Clubs & Socs Film Gliding Club Scandalous page 18 page 25 page 17 Guardian Student Newspaper of the Year e student newspaper of Imperial College No. 1,372 • Friday • 9 February 2007 • ffelixelix felixonline.co.uk Sabbatical gets censured First censure motion for more than twenty years passes against the Deputy President (Graduate Students) What is censure? This is the first censure against a sabbatical since 1981, when Danny McCabe (a former Deputy President) was censured by Council. A censure motion is, as one officer put it, “an official slap on the wrist”. It means that Council has accepted poor conduct on the part of the of- ficer who is censured. It carries no immediate effect, unlike a no confidence motion, which would have resulted in Ms Rahman’s removal from the DPGS position. The no confidence motion was written by Jon Matthews (Deputy President, Finance & Services), and has been held up in Union Court while vari- ous legalities were discussed. The censure motion also requires that any new paper brought to Council about Ms Rahman’s performance to be a no confidence motion. The new motion cannot be ‘down- graded’ to a censure. Defending: Shama Rahman, Deputy President (Graduate Students) Prosecuting: Jon Matthews, Deputy President (Finance & Services) Andy Sykes votes cast against the censure mo- the total length of documents each They raised the point about a viously) was barely touched upon. Editor-in-chief tion were from Council members member was expected to read to postgraduate representative’s fate Most of the early discussion cen- who were dissatisfied with the more than one hundred pages. being voted on by a mostly under- tred around Ms Rahman’s poor A motion of censure was passed move to censure, preferring instead Ms Rahman brought a number of graduate body, even though Ms timekeeping as described in the pa- at Council on Monday against the a motion of no confidence. GSA Executive members to speak Rahman is a Deputy President, per. Notably, these were failures to Deputy President (Graduate Stu- The proceedings opened with a for her; however, most Council elected by the entire student body. attend important College meetings, dents), Shama Rahman. lengthy speech by Ms Rahman in members seemed dissatisfied with Most of the Council rejected this the absence from Management Ms Rahman had initially faced a her defence, which Jon Matthews their defence of Shama, which fo- defence, and the repetition of this & Planning Group (a confidential no confidence motion, but Council (Deputy President, Finance & Serv- cussed on her GSA Chair role and point only served to frustrate some staff/sabb briefing), and her run- voted 17-10 to amend the proceed- ices), the paper’s author, responded very little on her Deputy President of those present. ning of the GSA stall at Freshers’ ings to a censure vote. The censure to before the debate was opened up role (which requires her to work Surprisingly, the controversial Fair. Ms Rahman offered a number itself passed almost unanimously, to the floor, and an arranged list of the same hours as the other sabbs, evidence that made it into the final of excuses for these, and accept with only two of the twenty-seven speakers. among other things). They praised paper (namely, the monitoring of that her timekeeping was poor. Council members present voting Council members were given a her approachable and friendly Ms Rahman’s arrival times, and the against it. Since then, Felix has full rebuttal to Mr Matthews’ paper, manner, and the events that she email evidence of an alleged pre- learned that one, if not both of the which ran to sixty pages, bringing had organised. meditated ‘sickie’ as rerpoted pre- Continued on page 2 2 felix Friday 9 February 2007 NEWS [email protected] College email fault Sabb gets censured “System error” causes old emails to be resent to almost every Continued from front page At Freshers’ Fair, Ms Rahman was student in the College, filling inboxes and raising tempers late in arriving to run the GSA stall, and was spotted drinking the bar when the other sabbs and volun- The College email service had a from last year’s sabb elections to had been less than satisfactory. He teers were packing up at the end of brief fit last Friday, spamming al- mumps, and some even covered did not receive a full explanation for the Fair. most every student with old emails last year’s NUS referendum. the error, and received no notifica- This antagonised a number of from mailing lists. The torrent of email trickled off tion that there was a problem until volunteer officers present, many of The emails were from student by the end of the day, with only a he contacted ICT after receiving whom had been on