Roar News January 2018

Roar January/February 2018

NEWS FIT FOR KING’S

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R-Rated

SPECIAL FOUR PAGE EDITION! ART l FILM l MUSIC l CULTURE l PAGES 14-17

EXCLUSIVE

Roar chats exclusively to designer and KCL Alum Tskenya-Sarah Fraser on her new gender-neutral footwear brand which seeks to change the landscape of the fashion industry.

Full Story — Page 8

PROTEST LEADS TO FURTHER CALL TO ACTION

lThe KCL Justice for Cleaners Campaign continues in earnest

CHEATING OUR WAY TO A 1:1?

EXCLUSIVE

ROAR exclusively investigates the rising ‘epidemic’ of the use of proofreading and academic cheating websites and services within the UK. Is this a more widescale problem than originally perceived?

Full Story — Pages 6 and 12

This is our fight

Online Student Wellbeing Programme EU-funded project looking to improve student wellbeing Set up an account: https://www.icare-online.eu/en/Plus.html Chance to win an iPad

Any queries? Email madeleine.irish@kcl.ac.uk

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JANUARY 2018

First female bishop is KCL council member A member of council at King’s College London has become the first female bishop.

The Right Reverend Dame Sarah Mullally is now the third most senior bishop in the Church of England after accepting the role in December. She is the 133rd Bishop of London.

-rated ALL THINGS CULTURE AT KING’S Page 14-17

KCL MARROW MAKES GREAT SUCCESSES The most common form of donation involves collecting stem cells from a donor’s blood, with only 10% of donors donating bone marrow, a process which involves being put under general anesthetic.

Bishop Sarah, a former nurse, has lived and worked in London for 32 years, and has stated she was both “surprised and delighted” to take up the role.

She became a lay member of the Council of the College in 2016.

In a press conference, she stated “I have always had one vocation: to follow Jesus Christ, to know him and to make him known, always seeking to live with compassion in the service of others, whether as a nurse, a priest, or a bishop.”

NEW CHIEF FOR KCLSU The Chief Executive of KCLSU, Mo Wiltshire, will step down in June after eight years at the organisation.

Ms. Wiltshire, who has worked with students for two decades will hand over to a new Chief Executive in the Summer, the successor is yet to be decided.

Speaking on her time spent at KCLSU, Ms. Wiltshire praised the Union, stating: “KCLSU is a strong union with a bright future.”

KCLSU President Momin Saqib thanked Ms. Wiltshire for her service.

CLARIFICATIONS & CORRECTIONS Roar aims to have the highest editorial standards (seriously, not kidding) in the paper and on digital. You can help us by letting us know if we’ve made mistakes. You can email us at editor@roarnews.co.uk or write to us at Roar News, The Macadam Building, Surrey St, London WC2R 2NS. We aim to correct significant (and insignificant) factual errors as soon as we can.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Rebekah Evans Deputy Editor: Irina Anghel NEWS: Editors: Shrai Popat and William Nestor-Sherman. Reporters: Jack Revell, Inho Park, Cleo Anderson, Asad Zulifiqar COMMENT: Editors: Philippa Knipe and Mathilde Betant-Rasmussen. Reporters: Emilia Sandoghar, Harriet Whitehead, Molly Mintz, Mary Ntalianis CULTURE: Editors: Brigitte Zheng and Nikhil Kanukuntla. Reporters: Sam Wooton, Lily Sawyer, Hannah Dennis, Sophie Perry, Augustina Economou, Ilona Bushell STAFF PHOTOGRAPHERS: Editor: Cathy Wang. Photographers: Afifa Suhail, Jared Phanco, Gina Meile, Abdi Alasow, Coco Wang SPORT: Editor: Polly Mears. Reporters: Madeline Anderson and Ambar Iqbal DESIGNERS: Siri Hedreen © ROAR NEWS 2018. Roar News, Tutu’s, KCLSU, Surrey St, London WC2R 2NS.

by MARY NTALIANIS

In 2017, the King’s College London Marrow Society signed up over three hundred people onto the National Stem Cell Register.

The society, known as KCL Marrow, is a student group that works with the non-profit organisation Anthony Nolan. Anthony Nolan was established in 1974 by Shirley Nolan, whose son, three year old Anthony, was diagnosed with a rare inherited blood disorder, for which he was in urgent need of a bone marrow transplant. Anthony later lost his battle with his illness, but his legacy lived on. The organisation works to save lives from leukaemia, blood cancer and other severe blood disorders, by recruiting stem cell donors onto the National Stem Cell Register.The Register matches patients with donors who can provide lifesaving stem cell or bone marrow transplants.

Last year, 63% of the donors recruited by KCL Marrow were black, Asian or of mixed ethnicity, resulting in KCL Marrow being awarded the Black and Minority Ethnic Advocate of the Year by Anthony Nolan.

This is a huge achievement for KCL Marrow

and Anthony Nolan. According to KCL Marrow’s co-clinical coordinator and fundraising officer Sarah Arunachalam, “only 60% of patients requiring a transplant find their best possible match. This value drops significantly to only 20% for people of black, Asian, ethnic or mixed ethnicity.”

“We have been trying very hard to collaborate with as many ethnic and other societies, as King’s has got such a diverse and widespread community.”

The President of KCL Marrow, Emily McKee, has also received widespread recognition and praise for her leadership of the society’s campaign. McKee took up the cause after losing her close friend, Rebecca Haughey, to leukemia at the age of eighteen. Haughey passed away in September 2016 before being able to receive a stem cell donation.

In the UK, Leukaemia survival rates are improving and have more than quadrupled in the last forty years, thanks to medical developments and stem cell donations.

Once an individual signs up to the National Stem Cell Register, there is approximately a one in 790 chance of them going on to donate.

“There are about 2,000 people in the UK alone requiring a stem cell transplant each year but only about 25% of these patients are able to find a completely matching donor within their family,” Arunachalam maintains, “this is why we need more people to sign up to the register, to increase the chances.”

Roar spoke exclusively to the President of KCL Marrow who stated: “Less than 20% of patients from the BAME community get a match, so our main motivations as a group are to collaborate with BAME societies to try and raise awareness (as well as getting much needed sign ups). People are usually shocked to hear that a patient’s chance of getting a stem cell donor drops from 60% for Caucasians to less than 20% for BAME. This is so disappointing. Your ethnicity should never be a barrier to your health.”

You can find out more about the process of stem cell donation and how you can help in the fight against blood cancer by visiting KCL Marrow’s Facebook page for their next donor recruitment event or by visiting the Anthony Nolan Website. KCL Marrow will hold a cocktail evening at the end of February to raise funds for the cause. It costs a mere £30 to add just one person to the register. n Got a news story? The next scoop? Or perhaps just a feel-good report on what’s happening around campus. Get in touch with us!

Email editor@roarnews.co.uk and we’ll get back to you ASAP.

THE RISE AND FALL OF TOBY YOUNG: A POLITICALLY CORRECT WITCH HUNT?

By HARRIET WHITEHEAD On 9 January, British journalist Toby Young stepped down from his newly-appointed position in the Office for Students (OfS), following heavy criticism. Young, a former journalist most noted for his memoir: How To Lose Friends and Alienate People, and a staunch advocate for free schools, maintained that he had resigned in an effort to address the ‘mob’s blood lust’ and ‘lies’ that had followed his controversial appointment.

With this in mind, and Young’s history as an outspoken writer, staunch criticism quickly followed his appointment.

The OfS has, apparently, been set up in an attempt to uphold standards at universities, with a view to actively intervening if necessary. It will, essentially, become a market reg-ulator that might open up the education sector to increased competition and seek to ob-tain value for money.

But the reproval that has followed Young concerns more than just cronyism. It has also focused vehemently on Young’s history as a professional ‘provoker’. Whilst some assume his controversial nature is for effect, many have suggested that his comments are more deep-rooted, revealing him to be Neo-Nazi sympathiser. Young has expressed a variety of controversial opinions, including the reducing of disabled access, and writings on progressive eugenics – his attendance at a secret eugenics conference hosted here in the capital recently hitting the headlines.

This, coupled with his overt misogyny alongside sexually and racially problematic comments quickly surfaced following his appointment.

However, the Office has other things on its agenda. It will also aim to be a body that maintains ‘freedom of speech’ within universities and prevents radicalisation; both are aims that have been explicitly advocated by the Conservative Party.

In a rebuttal that was posted on social media, Young suggested that the media attention that has followed his post is reminiscent of a ‘witch-hunt’; that articles are based on fabrication and politically correct melodrama. Furthermore, Young

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specifically points to his attendance of conferences that had hosted talks on disturbing topics, such as a the defence of child rape. He argues that he attended in ignorance of the conferences’ history and was there purely in a journalistic capacity.

Moreover, he argues that his writings for Quadrant, a conservative Australian journal, was mere ‘philosophical enquiry’, rather than an endorsement of eugenics. He also deemed views endorsing pedophilia as ‘pretty odd’ but maintained a belief ‘in free speech’.

The issue is this: even if we concede that there may have been exaggerated interpretations of Young’s positions and articles taken out of context, there remains a problem.

Even if he tries to disassociate himself from them, Young’s total lack of distain for unethical and defamatory views is despicable. He stated that he was ‘not remotely ashamed of having attended the London Conference on Intelligence’, which might be reasonable if when there, he had used his platform to outrightly reject its topics. Instead, his remark that the topics of the conference were ‘pretty

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odd’ is absurd, and suggests that he does tactically consent to such views after all.

Indeed, Young’s attempt to frame this as an issue of ‘free speech’ is laughable. It is he himself that has exercised his own right to speak freely by offering vile ‘jokes’ and discussing controversial topics for the purpose of getting a reaction. He now wishes to achieve forgiveness under the same guise of ‘free speech’, as it has come to impede his rightwing agenda.

