It’s the end of week 11! Which means only one week of class to go… before exams. Whether you haven’t left that cubicle in Chifley for days, or have been drinking away your denial at Oktoberfest, here’s what you might have missed this week.
Residences
UniLodge, Fenner and Bruce have faced a cull in returning residents, with a large number of applications for 2018 rejected. More than 40% of UniLodge students were rejected, while Fenner and Bruce also faced significant losses. ANU says this is necessary to achieve its promise of housing all new undergraduate students from outside the ACT. Students have expressed concern about maintenance of resident culture, and selection practices, with a number of current SRs and active college life participants rejected. Read more about the changes, and how students have responded here.
Clubs and Societies
The Science Society has been bailed out by the Clubs Council this week, through a resolution to grant aid for retrospective financial distress, after previous attempts were deemed inconsistent with SAFF legislation. The Science Society executive for 2018 acknowledged that mistakes were made, but stressed that this will not happen again. Find more details in our article from this week.
Voting for the Clubs Awards began this week, and winners will be announced at the Clubs Ball this Thursday. Vote here.
ANUSA
Amy Bryan and Mackinlay Tikoft have been elected co-officers for the Disabilities Student Association this week, and will hold the portfolio for the remainder of 2017, as well as helping with the handover for 2018. Bryan was also elected as 2018 Disabilities Officer.
ANUSA held its final SRC of 2017 this week, where the deadline for NUS compliance with ANUSA Key Performance Indicators for Reaccreditation was set at 20 November. Read about how the KPIs were set here, and possible consequences if they aren’t met here.
University
ANU will move to a system of mandatory password resets, where passwords will initially need changing every year, and eventually once every three months. There is no concrete timeline for the transition, with the university stating it will occur “at a future point” to be decided by the University Identity Governance Committee. The changes are at the recommendations of the Australian Signals Directorate, but are considered poor practice by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology. Read more here.
ANU now has an official WeChat, announced by Vice Chancellor Brian Schmidt in a recent visit to China. It can be found through the tag ANU_Australia. The app is popular with Chinese students, and has over 877 million users worldwide.
Campus
Fluff may no longer be a campus staple after the redevelopment. While the University has promised to maintain as many of the trees as possible, only four are likely to remain, none of which produce the fluff. Students traditionally use the fluff as a measuring point of when to begin studying for final exams.
What the Pho, a Vietnamese food vendor with a van in the Pop-Up village, has been served an improvement notice after maggots were allegedly found in a meal. The meal was sold from the Hamlet location, rather than the van on campus, and the store will be allowed to continue trading. ABC News reported on the incident here.
