THE COLLEGE VIEW
Vol. XVII, Issue 12
www.thecollegeview.com
Wednesday, 22 April 2015
DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY’S ONLY INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER SINCE 1999
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R.I.P. Dave Billings » 28
Academic hits out at SU over email dispute Chaitanya Brady Images Editor @Chai_108
A DCU staff member has hit out
at the Students’ Union after they refused to allow her to send an email to students, regarding a leftwing seminar on Greece. Helena Sheehan, was refused permission to publicise the talk by using the full student e-mail list on the grounds that it wasn’t relevant to all 12,300 DCU students. Over 30 academics expressed solidarity with Sheehan in her request to send the email. “It’s insolent as well as anti-intellectual. I think the way the world is governed and how wealth is distributed is directly relevant to every individual student,” Sheehan told The College View. Sheehan argues that in order to have a proper university atmosphere students need to be getting invitations to talks that express strong points of view about the wider world. Although the talk was politically one-sided, attendees were welcome to challenge what was put forward.
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Yes Equality: A final plea
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The Great Debate: “Social Media Is Ruining Our Lives.”
Gaelige
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Feabhas foirfe ar featuring X
MPS and RAG won Best Society in a Cultiral, Academic or Social Field and Best Society in a Charity or Civic Field respectively at the Board of Irish College Societies (BICS) Awards on April 18th Credit: www.facebook.com/pages/Board-of-Irish-College-Societies-BICS
“I think educationally it’s better if you have a debate, and people argue honestly about ideological positions, that’s the spirit of a University,” she said. SU President, Kenneth Browne, and Education Officer, Gary Gillick, are responsible for approving e-mails that are sent out to this list.
Browne told The College View that the SU try to refine emails after feedback from students saying that the amount of emails being sent was overwhelming. “Certain students stopped using their DCU accounts as a result of excessive emailing,” said Browne. This led to fears that emails about health and safety messages from
the university and updates from the Union wouldn’t be read. “If a talk such as this one is directed at a particular cohort of students, we would advise that it be refined to a certain amount of class lists or look at an alternate method of publicising the talk,” said Browne. “If it’s your baby it’s the most important thing in the
world to you, but it may not be the most important thing in the world to everyone else,” he continued. Finance lecturer, Michael Dowling, said his students tell him they “don’t even read the career centre emails as there’s Full story on page 3