However much Young might wish he was able to now it is impossible to backtrack on the statements he has made, the tweets he has sent, and the opinions he has held. One must conisder whether Young’s comments about certain levels of regret are simply a direct result of exposure, rather than an actual desire to examine his behaviour.

Nevertheless, the public and the press have exercised their power. For that, we can admire them all. n Got a student opinion? Get in touch at comment@roarnews.co.uk

... or email us

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Calls from landlines are probably charged at local rate (who the hell has a landline these days?), mobile surely charged at mobile rates.

BITCOIN: A 21st Century Love Story My bitcoin journey began with a date.

Picture this. The bright, hustling, bustling city of Vancouver throws together a bitcoin trader doorman and an unsuspecting student, in a love story for the ages. Makes for a good plot, right? Alas, the romanticism ends here, and whilst we watched bitcoin documentaries and sipped cocktails together, I eventually gave up on the doorman once my freshers activities picked up and the university workload increased.

There was, however, still a part of me which couldn’t help but think what might’ve been with a potential and budding bitcoin boyfriend. It was when I desperately wanted an excuse to speak to him that I set up my own account on localbitcoins.com, a market for bitcoin trading. And thus my plan of action began. I figured I could ask him technical questions, gain an interest, and then, suddenly I might just have some extra knowledge and a cute doorman under my belt. I spent a whole morning verifying my identity, attempting to buy bitcoin and feeling extremely creepy. But a problem with my bank account meant I lost the patience to pursue the idea any further, an idea I began to deeply regret when the price of bitcoin skyrocketed.

My infatuation has been rekindled since.

In order to truly understand bitcoin, it seems a whole list of words such as “blockchain” and “mining” must be adopted, however, at its heart, bitcoin is a digitial currency which uses encryption to regulate currency and transfer funds. The currency sets itself apart from others through its de-centralised ideals; a sort of bottom-up approach to money which exists independently from a central banking system. Anyone can buy the digital tokens – their smallest fraction is the “Satoshi”, named after Satoshi Nakamoto, the cover name for its mystery inventor. At the time of writing, 9,125 Satoshi is approximately equivalent to 1 US dollar, so if Bitcoin gains you nothing else, it will make you feel incredibly rich. In a similar way, if bitcoin wasn’t associated with billionaires and speculators, it could well be seen as a grassroots critique of capitalism.

Just as I was using localbitcoins.com, there are many other digital places to buy and sell the virtual currency.

Coinbase seems to be the most popular, with the number of accounts shooting up from 5.5 million in January to 13.3

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DEVELOPMENT THINKERS OR CURED MEATS?

By SIRI HEDREEN

Alice Evans, an International Developement lecturer at King’s, ignited a Twitter firestorm when she retweeted a blog post along with the comment ‘#SausageFest.’

Her comment was a criticism of the blog’s heavily white male list of the “10 Top Thinkers on Development,” curated and published by two prominent members of the field who also happened to be white men.When invited to blog in response, Evans warned of how such veneration can “blinker ourselvesto alternative perspectives,” and sparked a lively discussion of female contributions to International Development.

UNI CONCERNED ABOUT LACK OF FAILURE

By EMILIA SANDOGHAR

But just as I was intrigued by that handsome doorman, so too was I captivated by the idea of bitcoin. Although I’ll never see that doorman again, I do get the feeling I’ll see a lot more of bitcoin in the future.

JANUARY 2018 Roar

million at the end of November 2017.

Nathaniel Popper, a technology reporter at The New York Times, compares Bitcoin to Wikipedia, maintained by a decentralised network of writers and editors. Anyone can access the blockchain and “mine” bitcoins, which is when new bitcoins are created. Nakamoto set a limit of 21 million bitcoins however, which is why bitcoin is often compared to gold, a finite resource.

But what better way to investigate bitcoin than actually talking to real bitcoin investors? And why would others follow the Bitcoinmania trend?

Surely they couldn’t have all fallen for a handsome doorman…

It turns out that King’s, with its 26,509 students, and a myriad of weird and wonderful societies in all areas you could possibly think of also has a blockchain society. César Reig, President of KCL Blockchain Society and business student, has always loved investing. Less into the technical aspects of the technology behind it, he follows the fluctuations actively, checking his bitcoin several times a day. Despite his investor interests, his idealist visions for bitcoin seep through. “I think the idea behind bitcoin is incredible… The problem is that now people fail to see what bitcoin is and what it means, as its price is all people see in it.” Even Reig is still cautious of his new found love however and advises his friends and family “they should only invest what they are willing to lose.”

This caution echoes in Neel’s replies as well, who has taken his interest in Bitcoin cross-country for university.

A first year Computer Science student, Neel belongs to the tech guys in the cryptospace and has been in the bitcoin game for a while. “Originally I mined them. It seemed like a cool technology at the time and I needed a project…”

Contrary to Cesar, Neel does not check his bitcoins regularly anymore

and does not encourage friends or family to invest in it. “Most of my relatives see bitcoin in the news and expect massive shortterm gain. This is an unhealthy attitude which causes users to either sell or forget about their bitcoin, damaging the long-term value and stability of the currency.”Before the mania kicked in, Neel used bitcoins to pay, but now says “they’re too valuable to use as a currency. It would be akin to paying for services with gold.”

But perhaps bitcoin is more of a tainted gold and the elephant in the room must be addressed. As investor Ian* reveals, bitcoin is clearly linked to the illegal sector. Despite using it for trading purposes now, Ian stated that bitcoin pays the bills much better than a job at a grungy bar, with his original intent of buying bitcoin to purchase drugs online. In his undergrad years, bitcoin was a means to an end for Ian – the supplies to the embrace of alternative dance music and party culture. Through Silk Road, a now closed-down platform at the heart of the dark web, Ian was not required to meet the dealers in person.

This kind of anonymity is welcomed at London’s 23 Paul Street as well, the first strip club in Europe to accept cryptocurrency as payment.

After Ian’s friend was sent to jail for drug possession, he left the shady corners of the cryptospace and started using bitcoin as an investment. He believes the real value of bitcoin has not been reached yet but, like Cesar and Neel, would not invest in it if he could not afford to lose. The anonymous investor sees bitcoin as the myspace of our decade. “We’re still waiting for facebook to come along.”

Tainted or polished, bitcoin seems to be the gold of our decade and the rush seems worth surrendering to.

Whether it’s creating ambiance on a first date, feeding tech-hungry students or simply serving as an investment, it’s clear that bitcoin might just be a flirt worth checking out. *We have changed Ian’s name in order to protect his anonymity.

Last year, about a dozen UK universities including Durham, Edinburgh, and Oxford admitted to passing and issuing a reward to every undergraduate who sat exams.

Still more failed fewer than 1% of students, including King’s College London.

While some fear a drop in standards, allowing higher volumes of students to pass, the higher education body Universities UK maintains that “the UK has one of the most robust and transparent systems in the world.”

THE PERFECT FORMULA FOR CHRISTMAS DINNER Scientists from King’s College London have devised the ‘perfect’ formula for a great Christmas dinner.

College scientists assembled a menu that combines traditional favourites with hearty helpings of healthy foods.

The menu seeks to cut the calories and increase awareness into nutritional health and science.

For starters, nuts are recommended, for their health-giving properties and their ability to lower chances of cardiovascular issues.

Main course recommendations include the love-it-or-hate-it brussel sprouts, root vegetables and turkey.

To finish the meal, you can chomp down on your favourite Christmas pud, whilst increasing your fibre intake.

BYRNE-ING

Overheard on the Tube on the way to the much-loved January exams: “What I appreciate most about exams in Olympia is the fact I get to travel through the ENTIRE great city of London to get there.” And don’t we know it.

ISSUES

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JANUARY 2018

‘KCL JUSTICE FOR CLEANERS’ FIGHT FOR AN END TO OUTSOURCING

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FEATURE by

WILLIAM NESTOR-SHERMAN News Editor The KCL Justice for Cleaners campaign will continue this year in earnest, after efforts in December saw the highest student and staff turnout in support of the cause since its conception.

The campaign, spearheaded by the cleaning staff of the College was established three years ago, with the aim to bring cleaning staff working at King’s ‘in-house’, rather than employability from third-party organisation, Servest. The campaign seeks to offer contractual parity for cleaners when compared to directly-employed staff.

A right for rights The latest move in the campaign saw a wide-scale demonstration held outside of the main façade of the Strand Building, with over 150 people taking part in an event that was described as “an incredible feat for the campaign”. Supporters of the cause came together to raise awareness for the argued ‘poor working conditions’ and ‘lack of workers’ rights’ that many cleaners have stated they have faced whilst working at the College under the outsourcing company, Servest.

“This is beyond politics, this is humanity”

Marcia, one of a number of cleaners who spoke openly to the crowd, said: “We want Kings to support us. We need sick pay. We are not machines. We need more holidays.”

‘Unacceptable’ Another cleaner who spoke, Javier, translated by Simon Gomez, talked about the importance of a united movement: “We the cleaners feel the need to come to the protest because ten months have passed and nothing has been accomplished. They haven’t accomplished what they agreed and this cannot continue. That’s why we know that united with the student support, we will succeed.”

Others passed by the protest to ascertain more information and establish their opinions from then on. Antonio d’Amico stated: “I know a bit of stuff about the cleaners’ campaign because I’m in the Marxist society. It’s a fair campaign of course, and has been a deep problem for too long. Though I’m not sure about the protest. I don’t really have an opinion on it but if they think it’s necessary then go ahead.”

