Welcome to CUSU

Referendum Results

Many thanks to all of you who voted. The results are:

Yes - 2366

No - 195

The referendum, having had more than 10% of all students (2,137) vote Yes, is therefore quorate and is passed. More information is available on the CUSU Elections page.

VOTE! in the CUSU Referendum - www.vote.cusu.cam.ac.uk

VOTE at the CUSU voting page.

Read the arguments and further details on the CUSU Elections page.

Voting remains open until 23:59 on Saturday 12th May.

Local Elections 2012: Use your voice, Use your vote. Thursday 3rd May

On Thursday 3rd May, local elections for the City Council will take place across the city, and these are elections with huge importance for collegiate life. Student votes can change who controls the city, so make sure you check out the 'Vote for Students' page with all the polling stations and candidate's manifestos.

Lend a hand to the CUSU Access 'Q&A on Cambridge' radio show

CUSU Access and CamFM are putting on a radio show on Friday 27 April specifically for teachers and prospective students. Lend a hand in the promotion and the production of this radio Q&A!

Hundreds silently protest; Chancellor Lord Sainsbury's first act is to receive first 2800 signatures

Today the installation of the new Chancellor, Lord Sainsbury, was marked by a silent protest of hundreds of gagged students in academic dress.

Once installed, the Chancellor's first act in post was to receive the first 2800 signatures on the ongoing This Is Not Justice petition from the CUSU President Gerard Tully and CUSU Education Officer Morgan Wild. This was presented in a meeting called by the student representatives immediately after the ceremony, delaying the Chancellor's arrival at his official reception.

The Chancellor refused to sign the petition but accepted that he needed to be aware of the strength of feeling in the student body. The Vice Chancellor, who was present at the meeting, reaffirmed his commitment to communicating the anger felt by the student body to the University Advocate when the case is appealed.

The petition remains open - sign it now!

Presentation of your petition to the Vice-Chancellor: Keep signing!

Today we presented the first 2,600 signatures of students, fellows and other Cambridge staff to the Vice-Chancellor on the steps of the Senate House. We will formally submit the petition at a later date.

This does not mean the petition has closed however, and we still need your signatures.

Tomorrow, the Chancellor, Lord Sainsbury, will be installed in a ceremony in the Senate House. CUSU is marking this event with a silent protest at Great St. Mary's.

If you want to continue to mark your dissent from the University's justice, join the facebook group.

Over 400 people have protested. Over 2600 have signed the petition. This is not justice.

Over 400 students, academics, staff and supporters joined CUSU's protest today against the seven term suspension of a student. CUSU President, Gerard Tully said:

"Students are united in opposing the severity of the sentence that this student has received, and for being made an example of when dozens participated in the protest. The number of people we saw join the march today - even though term had ended - was a testament to that.

We will keep the pressure up on the University until this decision is reversed: sign the petition if you haven't already. But also get your supervisors to sign, get fellows to sign, get every academic you know to sign and we can ensure that justice is actually done."

This is not justice. Sign the petition. JOIN THE PROTEST.

Yesterday, the University Court suspended a student for participating in a protest against David Willetts until Michaelmas 2014: SEVEN TIMES what the University's own prosecutor was asking for (a single term!). The student was singled out for a protest that over 60 students and academics have taken responsibility for, having written to the University asking to be given the same charge.

Whatever you think about the Willetts protest, this sentence must not stand. Thousands of people have already signed a petition, calling on the University to reverse this decision: now, join us outside Great St Mary's Church tomorrow (Friday) at 13:00 to protest against this sentence, and to defend our right to protest!

• Sign the CUSU petition
• Sign petition for non University members here
• Facebook event for the protest
• Come to the organising meeting tonight
• More info in Varsity and the Guardian

CUSU Comment on the University's sentencing of a Junior Member, 14 March 2012

The University Court today 'rusticated' (suspended from their studies) a student until Michaelmas 2014 for actions relating to the Willetts protest in late 2011. CUSU President Gerard Tully commented:

"We are dismayed by the University Court's bizarre decision to hand down to a single student a punishment seven times stronger than what the University's own prosecutors had asked for – suspending him until Michaelmas 2014. As the 'Spartacus letter' indicates, many students and fellows took part in the action that the student is being singled out for. This is in no sense a fair application of justice, and students and academics expect better from Cambridge.

