The outgoing members of the HRC Committee of Management (CoM) are to be commended in their efforts to bring the Club’s problems to the attention of the University. A question still hangs over why previous committees felt it acceptable to keep quiet, as it is clear that the Club’s difficulties have been building for at least a year.

The issues highlighted in the committee minutes demonstrate that there were serious problems not only with the Club’s finances, but in its day-to-day running as well. The new president and his committee will have to work hard to prove to the University that these mistakes will not be allowed to happen in the future.

It was only two years ago that the GUU found itself in even worse financial strife, although, unlike the HRC, it was able to secure a crisis grant from the University before it was forced to cease trading. It is possible that, had the former committee members of the Research Club blown the whistle earlier, the business’s closure could have been prevented.

If the University is expected to absolve the debts of its so-called arm’s length institutions then it should be making more effort to ensure each of these institutions’ finances are properly managed and audited. Its budget in the coming years will be under enough pressure without having to be relied upon for bail-outs as well.

A club dedicated to postgraduate, international and mature students is hugely important  — not every student feels comfortable at either of the unions; and Cheesy Pop and the Hive are not to everyone’s taste. For this reason, we must hope that the new CoM can work to regain the trust of the University and that the Hetherington Building will be able to open again before it is forgotten.

It’s unfortunate that the announcement happened to coincide with The Times’ decision to plagiarise in its entirety an obituary piece of the actor Edward Woodward written by Edgar Wright, director of Shaun of the Dead. Although The Times have since printed a clarification, their original publication of the article — which made out that Wright was a commissioned commentator for the newspaper — took place without its author even being notified.

All of this merely demonstrates — other than that apparently, it’s one rule for Murdoch; another for Google — the desperate measures to which newspapers are having to resort in the search for revenue. However, quite what the media tycoon hopes to achieve by singling his own publications out for such treatment is something of a mystery.

Despite his obvious talents for self-promotion, when it comes to the Internet, Murdoch’s decisions have always betrayed shown him to be something of a novice. He bought Myspace when it was at its most crazily-overinflated valuation, and then watched the money simply disappear while Facebook and Twitter took the lead. If he takes The Sunday Times’ the same way, he will simply turn the publication into expensive lesson in the importance of gauging the public’s receptivity to paying for online news. When so much else is available for free — and The Sunday Times’ website not being particularly special — it’s hard to believe the move will be anything other than a disaster.

It is almost the end of the first term and yet there are still thousands of university students waiting on their first loan instalment. Considering many rely on this funding to pay their rent, this delay is unacceptable. Universites’ student support services, which are already facing tightening budgets, are having to step in to fill the gap created by the SLC.

Bonuses were given to a significant majority of the SLC staff indicating that, overall, the company feels its staff, including top managers, have performed above and beyond what they needed to. Although the payouts are based on the performance of the last academic year, the management issues that have so marred this term did not suddenly appear in June 2009.

It was clear early last year that there would be a huge increase in the number of people applying to university and the SLC should have prepared itself for a rise in its own applications for funding. This preparation and the measures to cope with the increase should have been put in place last year. Clearly, the SLC did either no such thing, or implemented deeply ineffective changes.

The excuse that the bonuses were given out based on the performance of last year is only justifiable if the performances warranted such financial rewards. Considering that the SLC felt its staff worthy of a collective £2 million pay-out, it will be interesting to see the bonuses given out for the current academic year. It might also be worth checking to see whether any of the staff expenses applications have been accidentally lost in the same way as many of those for student funding.

There will be a student consultation about the proposals towards the end of this month, but it is unlikely that we will be given any real choice over the matter. One lecturer called the move a “top-down imposition” and certainly the proposals seem more focused on improving the administrative structures rather than on any teaching aspect.

One fear is that reducing the number of departments down to around twenty schools will lead to some existing departments losing their academic identity — the University, however, have assured that this will not be the case. Whilst a lower number of schools will mean that it is easier to organise a meeting with each school head than it currently is with department heads, that will not necessarily have a positive impact on teaching.

The main concern for students is that the quality of teaching at this university remains high and uncompromised. If those responsible for that teaching are distracted from their work and unhappy with their management at the highest levels then there is a strong possibility that the teaching quality will suffer.

Despite assurances that the restructure will not cause any disturbance over the coming months, the fact remains that all change is disruptive and the introduction of a new teaching and management system will certainly be so. The question is: is it really worth it?

Evidently, October was an especially bad time for the empiricist movement, because it also saw the Pew Research Centre release statistics showing that the number of Americans who accept the evidence in support of climate change has dropped sharply — from 44% in April of 2008, to 35% last month.