However, not everyone at the protest appeared in favour of the cause. Fasiha Choudry, a College student presented a very different opinion: “It’s really weird what’s going on here. They are saying the cleaners deserve the same rights as lecturers. I get a minimum wage of £7.05 an hour, and yet they get the London Living Wage.

Equality is Vital KCL Justice for Cleaners is now determined to make the university provide equal opportunities for overtime work, fair recruitment to new vacancies, as well as the formal recognition of the cleaners’ UNISON representation. The campaign hopes to emulate the success of similar cleaners’ rights campaigns at a number of other London universities – with both SOAS and LSE running successful organisations since 2006 and taking significant steps to improve workers’ rights at their respective institutions.

“They all signed a contract, so I don’t think they have a right to protest because they are getting what they signed up for. Does that mean I should get the same as my manager? If they get what they want, there will be no zero hour contracts and then they would have no work at all.”

“We’re reproducing problems in the walls of this prestigious university.”

Despite some outcry, and indeed levels of questioning, the campaign is keen to continue in earnest, and with the support of the general population of King’s for the Justice for Cleaners campaign growing steadily, the organisation is sure it can achieve its aims.

Simona Alexandra, the student at King’s responsible for communication between Unison and College students involved, said in an official statement: “The cleaners struggle will be won by their determination and restless fight and they are the driving force of the campaign. But as students we have a vital role to play in all workplace disputes at our university. The cleaners struggle is our struggle.

Many now state the KCL Justice for Cleaners campaign is now at a critical point. The latest negotiations held with the university, allegedly promised ‘nothing concrete’, according to an official spokesperson, and the campaign appears no nearer to bringing outsourcing to an end.

Roar spoke to Ms. Majeed who stated: “You can see from how he reacted, that something is not right here. We are just peacefully protesting. Most of these people suffering are people of colour. King’s may be a world-class university, but if we don’t stand up to this,

Alongside those who demonstrated support for the campaign, a number of cleaners who have been under the employment of Servest were present, with many voicing their opinions on how they felt they have been treated, and how the campaign provided ‘help’.

Ha Hong, a member of the public who witnessed the protest, said: “It’s certainly a good thing, everyone has the right to say as they want.

Though I do think it’s a bit small, it’s a shame there couldn’t be a bigger group. I’m not sure what they are protesting though.”

Protesters who made their opinions known during the demonstration, brought up issues surrounding workers’ rights, such as sick pay, holiday leave, pensions and maternity and paternity leave under their employment.

However efforts from the campaign have not been without controversy. Despite the December rally proving to be entirely peaceful, King’s student Lana Majeed was seen to be attacked by an elderly gentlemen with a crutch whilst she protested with a megaphone outside of Strand. The anonymous attacker in question was unavailable to comment, but shouted “This should be illegal” after attacking the protester and exiting the Strand.

In attendance at the protests were a myriad of staff and students from varying backgrounds who expressed their solidarity for the campaign. Simon Gomez, a Columbian student at the College, who has served as a translator for Spanish-speaking cleaners, said: “We are not asking for anything unreasonable. We are asking for decency. This issue goes beyond politics and into the realm of humanity. Outsourcing generates instability, insecurity and stress for the worker. This is our fight, we support the cleaners in any way we can. They are leaders.”

“We are not being unreasonable.

We are asking for decency.”

Responsible for the employment of cleaners at the College, Servest has been put under intense scrutiny by the KCL Justice for Cleaners campaign, who argue the company has not delivered fair working condition for its employees.

Support for the campaign goes back three years, with the conception of the scheme as a means of gaining further traction to ensure the ‘justice’ of the group, who have cited persistent problems, including health and safety concerns, lack of equipment and an unfair allocation of work and overtime.

Tackling Opposition

then it is unacceptable. It upsets me that there are people leaving the King’s building and ignoring it.”

SIMONA ALEXANDRA

SIMÓN GOMEZ

The leader of the campaign, in charge of logistics and publicity for the entire operation.

A Latinx student who volunteered to be an interpreter and translator for the Spanish speaking cleaners in negotiations with Servest.

Alongside an assistance team: Aida, Anna, Rosie, Chris, Gaby, Heather, Sianab, Tanita, Zahra, Daniel, Harry, Leah, Sophia, Graham, Victor, Lana, and Zobia.

MARIANA PLAZA CARDENAS

THE CLEANERS

A Latinx student who is one of the main organisers, a key contributor to the December protest outside Strand.

Claudia, Percy, Marcia, Javier and Pablo. Some of the key cleaners most heavily involved in the protests, who have made huge steps in making their voices heard.

“Our university uses progressive statements and talks about issues like injustice, inequality and human rights but absurdly, we’re reproducing these problems in the walls of this prestigious university and that is unacceptable.”

While it is clear that much is still to be done to achieve the goals the campaign set out for itself, the scale of the December protest, coupled with the efforts from various groups across the university show that support for this cause will inevitably grow stronger. It appears the cleaners will not be silenced, and the campaign will not stop until justice is truly served for the cleaning staff at King’s.

n Roar’s coverage of the Cleaner’s campaign began in 2014, and in 2016 featured a video which gained significant attention. For more information, visit roarnews.co.uk.

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The Tories are set to face the “fight of their lives” this Spring, in local elections which are predicted to lose them half of London’s councils.

Election statistics experts have stated the Conservative party will face significant chal-

lenges, especially within three seats that were previously viewed as safe.

Tories are set to face challenge in Westminster, just a stone’s throw away from Kings’ Strand Campus, as well as other constituencies such as Bar-

l STUDENTS at a US university drank so much alcohol at a party that the air in the house registered on the breathalyser. Around 70 students were in attendance at the off-campus party in Maryland, with one student attempting to jump from a second-storey window in order to avoid arrest.

The alcohol which was registered in the air was taken on a police breathalyser and came up as 0.01 on the scale.

net and Kingston, with constituency Kensington and Chelsea apparently “too close to call” after the Grenfell Tower disaster and exposed council failures.

On a “bad night”, the Conservatives will hold onto four of nine boroughs.

n The party had been dubbed “Tequila Tuesday”.

COMMENT by

REBEKAH EVANS EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Cheating is a university epidemic.

And the problem starts sooner than you’d probably think.

Although you may not be personally familiar with the idea of cheating, the concept will definitely be familiar, whether in exam or coursework format.

Most popular within the university setting is contract cheating, putting coursework out to tender to proofreading companies or essay mills who’ll often bombard your computer screen every time you search for those topic summaries to help you understand key course material.

UNIVERSITY CHEATING: Small Fish, Big Pond?

However, whilst this type of ‘cheating’ is on the rise, it does not necessarily mean that the ‘good, old-fashioned’ exam cheating has disappeared.

And in order to fully investigate its true effects, it’s sensible to start at the beginning.

A recent article by The Guardian, found that there was a 25% rise in the number of penalties issued for students attempting to cheat in their GCSE and A Level examinations. The most common misdemeanour was the use of “unauthorised materials”- sneaking in notes or the smuggling of phones into exam halls, the qualifications often falling prey to the increasingly technological age.

But this appears to only be the start for what seems to be an academic lifetime of dishonesty for some.

Whilst contract cheating, or using proofreading services is now generally considered by students as the riskier option, due to the infamous Turnitin system, which uses an algorithm to detect even the slightest similarities, cheating in exams also appears to be on the rise.

In statistics gained from a Freedom of Information request to the College, it can be noted that the number of students caught for their misdemeanours has risen over the last few academic years.

Whilst those cheating in their exams was pitched

at a number of 118 in 2013/14, this number has risen to 158 in the most recent full academic year.

Additionally, those cheating in their coursework rose over the same time period from 188 to 234.

The most popular forms of cheating were stated to be ‘collusion’ – looking at other student’s work and/or communicating with them, unauthorised notes in an exam and unauthorised electronic devices.

The consequences for students who cheat are great, with a chance of expulsion or withdrawal from a course. But some are willing to take this risk in order to succeed, particularly as statistics show a drop in the number of plagiarism related expulsions from 13 in 2009/10 to under five in 2014/15.

Roar spoke to undergraduate student Elliot* about his opinions on cheating in university: “I’d be much more afraid of cheating in exams when compared to coursework, to be fair.” he said, “I can only imagine what kind of anticipatory anxiety sneaking in notes, or something, could do to you. I think students cheat because they’re nervous about their performance, and it comes out of desperation. In this day and age, so much rides on getting a degree, and not only that, but coming out with a decent classification. When you take into account what failing means, potentially having to re-do an entire year just to catch up, not only do the academic implications add up, but the financial ones too. We don’t have money to burn.”

It is evident that cheating is a short-cut, a seemingly fast way to getting lucky quick. But what of the implications of conscience, of further academic performance, of success? Whilst Roar’s investigations paint a picture of a small fish in a big pond, where those caught cheating are a miniscule number in comparison to the rest of the student body, one can only consider those who are thinking about it, those who have seriously considered it, those who have slipped under the radar.

Cheating IS a university epidemic. But whilst the condemnation of this act is strong, one needs to consider the reasons why students feel so compelled to take this risk in the first place. n Got a student opinion? Fiery diatribe? Or just passionate about something you want everyone at King’s to know about? Get in touch at comment@roarnews.co.uk and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.

Hosting international students brings in economic benefits ten times greater than the costs, according to a new research published by the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) and Kaplan International Pathways.

The study undertaken by the consultancy firm London Economics examines the economic effects of welcoming 231,000 new international students in the UK in the academic year 2015-16.

Results show that international students bring in gross benefits of £22.6 billion through tuition fees, accommodation payments and other types of spending during their degree. This is ten times greater than the public costs of hosting international students which total to £2.3 billion. London Economics finds that, on average, the government receives a benefit of £87,000 from each EU student, whilst the hosting costs sum up to £19,000. Each non-EU students boosts the economy by £102,000, on average, whilst the public costs average £7,000.