A balanced judgement reflecting the evidence and severity of the charges would not have handed down seven times what the University itself asked for. Should an appeal be lodged, we fully expect the University to apply reason and quash this heavy-handed and unfair sentence. For a University that so rightly prides itself on academic freedom and the justness of its procedures, there is simply no alternative."

Hidden Costs

Let us know your hidden costs! The more we know, the more we can do as a Union to highlight financial unfairness and inequality, and improve the quality of everyone's educational experience. Plug your costs into our calculator here!

Lent Exec Elections Results

CUSU Chair - Mark Chonofsky
Grad. Development Officer - Charlie Bell
Common Room Engagement - Kieron Kumar
Membership Engagement - James Counsell
Mental Wellbeing - Helen Hoogewerf-McComb
Target Schools - Flick Osborne
Ethical Affairs Chair - Harrison Bowers
Energise Cambridge Officer - John Wallis
Open Portfolio (Living Wage Officer) - Pete Haysom

Lent Exec Elections - CUSU Council, Monday, 7:15pm

All of these positions are held by students alongside their degrees. There are positions available across all of CUSU's teams. If you are interested in running, please just turn up to the Council at 7:15pm on Monday, in the Small Exams Hall on the New Museums Site. The positions are:

Democracy and Development Team:

CUSU Chair - Chair of CUSU Council, you will work with the President on the Democracy and Development Team, compile the Council agendas and chair all Council meetings, and be a key point of liaison between the Council and the CUSU Executive.Please note: You must be, or have been, a voting member of CUSU Council to be eligible to run for this post.

Graduate Union Development Officer - the graduate rep on the Democracy and Development Team, which has a standing remit to consider CUSU's governance and democratic structures, and is headed up by the CUSU President. Please note: You must be a graduate student to be eligible for this post.

Common Room and Membership Engagement Team (CoMET):

Common Room Support Officer - Part of the President's Common Room and Membership Engagement Team (CoMET), your role is to build relationships between the Colleges and CUSU, through being a point of contact, updating and reinvigorating the website, and being generally tuned into issues across collegiate Cambridge.

Membership Engagement Officer - Again part of CoMET, the Engagement Officer works to make CUSU's activities and relevance more broadly known among the general student body. You might be sent to College Open Meetings as a CUSU representative, run publicity campaigns, and work to build CUSU's profile generally. This is a creative post for someone who is passionate about what CUSU does, and wants a platform to spread that to all students.

Welfare Team:

Mental Wellbeing Officer - Promotes and supports mental wellbeing activities among the student body, including working closely with both the Welfare & Rights sabbatical officer and the Disabled Students' Campaign to demystify mental health issues and the support networks available across Cambridge.

Education Team:

Mature Students Officer - this post is to champion the interests of mature students - those who begin their undergraduate degree at or above the age of 21 - both inside CUSU and across the student body.

Access and Funding Team:

Higher Education Funding Campaigns Officer - Responsible for promoting CUSU's HE Funding campaigns. One of the most high-profile roles in recent years, you'll work closely with the Access Officer and the rest of the CUSU Team to enact CUSU Council's policies and make a clear and strong case to students and the wider world for a fair HE funding system.

Target Schools Officer - Gets involved with training and equipping students to go and do outreach work in schools, through the Target Schools Campaign and other avenues, working very closely with the CUSU Access Officer.

Ethical Affairs Team:

Ethical Affairs Chair - The head of the Ethical Affairs Team. You will carry forwards the Ethical campaign, run the Ethical executive, and continue to spearhead the campaigns on issues like funding for an Ethical Affairs sabbatical officer, green energy projects, recycling and a whole host of other green and ethical issues.