This regressive culture of scientific philistinism will undoubtedly continue for as long as scare-mongering sells newspapers — and placing so little value on reasoned thinking is as dangerous as any of the drugs Nutt and Johnson debate over.

An “oversight” by Sanctuary Management Services (SMS) meant that the Murano Street residents were not added to the electoral register in Scotland. As students had been assured in their welcome packs that their registration would be handled by SMS and so need no other input from themselves, many of those who intended to vote in the European elections last summer only found out when it was too late.

The matter only came to light when one student called Glasgow City Council to check that he was eligible to vote. After being told that he was not registered, he contacted SMS to find out what had gone wrong. It was only then that SMS became aware of the problem.

Whilst the error that caused the lack of registration may be understandable, SMS should have contacted students as soon as the mistake was brought to their attention. It is all very well to apologise now but the damage has already been done.

Some students were able to rectify their situation in time to register themselves, but many others were left unable to do so in time to vote in the European elections. The “oversight” could just as easily have happened this year, and would have left students unable to vote in national elections, effectively denying them a say in who governs the country. Considering that SMS had no idea the mistake had been made until a student contacted them, it is entirely possible that the same situation could occur next year. All students living in university halls, not only those staying at Murano Street, should find out now whether or not they are registered to vote, particularly as it is likely that the next general election will take place in May 2010 — during the examination period.

One positive aspect is that this incident highlights the fact that students are still politically active, thus defying the continuing trend of voter apathy. The European elections had the lowest voter turnout in their history this year, and whilst it is extremely unlikely that the entire population of Murano Street would have gone to the ballot boxes, it is encouraging to see that people still value their hard-earned right to vote.

The lesson to be learned from this is that if you want to exercise your right to vote then be responsible for your own registration – don’t rely on others to do it for you.

Undeniably, the Internet has shortened our collective attention span. The intertextuality of the web – all those hyperlinks! – encourages us to get bored quickly and move on. But, along with the threat of news aggregators like The Huffington Post, which summarises the day’s most significant events into more easily digestible epigrams, Twitter is being heralded as the greatest danger; the final proverbial Horseman come to bear us to an Apocalypse of Stupid.

And this is just not the case. If Twitter is guilty of anything, it is of furthering the alarming belief held by so many keyboard-wielding loons that everything they say is interesting. The 140-character limit may encourage brevity, but it doesn’t do much to filter out myriad varieties of virtual navel-gazing.

Still, nothing can obscure the fact that whatever hypothetical detriment Twitter may pose to man’s ability to regulate the distinction between ‘Ideas to say out loud’ and ‘Thoughts to keep to one’s self’, it has proved itself to be of actual value in far more material ways.

Think back to June of this year, when the site was used to voice dissent for the alleged incidences of electoral fraud taking place across Iran. When every other channel of the media was closed to disenfranchised Iranians, they turned to Twitter to alert the rest of the world to what was taking place.

Still, surely this is not a function that we will ever have to utilise, no? Well, yes, actually. On October 12, The (other) Guardian reported that it had been prevented from reporting on Parliament by a so-called superinjunction, which not only forbade the newspaper from mentioning what was said in Westminster, but also what law had been invoked to forbid them from doing so, and even what client had paid for the invoking.

One tweet from editor Alan Rusbridger and soon the whole thing was out in the open: oil traders Trafigura had been accused of dumping tons of toxic waste off the coast of Africa, and a question had been raised by an MP.
So perhaps Twitter can serve some useful purpose in disseminating the news. And we may not report on oil scandals, but you can still find us at http://twitter.com/glasgowguardian

For anyone who works in a field even peripherally related to the news, though, the fear that this right — to news, not margarine — could be taken away is one that preys on the mind often. In the Guardian office, which operates as a branch of SRC media but (critically) remains editorially independent, we are constantly looking over our collective shoulder for any signs that our ability to report freely on student and university news may be about to be compromised or removed altogether.

And whilst the University of Glasgow should be proud of its continued support for a healthy student press, it is disappointing to learn that this ethos is not shared elsewhere in Scotland. The University of Aberdeen’s student newspaper, Gaudie, is now under the direct control of the President of the Students’ Association. Newspapers should not merely be a mouthpiece for local government, but this is effectively what Gaudie has become.

Students at Aberdeen have responded with an inspiring display of resilience by launching an alternative online news source, Vox Pop (www.vox-pop.org.uk), and for their efforts they deserve not just praise, but the solidarity of their fellow student journalists. Good luck, Vox Pop!