comments
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Publishers ‘Penguin’ ditch degree requirement for employees

Global publishing group Penguin Random House has announced it no longer requires job candidates to hold a university degree. The announcement comes as an attempt to attract a more diverse range of candidates into publishing, an industry that has been previously criticised for its lack of diversity. The move follows a similar announcement made by accountancy firm Ernst & Young, one of Britain’s biggest graduate recruiters, who announced last August that it would no longer be considering degree or A-level results when assessing potential employees. It follows concerns that basing the selection process on requiring a degree and recruiting from particular universities was producing too narrow a range of staff. PricewaterhouseCoopers also announced plans to ditch A-level results...
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Number 1 Safest Place to be a Student?
28Jan By No Comments
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Number 1 Safest Place to be a Student?

Following the ‘Crime Rate Doubles in Englefield Green’ (written by Orbital Journalist Hannah Foord) article which gave us worrying statistics of increasing crime levels in the area, more incidents have occurred. There was a continual stream of criminal acts leading up to the Christmas months and end of term. Rather worryingly many of these incidents are of a violent nature. Some incidents since the ‘Crime Rate Doubles in Englefield Green’ article being published in October, are included below: Early on the twelfth of November there was the bag theft incident on campus, which led to two suspected assaults. The helicopters had to be brought in to successfully detain the man. On the twenty-sixth of October a man was mugged for his MP3 player in Egham, the three hooded suspects threa...
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Attack on University Internet Server JANET
27Jan By No Comments
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Attack on University Internet Server JANET

On Tuesday 8 December 2015 the student population of Royal Holloway were sent into panic after what can be regarded as a collapse in the internet access across campus. The failure was as a result of what IT Info described to be a ‘malicious network attack’ against the university Internet Service Provider, JANET. Network Janet covers the ‘.ac.uk’ and ‘.gov.uk’ email addresses as well as the Wi-Fi service ‘eduroam’ which is used by most colleges and universities in the country. Royal Holloway was one of many institutes to have been affected - Manchester, Edinburgh, Sussex and Glasgow were also known to have had their servers disabled by the malicious hack. Despite sites such as Outlook, Moodle and Campus Connect remaining unaffected, it was the externally hosted sites, such as Turnitin...
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Re-opening of Prezzo following the November fire
27Jan By No Comments
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Re-opening of Prezzo following the November fire

On the 13 November 2015 the Italian restaurant, Prezzo – located on Egham Hill roundabout - reportedly caught fire. The blaze proceeded to make its way to the lower level, where customers would typically dine. The fire which occurred at 5:45am, had five fire engines sent to deal with the blaze, although it was reportedly put out by around 7:30am. Not only had the fire not resulted in severe delays for at least half an hour for motorist on Egham Hill and along the A30, but also meant the restaurant had to be shut until further notice. Luckily, at the time, no one was in the building so there were no reported injuries but an inquest from Surrey Fire and Rescue Service to determine the cause of the blaze was opened – although the details have not yet been confirmed from the authoriti...
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Building work continues at St John’s
27Jan By Beth CarrNo Comments
News

Building work continues at St John’s

The second phase of building work at Egham’s parish church has begun, after completion of the foundations of the new building in late 2015. The building work is part of the church’s Building for the Future project and since early 2015 builders have been working on site to demolish the old church centre, readying the site for the building of a new centre to meet the needs of the church and community. Work was also required on the original Georgian church building to create the foundations of the new link between this and the complementary modern extension. The second phase of work began on 4th January after members of the congregation gathered on the footprint of the building to share prayers and hopes for the new facility after the Sunday services the previous day. The project has...
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