Environmental Officer - Energy, waste, pollution, biodiversity and other aspects of students' contribution to the environment falls under your remit. This is both an awareness-raising and campaigning role for someone who wants to help change the world!

Ethical Consumerism Officer - This role might work with Colleges, the University itself and CUSU to advocate for ethical procurement policies and fairtrade goods in our business dealings and service provisions.

Energise Cambridge Officer - Will lead the new Energise Cambridge Campaign.

There is also one Open Portfolio position up for election, which allows the holder to choose a Team and a role to join.

Hidden Costs

In preparation for the National Union of Students' Week of Action, to highlight course and collegiate inequality, we are calling on students to investigate the hidden costs of your degree - with our funky calculator! See the Hidden Costs page for more details.

Statement regarding action at the Union Society

The CUSU Women's Campaign has nothing to do with the action taken at the Union in the early hours of this morning. We have planned a speaker event, starting at 1pm, which will give a platform to Nafissatou Diallo's attorney, and Cath Elliott, to speak about the specific case against Strauss-Kahn, and broader problems for women who experience sexual violence in society. At 5.30pm we will be leading a non-violent protest to the Union, where we will have our own International Women's Day speeches.

Election Results - Sabbatical Team 2012/13

President

- Rosalyn Old

Education Officer

- Sam Wakeford

Women's Officer

- Susy Langsdale

Access Officer

- Vicky Hudson

Coordinator

- Dom Weldon

Welfare & Rights Officer

- Chris Page

NUS Delegate results, Referendum results, and the full breakdown of votes, are available on the CUSU Elections homepage

Vote in the CUSU & GU Elections 2012 NOW

Voting has now closed.

See the live stream of the count online at www.cusu.cam.ac.uk/elections/live.

Video Manifestos Online Now!

The video manifestos of all the candidates are online now on the CUSU 2012 Elections page.

Voting times:

00:00 Monday 5th to 19:00 Tuesday 6th, ONLINE @ www.vote.cusu.cam.ac.uk

Wednesday 7th March IN YOUR COLLEGES, on paper ballots.

CUSU Elections 2012 - Nominations Closed: Check out the candidates!

The CUSU Elections 2012 are here! The Elections page has details of all the upcoming hustings, as well as the manifestos of all the candidates running to lead the Students' Union in 2012-13.

The latest edition of The Cambridge Student newspaper has an election pull-out with all candidate manifestos included:

Download it here

Last Week, Next Week - the CUSU Team in Week 5

The CUSU Blog has a host of weekly updates from each member of the Team, helpfully bullet-pointing the main things they have been working on, and will be working on in the week ahead. If you have any questions or want more information, contact us.

Vote in the NUS Women's Conference Delegate elections! (Polls close 5pm Saturday)

NUS Women's Conference Delegate elections are now open! There are four delegate positions, and if elected, those delegates will represent women students in Cambridge at a national level at the conference in March.

You can read the manifestos here:

Ruth Graham

Susy Langsdale

Clare Walker Gore

And vote here:

https://www.vote.cusu.cam.ac.uk/cusu/11-12/nuswomensdelegates/

Last Week, This Week - the Sabb Team in Week 4

The new CUSU blog launches 'Last Week, This Week' today, which gives you a snapshot of the activities of the CUSU Sabbatical Team recently and in the days ahead - check it out! Please get in touch if you are interested about any of the things we are working on, as we are here to represent you, and the things we do are in your name.

CUSU Elections 2012

The CUSU Elections page has gone live for 2012! Nominations open on Monday 20th February and close on Monday 27th. Voting will be from Monday 5th to Wednesday 7th March.

Stand in the CUSU Elections... Are you the missing piece?

CUSU Shadowing Scheme - your shadows

If you've signed up to be a volunteer mentor in the CUSU Shadowing Scheme 2012, you can now find out whether you've been assigned a shadow.

• Email the CUSU Access Officer to receive the spreadsheet of shadows and mentors.