These differences can be explained by the considerably lower tuition fees paid by EU students compared to those paid by overseas students, and also the EU’s students access to UK student loans.

The research concludes that each new intake of international students generates a net contribution of £20.3 billion, or £310 for every UK resident. Throughout the UK, London receives the greatest benefits from hosting international students, which amount to £4.6 bn. Northern Ireland is the region which benefits the least, receiving £0.17 billion.

This study brings in new information to the ongoing political debate over welcoming international students, and the results will be submitted to the Migration Advisory Committee commissioned by the Home Office. The HEPI research is the first to examine not only the benefits, but also the costs of the inclusion of overseas students, as well as to provide information for every geographic region.

Nick Hillman, director of HEPI, stated that “Trying to persuade the Home Office that international students nearly always benefit the UK can feel like banging one’s head against a brick wall.”, pointing out the Government has rejected previous figures based on the claim that they fail to account for the costs of hosting international students.

These findings were published just days before the release of the Higher Education

Students Statistics for the academic year 2016-17. This official report shows that in 2016-17, 81% of all students came from the UK, Students from other EU countries amounted to 6% in 2016-17, and non-EU students made up 13% of the intake. According to the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), there are no significant differences in enrolment proportions by students’ prior country of residence from the previous academic year. This shows that Brexit had little impact on students’ decision to study in the UK. King’s College London welcomed 30,565 new students in 2016-17, HESA reports. Out of these, 67.3% came from the UK, 12.3% from other EU countries, and 20.4% were non-EU students.

Professor Funmi Olonisakin, Vice Principal International at King’, stated that: “We value immensely the transformational impact and cultural diversity of having a large number of international students and staff. But the presence of our international students brings far more than financial benefits. Having some of the best minds from around the world gives King’s a vibrancy and their cultural, intellectual and social contributions all majorly enhance the learning experience for all.”

TOTAL ECONOMIC BENEFIT PER STUDENT

By IRINA ANGHEL

£100,000

One Non-EU Int’l Student

One EU Int’l Student

Net Benefit:

£95,000 Net Benefit:

£68,000

Cost:

£19,000

Cost:

£7,000

JANUARY 2017 Roar

l PROFESSOR Gonda Van Steen has been announced as the next Koraes Professor of Modern Greek and Byzantine History, Language & Literature. Professor Van Steen, currently the chair of Greek studies at the University of Florida, will join the college on the 1st September 2018, where she will also assume the directorship of the centre itself.

by IRINA ANGHEL

Sir Bob Kerslake stepped down in protest as chairman of King’s College Hospital. A day later, the Hospital was placed in special measures.

ANATOMY OF A RESIGNATION HALLAM HOPES TO MAKE HEADWAY FOR CLIMATE CHANGE Roger Hallam, King’s PhD student and activist, most notable for his campaign and hunger strike for university divestment from fossil fuels has become embroiled in a fresh campaign to reduce pollution levels.

Mr. Hallam’s latest campaign comes from organisation ‘Stop Killing Londoners’ which states “air pollution kills up to 9,000 people per year” with “vulnerable groups such as children and the elderly most affected by this.”

In an article featured by The Guardian, Stop Killing Londoners has vowed to block traffic in London in order to send a message about rising pollution levels and make a change.

Mr. Hallam stated to Guardian reporters that he “sincerely apologised” to any drivers caught up in the protest: “We absolutely don’t want to antagonise them because they are the victims of this system as much as anyone else – they have to use fossil fuels which is poisoning other people to get around. But in the end this is a crisis and at some point you need to be prepared to stand up and do something.”

Demands set out by the campaign include an end to high pollution levels through a diesel scrappage scheme, low pollution public transportation and a tax on car companies who produce fossil fuel vehicles. There are hopes from Stop Killing Londoners that any money raised will be spent on the NHS, assisting those who suffer from the effects of air pollution.

In the meanwhile, Mr. Hallam and Stop Killing Londoners’ fight continues. Their next goal?

To sit down with Mayor Sadiq Khan to discuss the future of London. Until the meeting is secured, their action will continue.

Photo Credit: Afifa Suhail

Lord Kerslake resigned as chair of King’s College Hospital NHS Trust following disagreements with the regulator over underfunding and “unrealistic” saving demands. His protest banner is a self-penned Guardian article in which he calls for a “fundamental rethink” of how the NHS is financed and organized.

“This was not a decision that I took lightly. I love King’s and have the highest regard for the people who work there.”, Bob Kerslake wrote. He describes his two and a half years at King’s as equally “inspiring and frustrating”.

Lord Kerslake also paid tribute to the Hospital’s “world-class” performance especially following the Westminster and London Bridge attacks and the Grenfell Tower fire.

fighting against the inexorable pressures of rising demand, increasing costs of drugs and other medical supplies, and the tightest spending figures in recent times.”

“We desperately need a fundamental rethink. Until then we are simply ‘kicking the can down the road’.”

NHS Improvement met with the former chairman two days before his resignation, BBC and Sky News report. The regulator expressed concerns over the Hospital’s financial performance and warned of special measures.

Lord Kerslake mentions possible sanctions as a source of grievance in his article, saying that “We could fight back, but this puts King’s future at even greater risk.”

“The right thing for me to do therefore is to step down and to do so publicly”, he concludes.

The day after Bob Kerslake stepped down, NHS Improvement placed King’s College Hospital in special measures.

“King’s, like many other hospitals, is

Veg Out On A Homegrown KCL Enterprise

by CLEO ANDERSON

FetchUrVeg, the new sustainable vegetable scheme set up by two final year King’s students, has now arrived.

Set up by friends, Johanna Steiner and Lisa Mldsova, FetchUrVeg is out to make ‘clean’ eating easy by offering students the chance to pick up seasonal veg packs at the Maughan Library every week. Great for the environment and your health, while also being irresistibly insta-worthy.

After their first successful trial delivery, Roar spoke to Lisa and Johanna about how FetchUrVeg has come into fruition. They both study European Studies, studying in Paris for their third year. A city which boasts multiple farmers’ markets across the arrondissements, Lisa and Johanna hoped to bring back some of these ideas to London. They both had signed up to a similar idea at their transfer university, Sciences Po Paris, and as they loved it so much they decided to set up their own version in King’s.

Since its inception FetchUrVeg took around six months to build. The students tried to go through KCLSU and faced some resistance from the student union as it was seen as a social enterprise, not a society. Eventually the NUS contacted them (through the farmers that the students had already secured an arrangement). The NUS helped them make links with the sustainability team at King’s. From then on it has evolved, with them now becoming an offshoot of the Environmental society at King’s.

7

l A King’s Law student has been awarded second prize in a competitive essay scheme. Mark Ong, bagged his prize in the Bar Council’s annual Law Reform Essay Competition for his essay entitled: ““Connecting mental disorders to physical ones: an autonomy-centric reform of nonconsensual treatment under S63 of the Mental Health Act 1983”. The yearly competition receives a high number of entries, and many law students, pupil barristers and training solicitors enter. The winning essay topics cover fraud, mental health, corporal punishment, asylum seekers’ right to work, medical manslaughter and no-fault divorce.

KCL HOSPITAL IN DIRE STRAITS AS CHAIRMAN RESIGNS

Roar reported in November that Mr. Hallam had been remanded in custody after ‘repeated acts of civil disobedience’ which allegedly included anti-pollution messages daubed onto City Hall. Mr. Hallam’s hunger strike at the College however, managed to ensure full divestment from fossil fuels from the College by 2025, alongside increased funding for climate change research.

INT’L STUDENTS BOOST ECONOMY INT’L STUDENTS BRING BENEFITS 10X GREATER THAN THE COST TO UK

UNIVERSITY of London accomodation, Garden Halls, has won an awards for both University Halls of the Year and (overall) Halls of the Year.

The judgement, made at the Property Week Accomodation Awards saw Garden Halls praised for its “oustanding design” and “first class offerings”.

Garden Halls is one of the largest university halls developments in London.

Johanna pointed out, how that in London, fresh fruit and veg, from sustainable sources, can often be quite expensive. FetchUrVeg hopes to show students that they can afford a healthy lifestyle and encourage sustainable produce into student’s everyday diet. Lisa hopes that they’re showing that ‘there are other food choices that students can make without going to a supermarket.; FetchUrVeg works directly with 5 farmers whom can all reach London easily, reducing food miles. They harvest every Monday and Tuesday and deliver on Wednesday to ensure the produce remains fresh for KCL students.

It also minimizes transport and storage helping keep the whole system sustainable and environmentally friendly. Easy, accessible and convenient, all the money goes straight back to the farmers to help them continue using sustainable farming methods Knowing that certain seasonal vegetables are not always easy to prepare (they recounted how in Paris they’d needed to google certain veg to work out what it was and how to cook it), Lisa and Johanna share simple recipes on the FetchUrVeg Instagram, as well as the nutritional information of all the produce. Glossy photos, boomerangs and videos, Lisa and Johanna use Instagram to their advantage, making healthy eating look ‘hashtag goals’.

FetchUrVeg hopes to provide a unique service and fresher and more sustainable produce than supermarkets. They have recently been nominated for the King’s London Experience award for their hard work (which seeks to help fund social enterprise initiatives to develop). Look out on their social media for when they reopen signups, and hopefully in the future they make their inroads to King’s catering and residences!

WEED IS THE WORD?

By REBEKAH EVANS

Professors at King’s have discovered that certain chemicals in weed can reduce psychotic symptoms.

The research, conducted by College professor of psychiatry, Dr. Philip McGuire found that schizophrenic patients who were treated with 1,000 miligrams of CBD (cannabidiol), alongside their normal routine of medication were more likely to be considered as improved by their psychiatrists than a group who received a placebo drug.