duty since early mailing lists used by Union Presi- trickle of emails arriving in this the angry missives of upset stu- in the morning, and stayed until dents, as well as Faculty Union- editor’s inbox by 10pm, including dents with full inboxes. later on in the evening to pack up. wide mailing lists and College- two messages about an entrepre- ICT have now fixed the problem, Also, questions were asked about wide lists They began arriving neur’s challenge, and one from Mr it seems. When contact by CGCU Ms Rahman’s problems with budg- late on Friday afternoon, causing Collins. President James Fok in regards et forms, with Council members a number of students’ inboxes to Mr Collins has received “a large to some of his past emails being pointing out that each of the 280 vol- overflow. The messages were arriv- amount” of angry emails from stu- resent, ICT Service Desk respond- unteer club officers are expected to ing from previous Union President, dents who received his own emails, ed: “Due to a system error, many be able to do this. Sameena Misbahuddin, previous presuming him to be responsible. messages that were send to some These points had been covered in CGCU President, Sid Singh, CGCU An exasperated Mr Collins could be distribution lists were re-sent to- a formal written warning issued by President James Fok, the Imperial seen stalking the corridors of Beit day. The monitoring of the system the President, and in the first draft College Health Centre, the Rector, Towers on Friday evening, unhap- showed that this has now ceased. of the no confidence motion that was Sir Richard Sykes, and even the py that he’d been given the blame Please accept our apologies for leaked to Felix. However, Ms Rah- current President, John Collins. unjustifiably. any inconvenience this may have man’s late arrival to the important The emails concerned everything Mr Collins also said ICT’s conduct caused you.” SEC (Strategic Education Commit- tee) meeting, where she had been due to give a presentation about the PhD funding increase (which was later made by Ben Harris), and a failure to submit the GSA budget on Danny McGuinness, Council time, both occured after the no con- Chair, annouces the voting result fidence motion had been submitted. Many of those present commented to Felix that this showed a lack of ing), and that she had had enough regard for her current situation. chances. Ms Rahman had many explana- The doves, however, argued that tions for her poor timekeeping and the removal of Shama might signal attendence, citing building works death for the GSA, which has only and illness as two, and was very existed for two years. There were apologetic for some of the trans- also concerns expressed over what gressions alleged in the paper, her message such a move would send voice almost breaking at times. to the postgraduate student body. As the meeting continued, the After an almost four hour meet- questioning softened somewhat, ing, the move to censure was ap- with Council acknowledging the proved by Council. Voting on the good work Ms Rahman has done in censure took place by secret ballot; organising events for the fledgling Ms Rahman did not return to hear GSA, and in promoting the GSA the result. brand to PGs. As such, Ben Harris A number of Council members (Deputy President, Education & approached by Felix said they voted Welfare) suggested a move to cen- for the move to censure as they felt sure, rather than no confidence. a no confidence motion would fall, Several hawkish Council mem- leaving no official consequences. bers seemed unhappy with this – Concerns over the functioning of one pointed out that this wasn’t the the sabb team after censure seem, first warning Ms Rahman has re- for the moment, unfounded. John ceived (there have been some ver- Collins commented: “It feels like a Our artist’s representation of ICT fixing the College email server after the little, erm, mishap bal warnings, and a written warn- great dark cloud has been lifted.” felix 1,372 Friday 09.02.07 Gay adoption Oscar heavyweight “Christians, Jews and Muslims put “Dench plays a battle-axe teacher, down their Katusha rockets, gre- narrating through her diary the nades and holy texts at the end of story of her developing friendship 2006 for an afternoon of protest with new staff room addition, Cate against the Labour government’s Blanchett, and, as it turns out, Judi Equality Act, due to come into might be in it for more than the force in April.” odd pint down the local, *nudge PAGE 4 wink*” PAGE 17 Hydrogen power? “The majority of research has so Yummy Mario far proved unfruitful, leaving us First you’ll want some kind of sickly with an uneasy choice between tra- sweet-based gift.