If you don't appear on the spreadsheet then you haven't been assigned a shadow. You'll be on the back-up list so that if any more shadow places are made available, you may be assigned a shadow. If you're at a college that is operating the room-share system, then you could be matched with a shadow if you offer your own room (email the CUSU Access Officer for details).

Watch the CUSU website and your email inbox for more details in the new few days.

Holiday Opening Hours

The office will be closed from 23rd December 2011 until 2nd January 2012.

The Student Advice Service will remain open (apart from weekends and public holidays) via phone (01223 746999) and email (advice@studentadvice.cam.ac.uk).

Support our Lecturers Rally

On 30th November, Cambridge UCU (University and College Union) will be taking industrial action, alongside two million public sector workers across the country.

This action is being taken over the appalling deal academics are getting on pensions. A better deal on pensions is not just in academics' interests, but in ours as well: if we want to retain the best minds in the profession, we have to offer them a deal that reflects their worth.

CUSU is in support of UCU's industrial action, and we would encourage all students to come to this rally to show their support. We will be congregating at 11:30, before marching in support of our lecturers to Parkers' Piece, where the Cambridge wide rally will be happening.

Support Our Lecturers - see you all on Wednesday!

Facebook Event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=256739311047593

CUSU Statement on the disruption of David Willetts' Talk

Gerard Tully, CUSU President said: "David Willetts is the architect of higher education policy which is actively damaging to the quality of education that Cambridge (and other universities) offer and creates an unfair financial barrier to students from the broadest backgrounds aspiring to University. It is entirely right that students and academics protest these policies, as over 100 did today before Mr Willetts' talk. Tonight students had the opportunity and choice to hear and question Mr Willetts, in the 800-year old tradition of academic enquiry and freedom of speech that Cambridge has pioneered. Students have now been denied that opportunity, and CUSU cannot support this.

Freedom of expression is one of the founding principles of University education - no matter how objectionable the views being espoused are. Students believe in this principle and so does CUSU, so we cannot support any protest that violates it - which the disruption of David Willetts' talk tonight clearly did."

CUSU Part-Time Exec Results

Congratulations to the following, who have been elected by CUSU Council to the Part-Time Executive:

Elections Committee: Ruth Graham, Morgan Wild, Tom Towers, Charlie Bell, Elena Han
CUSU Secretary: Chris Halcrow
Undergraduate Development Officer: Dan Green
Undergraduate Academic Officer: Thom Kirkwood
Sexual Health Officer: Dan West
Anti-Racism Officer: Rishi Sharma
Eating Disorders Support Officer: Maddie Skipsey
Bursaries & Funding Officer: Ben Jones
BME Access Officer: Ifey Frederick
Socially Responsible Investment Officer: Chris Kerr
Open Portfolio: Ashley Smith

CUSU Part-Time Exec Elections!

On Monday 21 November at CUSU Council, we have the first round of part-time executive elections for the following positions:

Secretary, Undergraduate Development Officer, Undergraduate Academic Officer, Sexual Health Officer, Transport &, Student Safety Officer, Eating Disorders Support Officer, Anti-Racism Officer, Bursaries and Funding Officer, Black Minority Ethnic Access Officer, Rents Officer, Communications Officer, College Facilities Officer, Socially Responsible Investment Officer, Community & Volunteering Officer - and one Open Portfolio position.

For more information, please see our Elections page

Cambridge Goes to the National Demo!

Last year, a coalition of students, pupils, academics and ordinary people united in its opposition to Government's higher education policies – the biggest protest movement in a generation. Government policy will leave a generation in debt and have a devastating impact on access: and our opposition is not going away.

On Wednesday 9th November, there will be a national demonstration in London and thousands will be taking to the streets, to continue the fight against Government's sustained attack on our education system.

CUSU is organising coaches to go to the demonstration – EMAIL nationaldemo@cusu.cam.ac.uk TO BOOK A COACH PLACE.

Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=265380770173640

Apply for the CUSU Shadowing Scheme 2012

That time has come again when you can sign up to be a part of the CUSU Shadowing Scheme. Run annually, these three weekend residentials in January and February see about three hundred bright young students from non-university backgrounds 'shadow' a current Cambridge undergraduate from a Thursday in January/February until the following Saturday.