“We know [CBD] acts in a different way to antipsychotic medication,” said McGuire in an article for The Conversation, an independent online media outlet, “It could represent a new class of treatment.”

Cannabis contains many different chemicals, most notably tetrahydrocannabinol which is responsible for the hallucinogenic symptoms one can experience when smoking the drug.

However, CBD does not have the same intoxicating effects and it is hoped the treatment may help with other psychiatric disorders.

Roar reported in March that King’s researchers had discovered people who smoke skunk at an early age are more likely to develop psychosis. It may just be possible that CBD is the perfect cure.

MR. BLUEBIRD ON MY SHOULDER

By SIRI HEDREEN

In a collaboration with architecture firm J &; L Gibbons and art foundation Nomad Projects, researchers at King’s found that the experience of being outdoors (including hearing birdsong) correlated with higher levels of mental well-being, especially among those prone to mental health issues.

Dr. Andrea Mechelli hopes this will “lead to the development of low-cost scalable interventions aimed at promoting mental health in urban populations.”

Anyone else up for some courtyard landscaping at Great Dover Street?

8 Roar

JANUARY 2018

IF THE SHOE FITS: An Interview With TskenyaSarah Fraser eos and teaching myself how to design and put together a shoe.

Yes! One amazing aspect of the brand is that it is free of gendered marketing. How do you feel this separates your brand?

The fashion industry has always been marginalising, and the only thing that is different with our brand is that it comes from a sincere place. The only reason I can think that brands don’t cater to people with larger feet is because they don’t want to compromise on profit, otherwise a brand like this would have existed in the first place.

I don’t want someone to not find shoes for their size, I want to be included.

With figures like Edward Enninful taking over the reins of Vogue, what do you think this will do for the industry?

I give Edward Enninful a year. I loved his first cover, but I think it’s gone back to being vanilla. But what I’ve realised through setting up my brand is that these things are based on metrics and if people of colour aren’t picking up Vogue they aren’t writing for them. Whilst you may be the figure head you’re not always the one making the decisions.

THE SHOE WAVE...

Tskenya-Sarah Frazer’s brand is cutting edge.

INTERVIEW by

SHRAI POPAT NEWS EDITOR

In 2016, fresh from graduating with and English degree from King’s, Tskenya-Sarah Frazer started knocking on the door of the magazine industry on the hunt for editorial work. After a number of rejections, she decided to take her love for fashion and eye for detail and hone in on the gap in the market that was not just of financial benefit, but affected a variety of different communities. Tskenya set out to launch her eponymous footwear brand that specialised in footwear for ‘niche’ sizes (namely sized 8-13 UK), and, crucially, free from gendered marketing.

Roar sat down with the KCL alumnus to talk Basquiat, diversity at King’s, and taking the fashion world by storm.

How did you get into this industry?

Where did it all begin for you?

I was very academic at school and throughout university. I studied English at King’s and had hopes of pursuing graduate work-wanting to do a PhD. But then I realised it was all white! It wasn’t for me. After I pursued editorial work I came to realise that a lot of it was based on nepotism. And I am the kind of gal who goes on Linkedin to see who got the job after I didn’t get it. After my final rejection (from Buzzfeed), I decided I had no time to meddle in an industry that doesn’t want me there.

That’s so interesting. King’s prides itself on its student diversity, but was

What

JANUARY 2018 Roar

By SIRI HEDREEN

MEMES COLLEGE LONDON Tells Us About Our Sense of Humour

Current News & Politics

Are there any publications you think are doing a great job?

not the experience for you?

that

Gal-dem is doing a fantastic job, they are really broadening the conversation and breaking down that racial divide. Hopefully one day I will be able to give my children a copy.

I grew up in Hackney so I didn’t see myself as a minority growing up. And this might sound silly but when I came to King’s I realised all those stories about discrimination my mum had told me were true! I had a diverse group of friends back home, different backgrounds and ethnicities. But when I got to King’s it was just a lot of the same private school educated people.

What’s the best part of the job for you?

Do you feel that was an issue in the humanities in particular? It seems that there might be a significant lack of diversity in these subjects?

Birdsong London is an ethical clothing brand that works to stock clothing made in proper conditions. Also I love shoe brands like Sergio Rossi, and Givenchy is the designer of my life!

Yes, exactly. I’m sure that if I was at the Waterloo Campus I might not have felt that out of place, but when it came to studying English on the Strand Campus, I didn’t think it was acceptable that in a class of about 200 there were about five people of colour. I was lucky that I was able to have Professor Paul Gilroy throughout all three years, and he was also my dissertation supervisor. But I didn’t see how it was possible that even then there were only a handful of lecturers of colour also. King’s also has a lot to do in terms of mental health, it has poor services when it comes to dealing with student issues.

Where did the brand Tskenya come from? What kicked this all off?

It started with needing shoes for myself.

I’m not shy about going into shops and asking if they have shoes for my feet. But lots of my trans and non-binary friends felt uncomfortable going into shops to ask for shoes, and I wanted to create a brand that includes people. I have no formal training but set out to teach myself. YouTubing vid-

I love the feedback. I’ve been caught off guard from people who have said that they received the shoes and they mean so much to have shoes that fit.

Complaints London Uni Rivalries Inter-Campus Rivalries Student Struggles Only at King’s Extracurricular

What brands do you admire?

Essays

MCL MOST POPULAR TOPICS

King’s Pride

Revising

Mocking Arts & Humanities

Drinking & Clubbing

Mocking Guy’s Campus

Class/ Lectures

King’s College Climate Emergency

AntiUCL

Tech Complaints

Meme Plagiarism

Waterfront/ Guy’s Bar

Mocking Strand Campus

Undesirability of Stratford

AntiRoyal Holloway

Exams

General King’s Complaints

AntiImperial

Student Satisfaction Anything (or lack Donald thereof) Mocking Trump

AntiLSE

Waterloo Campus Procrastination

Safe Space Marshals

To cast some light on what King’s students find most amusing, Roar News has analysed each meme posted in the year of 2017. We have categorised them according to topic and divided the number of ‘likes’ in each topic by the number of memes in that topic. The result below is what we hope will be an invaluable resource for Memes College London and its authors.

“All I want for Christmas is to not have to show my King’s ID every time I enter a building.”

The main takeaway is that the best way to garner laughs is by complaining or attacking: complaining about eduroam, having to show ID at every entrance, and the commute from Stratford; attacking the other London Unis, the arts students at Strand and their tenuous employability, and our favourite foe, Waterloo Campus (funny considering that the words “Denmark Hill” did not appear once in the year 2017… did Denmark Hill ever exist or are we collectively experiencing the Mandela effect? Anyone with tips or information regarding Denmark Hill please reach out to news@roarnews. co.uk on an urgent basis).

Followers were less generous with the like button when it came to the more mundane, non-specific themes such as cooking, clubbing, and sport.

And for all the mockery MCL has directed towards Royal Holloway, the memes proved rather unpopular (perhaps the ultimate indication of RoHo’s irrelevance).

Anything Pepe the Frog

Turnitin.com Plagiarism

*size of the bubble indicates popularity (measured by likes per meme)

1,129 LIKES 1,643 LIKES

Public Figure you most admire?

Toni Morrison

The

Meme Analysis - a fine art

All in all, aside from the campus-to-campus in-fighting and the notion that Memes College London is just a well-disguised complaints forum, the analysis provided a warm reassurance that our establishment of 29,000 can still share a common culture (even if that common culture is simply a collective dread of crossing the Waterloo Bridge). Here’s to Memes College London carrying that bond into 2018.

Photo Credit: Memes College London

I was struck by Basquiat’s quote that I saw at the recent exhibition at the Barbican: ‘I never went to art school…I just looked at things’. I think if you are talented and passionate don’t worry about the training, just always be resilient and prepared for 100 ‘Nos’.

I’ll stick with Toni Morrison hereBluest Eye.

Given the page’s exposure to every member of the King’s community (as the above definition clearly states), it provides an excellent source of analysis for our sense of humour – and by extension, our deepest dreams, hopes, and fears.

Sport

Residence Life

Financial Struggles

Cooking Struggles

What advice would you give to someone starting out in this industry?

Favourite Book?

Membership in the King’s community is not determined by your enrolment as a student, nor by the extent of your KCL pride. It is instead a matter of whether you’ve pressed ‘like’ on the legendary Memes College London Facebook page.

1,731 LIKES

n Keen to pitch us an exciting news idea?

We’re always hunting for raw talent. - Contact: editor@roarnews.co.uk

1,310 LIKES

1,098 LIKES

9

10 ROAR

JANUARY 2018

JANUARY 2018

UK HIGHER EDUCATION IS A FALSE MERITOCRACY COMMENT by MATHILDE BETANT-RASMUSSEN

COMMENT EDITOR Although the UK is home to the oldest, and the best, universities in the world, the British higher education system is flawed and outdated. Indeed, the UK’s continual standing at the top of world university charts often stops necessary criticism and debate about reform. As numbers of graduating students rise and final grades increase, deep-rooted inequality is still at the heart of an elitist education system that, somewhat unintentionally, prioritises privileged students over their disadvantaged counterparts.

In a recent article in the Guardian, Tess Reid discloses the reduced importance of personal statements in university application. According to Reid, ‘many statements won’t even make it through an initial paper sift’, as universities employ external professionals to go through their applications. Although they do not always play a key part in getting in to university, personal statements ‘can tip the balance in the applicant’s favour’, writes Reid.

However, many students, mostly from privileged backgrounds, seek outside help to write their applications. The personal statement then becomes less a way to identify suitable prospective students and more a differentiation between those that have the means to get help with their writing, and those that do not. As applicants strive to sell themselves, the personal statement hides bigger costs that do not appear on paper.

