College – The Orbital

Principal Layzell Concedes to #RHOccupy’s Demands

20Mar

By Michele TheilNo Comments

News

Principal Layzell Concedes to #RHOccupy’s Demands

Students known as #RHOccupy have now vacated the Principal’s Corridor after 5 days in position there. They made the decision to leave at 12pm today, March 20, after Chief Operating Officer (COO) David Ashton approached them with a copy of Principal Paul Layzell’s staff newsletter as well his official letter to to Alastair Jarvis, Chief Executive of Universities UK (UUK), and Sally Hunt, chair of the University and College Union. The letter to UUK and UCU called for a return to a Defined Benefit Scheme as well as supporting an indepedent evaluation of the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS). These were two of #RHOccupy’s demands, along with an apology for the way staff were treated in regards to strikes and, in particular, pay deductions with action short of a strike (ASOS). All thr...

Over 400 Alumni Sign Open Letter to Paul Layzell

12Mar

By Michele TheilNo Comments

News

Over 400 Alumni Sign Open Letter to Paul Layzell

Over 400 alumni of Royal Holloway have signed an open letter to Principal Layzell addressing the college’s response to UCU strikes as well as Layzell’s previous comments concerning the gender pay gap, which Orbital reported in January. This comes directly after Layzell’s response, both towards staff and students, in the face of strikes has come under fire. The letter was written by alumni Joe Rayment, Jamie Green and Jen Mills. It has since been signed by over 400 graduates, including four former members of the university’s Governing Council. Rayment, a current Labour councillor in Bath, said that he was “extremely disturbed by what has happened here in recent months” and he hopes “that our voices are heard and that Professor Layzell will respond to us and explain exactly how he w...

12Feb

By Abbie CheesemanNo Comments

Opinion

Envisioning Our Future

Having trawled through college strategic strategies, financial information and masterplans, it’s safe to say that Royal Holloway has its sights set high for how it envisages itself at the end of the 2020 grand strategy. It will have been consistently in the top 20 UK universities and the top 200 worldwide universities for the past seven years. In each academic discipline we will have a world-leading research specialism and our research intensity will be of the highest standard. We will have increased our economic contribution by 20%, partly through increasing the number of students attending to 10,500. Our facilities will be fit-for-purpose, from the Davison, Electrical Engineering and Music & Media buildings, to the additional 2,650 bedrooms that will cater for the ever-growing studen...

26Oct

By No Comments

News

Gun crime policy issued by college

After a 26-year-old man opened fire on a community college campus at Oregon State University on the 1st October 2015, where a total of 10 people ranging in ages of 18 to 65 were killed, police have been investigating an online copycat threat made against students attending the University of Edinburgh. (more…)

College Puts Profit Before Students Safety?

26Feb

By No Comments

News

College Puts Profit Before Students Safety?

It may not have come with a grand declaration of public announcement, but it certainly hasn't gone unnoticed; the SSHH bus service has been reduced to running on function nights. After a review of the Student Union services over the last academic year, funding for the SSHH bus has been severely reduced, affecting the amount of times the bus can run a week and its availability therein. As a cost-cutting measure, the SSHH bus service, which was often the only means for some students to get home safely, will now only run on function nights from the SU (and on occasion Medicine). What's more, the service will no longer run from Egham train station, meaning many students will have to resort to travelling to campus via Egham hill with the ‘back gate’ closing long before the final trains in to...

28Oct

By No Comments

News

College Expansion Plans Deferred by Council

Royal Holloway’s plan to expand the university buildings by 2031, to cater for a forecasted increase in students, has been opposed by Runnymede Borough Council during a meeting with Councillors. The plans, which would see the University look to buy further property in Englefield Green to transform into new halls of residence, and to create improved access points to campus, were deferred mainly on grounds that the College had not planned to provide enough parking space for the predicted increase in students. The ‘Masterplan’, originally submitted in January, has already been forced into a period of revision following meetings with the council as a proposed new accommodation block on Noble’s Field, which is currently used for sports, did not adhere with ‘greenbelt’ requirements. Consequen...