Click here to find out more about the Shadowing Scheme, including how you could get yourself, or your society, involved.

Cambridge blasts Higher Education White Paper

Cambridge University has savaged the higher education White Paper, in its response to the Government's consultation. CUSU had put sustained pressure on the University throughout the summer to make the submission as damning as possible.

In a sustained attack on the White Paper, Cambridge expressed that it is "dismayed by the Government's overall vision and strategy for higher education" and that Government had pursued a strategy of "alienation rather than one of inclusion" in higher education policy.

Cambridge also argued that a liberalised higher education market will not operate successfully, and that higher education "should not be reduced to a utilitarian analysis of cost and personal financial benefit". It reiterated its commitment to the public funding of higher education.

Morgan Wild, CUSU Education Officer, said: "The White Paper will continue the Government's failed and flawed attempt to introduce a market into higher education, and we commend Cambridge for condemning it outright, as we strongly encouraged it to do.

The White Paper will be a disaster for widening participation, for the quality of education and for the very ethos of our public university system. If even an institution as traditionally cautious as Cambridge is slamming your policy in the strongest terms, you know you have got your policy badly wrong. This White Paper should not be allowed to get out of Parliament."

The University's full response can be read here: http://www.cam.ac.uk/univ/notices/council-white-paper-response.pdf.

Coming to Cambridge in 2012?

Don't forget to join the Official Cambridge Freshers 2012 Facebook group by clicking on the logo below:

You can also follow the Official Cambridge Freshers Twitter feed here: http://twitter.com/CamUniFreshers

The Cambridge Bursary

All UK students who quality for a government maintenance grant are also eligible for the Cambridge Bursary, worth thousands of pounds per year. The University has an unlimited number of these, so as long as you fulfil the means-related criteria then you can get one! You may also also be able to get a Cambridge Bursary if you are an EU student.

The application period begins on 1 October and ends on 21 October - more information about the process on the Cambridge Bursary page.

CUSU fought really hard with students last year to Save Our Bursaries so students who need the financial assistance can still get it. Don't miss the deadline!

Result of the Cambridge no-confidence Grace

Cambridge academics have today voted a dead heat in whether they have confidence in the government's higher education policies. Regardless of the result of the vote, there is no doubt that on the broader issues students and academics oppose the disastrous tripling of tuition fees and are against the government's further incoherent and damaging proposals contained within the higher education White Paper.

CUSU President Gerard Tully commented: "Students, both in Cambridge and across the country, have had no confidence in this government's approach to higher education since day one: the reality of £9,000 tuition fees is simply that students from the least advantaged backgrounds will be deterred from applying to university by fear of debt. The White Paper promises new chaos – universities and students deserve and demand better.

Publicly funded higher education is of great benefit to students, to the economy and to society at large: it's time the government recognised this and stop breaking a system that they don't understand."

Handover at CUSU

As of Saturday 16 July, the Sabbatical Team for 2011/12 have taken office.

• CUSU President: Gerard Tully
• CUSU Education Officer: Morgan Wild
• CUSU Coordinator: Harriet Flower
• CUSU Access Officer: Taz Rasul
• CUSU Women's Officer: Ruth Graham
• CUSU/GU Welfare and Rights Officer: Rosie O'Neill

Your gateway to Cambridge University student marketing...

2012 and 2013 Advertising Opportunities:

We are currently taking bookings for the following:

• Newspaper advertising (Print and Online advertising)
• Poster Distribution
• Promotional Leaflet/Flyer Delivery Services
• The 2012 Cambridge University Societies Fair (Freshers' Fair)
• The Freshers' Guide 2012
• The International Freshers' Guide 2012
• The 2012/2013 Cambridge Guide
• The Cambridge University Wallplanner 2012/2013
• The 2012/2013 Freshers' 'Survival' Pack

Further Information

Or download further information here:

2012-2013 Full Media Pack

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