A similar inequality between

EU ACADEMICS RESIGN POST-BREXIT

ROAR 11

Kate Dazzles at KCL The Duchess of Cambridge was spotted at King’s College London recently, where she visited to learn more about the Maurice Wohl Clinical Neuroscience Institute.

The Duchess made a visit to the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience (IoPPN) in order to gain information on the College’s pioneering ‘bench to bedside’ mental health research.

Her Royal Highness met with leading scientists and academics within the area and at the College.

Continuing her visit to campus, the Duchess visited the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust where she met with patients to discuss their stories and experiences.

advantaged and disadvantaged students can be seen in the number of UK university graduates.

Although overall numbers of university graduates have been rising for the last few years, particular groups are not always included in the picture. In fact, the number of part-time students graduating from university has fallen by 4% in a year, while students in higher education have increased by 2%.

The Duchess, who is pregnant herself, also visited the Mother and Baby Unit, and the Bethlem Hospital and spoke to Dr. Matthew Patrick, the leader of the trust about antenatal services.

‘As part-time students are more likely to be from disadvantaged and under-represented groups, this continuing decline should be a profound concern to all those involved in widening participation,’ writes Richard Adams in a recent Guardian article. Behind headlines of positive increase, hide truths about the continual inequality of the UK’s higher education system.

PHOTOGRAPHERS PERSONAL PICKS

Because of Brexit, many private employers have now started to cut their graduate job opportunities, leaving UK university graduates in a more competitive and ruthless job market. The rise in student debt across the country is also a sign that students will struggle with difficult social and living conditions once they leave university.

It is therefore unsurprising that many disadvantaged students do not write a personal statement, and that many part-time student decide to prioritise their job over their education. British universities are making it incredibly hard to graduate with a degree but without money and proper career perspectives. In this false meritocracy, is it really worth the costs getting a university degree?

‘BREXODUS’ HITS KING’S

By REBEKAH EVANS

Photo Credit: Afifa Suhail

ACCORDING to recent reports, King’s has been hit by a so-called ‘Brexodus’, where EU academics have resigned from their posts, in one of the effects of Brexit.

According to The Independent, many European academics who have resigned from their posts across the country have cited reasons such as ‘eligibility for European research grants’ and ‘validity of qualifications’ once Britain leaves the EU in 2019.

In figures recently released by The Independent, a 19% increase in the departures of European staff from Britain’s universities has been charted in comparison to resignations from before the Brexit referendum.

In total, it can be seen that over 2,300 EU academics have resigned from their posts, in what is being dubbed by the mainstream media as ‘Brexodus’. It is feared that if European academics leave the UK for other posts, the teaching quality in some of Britian’s leading universities will severely decline.

Amongst the universities most affected, the report cited King’s as a significant example of European staff resignation.

Post-Brexit, the College has lost 139 members of academic European Union staff members, compared to the 108 charted before the referendum. Similar figures can be seen in other leading UK institutions, with Cambridge and Oxford also included within the recent report.

Prime Minister Theresa May recently set out a deal which stated EU citizens who arrive in the UK before March 2019 could apply for settled status if they have been living in the UK for over five years. Mrs May also faced criticism after stating she would could foreign students in her immigration data.

Mrs. May also published a letter in late December in which she stated she “greatly valued” the contributions made by those who have immigrated from the EU, and urged them to stay in the UK after the Brexit legislation is completely passed.

A spokesperson from the Department for Education told The Independent: “The higher education sector has a long established tradition of attracting the brightest minds from around the world, at all stages of their careers. We value the contribution that EU staff make to the sector, and we want that to continue.”

UK universities reported that there were a total of 25,400 European academics who currently held positions. Hesitancy also exists for STEM subjects, where the UK faces “serious skills shortages”.

A report from the British Academy stated that UK universities could now be “seriously under threat” after the Brexit decision.

There are now calls for the final Brexit legislation to be expanded in order to include the free movement of European academics in and out of the UK, in the hopes that it will encourage many to stay in their positions, and even increased migration of academic talent to the country.

The visit to King’s comes in the wake of the Duchess’ own efforts to promote the bettering of mental health services across the country.

These were passions communicated by Prince Harry, who visited Strand Campus last year to discuss mental health.

Prof. resigns as Editor A professor of Geometry at King’s College London has resigned from his post as joint editor-in-chief of a leading mathematics publication.

Professor Simon Salamon, alongside his colleague Nicola Bellomo left their positions at the journal after the publication of a controversial article which was allegedly sent to print without the consultation of the editorial board.

The article, written by Yaroslav Sergeyev, a leading academic in numerical calculus puts forward a survey of his theory on infinite numbers, where he believes the concept of infinity can be represented by “grossone” – a number he has given this term to.

However, mathematicians have argued that this theory is false and has no grounding in scientific value.

Sergeyev responded quickly when matters came to a head in December, by stating that there was a “witch-hunt” on his work.

The editorial board went on to publish a statement, in which they state they “deeply regret” the publication of the article and they “unanimously dissociate” themselves from the decision made.

The board goes on to state “both editors-in-chief have assumed responsibility for these mistakes and resigned from their position.”

Despite backlash, and calls for the article to be retracted from publication, it is unlikely the controversial paper will be removed from the publication.

-

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12 ROAR

JANUARY 2018

JANUARY 2018

R OAR Editor’s Letter THOUGHTS by

REBEKAH EVANS EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

With a new year begins new challenges, new opportunities and new ventures.

Of course, the new academic year brought about many changes – a fresh set of eyes on Roar, another team of enthusiastic writers, and a freshers print edition that was…well…a roaring success. But with exams over (breathe a sigh of relief), and a new semester, there are many exciting developments ready to take place.

2018 will mark significant changes for the College. Perhaps the most notable will be the move to Bush House, which has most of us in the office waiting with bated breath, as our recent tour of the facilities was extremely impressive! But as 2018 kicks off, I think it is important to not only be humbled by our past, but look to creating a better future.

New Year’s Resolutions have never been my cup of tea, but if there is one that must spring to mind, it would be to continue to work in diligence in producing a newspaper that we, and hopefully you, can be proud of. We not only want to provide the information you deserve to hear, but also to showcase talent, projects and all the exciting things in between.

With studies everywhere, deadlines looming, and a big, scary future that doesn’t seem too far around the corner, it can be easy, not just for us writers but all students, to get caught in a rut.

But with that said, there are so many positive aspects of life that a new year can help us to be thankful for, and that we must always try to recall.

Whilst we move ahead into new and unchartered territory, we should still remember the causes which have been close to us and the issues that will still affect us, no matter what the day, month or year. The cleaners campaign works tirelessly, as you will see in our article on Pages 4 - 5, but when the protests come to an end, the banners are rolled up and the cameras are shut off, these people still fight for their cause. We can learn a lot from their determination.

It is, of course, important not to let student issues fall by the wayside. The general election of last year and the Brexit debate were ample ammunition for young and old alike to become inspired and pursue either a political or rights based cause. Let’s make sure this traction continues in whatever way it can. The student union provides ways in which we can all get involved, and societies are up-and-running to join throughout the year and make your voice heard.

Roar always has opportunities to let your talent shine, and you can find out more information on our website, or apply at bit.ly/ApplyToRoar.

This new year, Roar will embark on many new and different ventures, but our New Year’s resolution is this: At our heart will always remain a drive to produce the best student journalism, and a dedication to you, our readers.

So, from all of us here, we wish you a happy and successful New Year.

Rebekah Evans Editor-in-Chief - editor@roarnews.co.uk

Proofreading:

THE FIGURES BEHIND STUDENT RENTS

By WILLIAM NESTORSHERMAN

Student rent received by KCL accomodations has increased by more than £11 million in two years. But it seems the refurbishment and maintenance fund has fallen.

In a Freedom of Information request, it was shown the College received an annual turnover of £33,508,692 from weekly student rents in 2015/16 , a number which has increased to £45,171,070 in 2017/18. Much of this rent money is placed in established reserves, which build a fund specifically used for refurbishment across the College’s four privately owned residences.

For the current academic year, released budget figures stand at £2,020,000 for the housing of 5,234 students in 2015/16 across 12 residences, four of which are owned and operated directly by the College. Yet despite an increase in rent turnover over the past two years by £11.6 million, the budget appears to be £63,000 less than the previous year.

It is well documented that the university acquires an enormous amount from rent each year, yet very little is known about how much they acquire and how the money is spent.

The Information Compliance department at King’s stated the College ‘maintains, repairs and refurbishes its accommodation to ensure standards are maintained for all students.”

While the College asserts this is the case, many students have expressed their dissatisfaction with services, reporting inconsistent heating and lack of hot water.

Many students could not believe how much money there was compared to what they saw being actively reinvested into their accommodation while living there.

Zoe, who lives at Great Dover Street Apartments said: “The extreme cost of rent only seems to be paying for the location and the privilege to live with other students because it is certainly not paying for maintenance. I had a problem with my shower for weeks, and the light in my kitchen doesn’t switch off, even though it’s automatic. I’ve reported the problem twice yet nothing has been done.”

Priyanka, a student at Stamford Street Apartments said: “Hot water is something you don’t get regularly here.

My friend came over to stay the other week, and she noted that the heating was on but the room was still quite cold. It is a clear indication of the maintenance problems this accommodation has.”

While these numbers only reveal the bare bones of the operation the College runs, it shows that much of what the College is doing with student rents is still to be answered for, and is managed in a way which seems to fail to consider the awareness of the students who pay.

What’s the big deal? lCollege disputes over proofreading services ●No ‘university wide specific policy’ on proofreading COMMENT by

PHILIPPA KNIPE COMMENT EDITOR

Whatever your degree subject, third-party proofreading can be a tantalising short-cut. Advertised on campus, these services vary from ad-hoc individual offers to promotions from international online companies. Is the use of these services really legitimate?

And, more importantly, do they break university policy? Our team at Roar has done some digging.

A major promoter on campus, London Proofreaders, boasts free online quotes and ‘100% confidentiality’. Charging £10 per 1,000 words for native English speakers (and more for those who are not), it claims to have ‘worked with hundreds of KCL students over the years’, and that it is our ‘leading choice’. It reminds its customers that ‘you would definitely want to ensure that you are producing cutting-edge research papers to meet the university’s standards’.

A second major promoter, ProofreadMyEssay, boasts a team of one hundred ‘professional editors’, a twenty-four-hour turnaround and even has a team of student ‘Brand Ambassadors’ on King’s campus. It reminds students that they ‘always adhere to university guidelines’, that its service does not condone cheating or plagiarism, and that they will not ‘write your essay for you’. During our investigation, Roar uploaded two previously-submitted, student-written essays to ProofreadMyEssay’s service. These essays varied in length, subject and style.

Returned quickly, one was de-

scribed as ‘well written and very interesting’, having undergone all ‘necessary’ changes to grammar, punctuation, word forms and sentence structure. The other underwent heavier changes to phraseology, word choice, tense, citation and capitalisation. These essays were returned to their authors and were, as Roar believes, proofread legitimately.

Digging further, Roar submitted a Freedom of Information request to King’s, asking if it had a policy on its students’ use of external proofreading services.

In November 2017, the university responded via their Information Compliance Officer. The response maintained that King’s ‘does not have a university wide specific policy on the use of proofreading services by students. However, if a third party writes or suggests changes to the wording then it moves the submission away from being in the students own words as required by the College Academic Honesty and Integrity Policy’.

Whilst this might seem straightforward enough, King’s lack of official policy is very much an exception. In fact, our research can reveal that the University of Essex offers a ‘Policy and Guidance on Proofreading’ to its students, maintaining that they are keen to facilitate ‘a shared understanding of what proofreading work should entail and the acceptable boundaries to any intervention on a student text.’ The University of Manchester also offers its students ‘Guidance on Proofreading Your Thesis’, discussing time constraints, rates of different services, how to find a proofreader and what to do if something goes

wrong. The University of Leeds provides an agreed definition of proofreading, including explanations of ‘inappropriate use’ and consequences. The University of Warwick details acceptable practices and exceptions, conceding that ‘in the course of producing a high-quality piece of work for assessment, students may wish to receive input from a third party prior to submission.’

Interestingly, Roar can also reveal that KCLSU has recently disputed with one of the major promoting companies over King’s lack of policy. In November 2017, the company’s day-long promotional stall that had been booked via KCLSU was unexpectedly cancelled. The cancellation was implemented by KCLSU Event Coordination after they were approached by the Union’s Advice Team. It was explained to the company that they ‘don’t actually allow proofreading services to advertise to students’, because ‘if an essay that has been proofread by an external company is submitted, and the reformatting / references breach protocols the student can be accused of plagiarism, or similar.’ Despite the company founder requesting evidence of official policy guidelines, nothing specific was identified.

Our investigation clearly reveals that whilst other universities have established uniform policies about the use of these third-party services, King’s is lagging severely behind. Proofreading services are becoming increasingly legitimate and appealing to students on campus, and due to this, there is now a need for Kings to establish a policy that is implemented through all official channels.

‘Consent is simple and everyone understands it.’

That single Twitter comment undermines an issue which affects countless individuals at King’s and beyond: Consent. This is exactly why KCLSU and the College launched the It Stops Here campaign: to challenge indifferent attitudes and raise the profile of sexual harassment and discrimination experienced within higher education.

But consent is not always simple, and comments like these which suggest that there is no need to inform staff and students of potentially dangerous situations, effectively dismisses anyone who has ever been a victim of sexual harassment or assault. At first consent doesn’t seem like the most interesting of topics. I used to assume it was a straightforward yes or no, not fully understanding what it meant, simply because I had never been told.

However, during my first year at university, I was subject to a sexual assault by a close friend, where I had been incapable of consciously responding and making a decision for myself. In that situation, my friends failed to intervene because they didn’t know how to respond or understand that I didn’t want what was being done to me. The long term impact of that assault was horrific, I struggled socially, no longer felt comfortable going to club events, which was awful because previously, dancing had been a huge part of my life.

Whenever I look back to that event, I always end up thinking: I wish someone had known how to intervene in a situation like mine.

And that’s why consent matters.

Consent must be given by choice, by someone who has the freedom and capacity to make that choice.

I used to think experiences like mine were isolated incidents, particularly because no-one seemed to know how to respond when I spoke about the assault. But after becoming more involved with the campaign, it came to my attention that 1 in 3 students experience sexual assault during university.

Consent is important because if anyone at King’s finds themselves or someone else in a situation involving the potential for sexual harassment, they need to be able to successfully and safely intervene.

Disclosure Response Training run by the Diversity and Inclusion Team helps King’s staff know what to do when a student tells them about an incident of harassment or bullying.

It is events like these which address and normalise sexual harassment and assault, by emphasising the statistics and stories we’ve been seeing so frequently in recent media are real individuals and experiences with real scars left behind from sexual harassment.

Normalising and speaking out about sexual harassment is the first step in prevention, training and support for survivors.

l

ROAR 13

HEAR US

ROAR

Our support for cleaners should not wane Sometimes, when you take a step back and look at the amount of coverage on the KCL Justice for Cleaners Campaign, it appears that there is enough material to stock the entire Maughan Library.

Of course, the campaign has only been active for a short amount of years, but the efforts made by the organisation have been vast. In this time, cleaners have been able to ensure they gain the London Living Wage, they have made the College think about third-party outsourcing, and, slowly but surely, they are changing the very way in which we think about the workforce.

Whilst we do contemplate these groundbreaking achievements, it is far too easy to fall into participatory exhaustion, that is, to say, our support for the cause can often wane as we lose interest and focus our efforts elsewhere. Even though we are all students and staff, busy with our dayto-day lives, perhaps thinking about the next assignment which is far too often just around the corner, or planning the next seminar group, the cleaners campaign is a totally lived experience for the often kind and considerate cleaners who appear to be like ghosts, present in one minute and vanished in the next. However, simply because the cleaners do their work quite often out of our view, does not mean we should treat them like the ghosts they sometimes appear to be. They are people with experiences, families and lives of their own. Their campaign for equality and justice is one which, no matter where we are, we should always think about.

The ‘Safe Space’ Debacle KING’s hit the headlines last year for the appointment of Safe Space Marshalls, which were dubbed by some mainstream media outlets as ‘thought police’. ­­ Whilst KCLSU’s Safe Space Policy is an admirable one, one which helps us all to feel safe and protected within our College environment - the suggestion that universities are entirely ‘safe’ is unfounded and misleading. Universities inspire challenge, debate and discussion. These should never cross the line of common decency, but, are entirely necessary in developing people who are fit for the world, where, somewhat unfortunately, there will not be a ‘safe space’ waiting for us.

If we begin to truly understand these issues now, then hopefully we will all be able to foster safe spaces after university.

The Library State REPORTS showed that King’s topped the list of universities making the most money through fines. ­Whilst the College has emphasised the “heavy demand” on library services, the student must question what is being done with the money accrued.

Openness and transparency is vital.

14 Roar

JANUARY 2018

CULTURE, MUSIC, ART AND LITERATURE FIT FOR KING’S

G SPREADINE YULETID CHEER

Brigitte Zheng and Nikhil Kanukuntla’s

KING’S prove t THE ATRE w this seo be jam -pac ill once ag a k those mester. So ed and rivet in p in s of the ennies so y tart saving g o w has to ide range o u can go to up f up is L offer. Includ shows thea all o e t Honey, ve’s Labours d in the rou re n Perfec The Pillowma Lost, A Taste d t Cross Place, Why n, Ghost from of t if you’r he Road? an Did the Chic a k d matic s e a budding many more. en th how so S me KC espian or d o ra L Th ea tre spir it!

STAR WARS: THE LAST JEDI - JUST AVERAGE?

by INHO PARK Reporter

WARNING - SPOILERS BELOW! Probably the most anticipated movie of 2017, Rian Johnson’s Star Wars: The Last Jedi was controversial to say the least, and a soulless cash-grab by the media behemoth that is Disney to say the worst. However, it was better than The Force Awakens, but it didn’t come quite close to Rogue One. For those who are unfamiliar with the intimidatingly towering Star Wars franchise, here’s my verdict—it was alright.

The movie was visually stunning and the music by the masterful John Williams was perfect as always. For its plot and characters, the movie had its ups and downs. There were too many times when its awkward attempt humour ruined scenes, and stilted interaction between characters definitely did not help.

However, I must give credit where its due. One aspect of the plot I enjoyed, and I commend the writers for trying to break away from the tried and tested formula of Star Wars, was Luke’s goal to end the Jedi Order.

I really wanted to like this movie, but it doesn’t come quite close. Not only was it be-

cause of its weird sense of humour, but also because of strange developments in the plot.

My high hopes, especially established after having watched The Force Awakens, a cowardly facsimile of A New Hope, were dashed when the movie refused to take bold creative steps—one which could have been Rey teaming up with Ben (AKA Kylo Ren) not necessarily to turn Sith, but to find balance in the Force considering the ‘Force Reformation’ undertaken by Luke and work towards ending the First Order and return to days of the Galactic Republic.

Strange developments in the plot included the side adventure of Rose and Finn. That useless B-plot could happen solely because of the breakup of effective strategic communication in the Resistance high command. And it had me screaming internally. Why didn’t Vice Admiral Holdo tell everybody: “OK guys, there is no reasonable way to jump into hyperspace without the First Order tracking us. So, we will abandon ship and wait them out in a secret base”?! Perhaps, we shall never know.

Then Poe Dameron would have said: ‘Wow, that makes sense, given the near impossibility of turning off their tracking mechanism.

This plan is strategically sound and there is no need for me to go through the whole Crimson

Tide mutiny sequence’. But no, it was because she didn’t want everybody to think of her as a hero? Also, don’t spaceships have autopilot?

So, I guess Holdo wanted to be a hero after all when she destroyed First Order ships by jumping into hyperspace.

But, enough nit-picking for today.

The director, Rian Johnson, whose most famous work before Star Wars was Looper (2012), in this film has not made a good movie, but something mediocre, with room for improvement in the future and space for more interesting developments in the saga than this patchwork of dry plots.

Nothing has changed except deaths of a few characters. The Resistance is still a ragtag group led by a Force-sensitive type fighting against the evil First Order, and the Resistance will probably fight against the First Order who will be equipped with a superweapon in the next movie.

The critics seem to disagree. At the time of print, Tomatometer (Rating system aggregated from certified reviewers) from Rotten Tomatoes showed a whopping score of 90%, whilst the audience score remained a dismal 49%.

Some critics have pessimistically declared that the Star Wars universe has exhausted all its creative capital. And that argument has merit.

The franchise has changed, whether it is for the better or for the worst, because it is an indispensable part of the Disney machine, which will never allow the franchise to die because it makes too much money.

This movie was a wake-up call. For me who grew up with the franchise, with fond memories of marathons with the family and playing with Star Wars Legos, I could somehow delude myself into think that Star Wars was different from all those vacuous superhero movies and blockbusters that are flooding the market.

But the Star Wars franchise, in its essence, is a business. So, what I realized after watching two average sequels was that this franchise is not different from any other blockbuster franchises, and slowly, but surely, I think I am just about beginning to accept that.

So, overall?

Three Stars –It was OK.

BASQUIAT: BOOM FOR REAL - REVIEW of esteemed curators within a few short years.

Lower East Side, Manhattan, mid 1970’s.

Simmering in a bubbling melting pot of creative expression rises an enigmatic and widely recognised subcategory of graffiti. Strikingly profound against the vapid backdrop of an aestheticist youth culture, the emergence of sprawled poetic phrases on flaking walls of plaster, metal girders, pavement surfaces and shop-front windows under the pseudonym of ’SAMO’ challenges onlookers.

Looking grass-roots New York in its halfclosed eye and speaking to its inhabitants, the microcosmic Lower East Side is urged (Rather condescendingly) to ‘think’. The spray-can behind such prying conceptions as ‘Happiness will find you when you stop hiding’ and ‘A pin drops like a pungent odour’ is held by none other than a Jean Michel Basquiat. A bright, young polymath with scattered interests, Basquiat navigates his early New York years through self-expression in philosophy and art. Following his public unmasking as the mind behind the ‘SAMO’ movement, Basquiat’s public appeal skyrockets, his poetic and artistic works reaching the airy galleries

OSTER

Basquiat: Boom for Real, presents the experimental creative works and life history of a young, vastly talented artist propelled all-too-suddenly into a world of fame.

The exhibition itself takes place over two floors; the upper as a chronicling of the artist’s earlier ventures, the lower as a celebration of his works in a sphere of established self-assurance. As one is guided from work to work, a sense of progression can be observed: in scale, in grandeur, in an increasing indulgence in intellectualism. The desaturated smog layered into hazy depictions of New York in his introductory pieces, initially displayed in the New York/New Wave exhibition (1981), makes way for the gaudily decorated postcards and small canvases with which he effectively advertised his artistic vision at galleries, parties and cafes. In a personal highlight of the exhibition, Jean Michel’s relationship with Andy Warhol is exposed through photos, paperwork and art, centred around the hastily produced Dos Cabezas. Emblematically Basquiat in both production and style, the piece exists as a testament to the frenzied genius with which he would craft the individual’s essence; a charicature-esque assemblage of features and co-

lours.

The exhibition captures a tableau of this early culture that encircled and influenced Basquiat; his exposure to the experimental and overtly liberal ‘Mudd Club’ consisting of, what People Magazine dubbed, a ‘fly-by-night crowd of…the ultra-hip’, directly inspiring his mid-1980’s neo-expressionist portraits. A projection of the film ‘Downtown 81’, a piece directed by music journalist Glenn O’Brien, bifurcates the upper exhibition. This film exposes the downtown culture that permeated into Basquiat’s work- it is easy to draw parallels between this wild and colourful nightlife and Basquiat’s intensely coloured canvases, to be seen in the concluding room of the upper exhibition, entitled Self-Portrait.

The lower level explores and exhibits the plethora of influences taken on by Basquiat in his work, including much of the young visionary’s most acclaimed pieces. Reams upon reams of first-hand and annotated anatomical diagrams, encyclopaedias, semiotic explorations, cultural and musical histories, philosophies, religious works and Afro-American art compilations are displayed alongside their most relevant art pieces. By studying these references, some critics work to ‘decode’ Basquiat’s work, gleaning greater meaning from

Concerning the work itself, the exhibition serves only as an extensive contextual and referential guide, encouraging the curious art-critic to merely stand in the space before the vast canvases and observe, forging connections and chewing through the machinations of a young mind attempting to make various senses of the world. It is difficult to articulate the alluring qualities of Basquiat’s work beyond a pleasing and overwhelming aesthetic cohesion, but one lingering effect is widely observed: the work will leave a vivid imprint on the receptacle mind- similar to a bright, burning lens flare accidentally and unavoidably registered on a photo film.

‘The Civil Row’ presented

by Roar’s very own William Nestor-Sherman, and produced by Thomas Bullock, is host to heated debates and intellectual discussions on key

political and current affairs events. The show aims to “cut through bias”, Hosting a range of guests, this show is definitely proving to be a riveting listen!

KCL Radio - Wednesday 1pm (bi-weekly)

KCL RADIO OFF TO A CRACKING START TO 2018

by Aaron Casanova - KCL RADIO

Freshers’ Fair was a huge success; powered on by our free ice cream, courtesy of Ben & Jerry’s, we managed to get more signups than ever before and that meant a new cohort of shows. We have some real crackers this year that cover everything from Korean culture to political debate, from musical theatre to mental health and all sorts in between.

HAVING only just joined KCL Radio last January, it would be easy for me to call 2017 a “big year” in its history. Truth be told, though, it has been. Following an award-winning 2016 has been challenging, but the station really has come into its own this year.

In March, our coverage of Varsity was wider than ever, recording commentary at hockey, rugby, football and basketball. Getting to be on the PA system as commentators at Lee Valley was great fun, although the highlight has to be the St. Patrick’s Day showdown at Allianz Park to cap off the 2017 London Varsity Series with the rugby. We really can’t wait to do it all again - bigger and better - in a few weeks’ time.

KCL’S ROLLING TONES DROP EXCLUSIVE VIDEO AND TRACK

What’s more, we have launched our line-up of flagship shows that run from 4-5pm each day. “The Match Report” leads off on Monday as Henry, Chris and Rebeka take us through the latest in KCL’s sports scene. Tuesdays are for you to “Tune In Find Out” with Layla and the hottest music that’s - quite lit-

erally - off the charts. Jonathan and Josh host “The Curtain Call” on Wednesdays with the latest entertainment news and interviews from KCL’s thriving culture scene.

“IR Unedited”, hosted by Andrei, takes an in-depth look at world news from a critical perspective each Thursday.

Then, on Fridays, we have the “Charts Predictions Show” as myself and Jonathan try to guess the country’s top 10 tunes. We’ve also been able to run a “live lounge” style show called “Sessions from the Strand” that showcases KCL’s gifted musicians live in session.

2018 is going to be another great year for KCL Radio.

Our programming has never been better, our presenters keep improving and we have so much amazing content lined up for this year.

A ‘Rolling Tones’ exclusive record is available on iTunes for purchase. Teardrop, a cover of the smashhit by Massive Attack, is performed in the group’s usual style - acapella, and the music video features stunning visuals and cinematography.

l l l l ll One review said: “This is gorgeous on an artistic and technical level - visually and audibly. Even high-profile videos mess up sound mixing from time to time, but there’s none of that here.”

You can support the KCL homegrown group by watching the video on YouTube or buying the record.

Hannah Kendall – ‘The Spark Catchers’

Brigitte Zheng CULTURE EDITOR ROAR NEWS

the creative’s epistemic journeying. Works such as King Zulu thus can be seen to provide damning social commentary on the marginalisation of African pride, whilst the allusions to an Egyptian history in Jawbone of an Ass and grinding jaws of a skull in Glenn reveal a well of historical and anatomical knowledge from which Basquiat sculpts complex ideas about identity. The exhibition’s denouement, an interview between Jean Michel and a close friend Tamra Davis, draws the curtain and ties the loose ends on an expansive body of work encompassing political, racial and social challenges through an intimate glimpse into the creator’s intelligent mind.

IF we may, let’s recommend a new breakout KCL Radio show, that is definitely worth keeping an eye on in the future.

Email: culture@roarnews.co.uk Twitter: @R_Rated

David Bowie – ‘Five Years’

by SAM WOOTON Culture Reporter

15

WOULD THE REAL DEBATE PLEASE STAND UP?

-rated

CHATTE

d by KCL Ball hoste d a Hare d ti le u Y The ture wine, ociety fea Literary Sinspired night with magic e r d e ry Pott nd lots of yuleti erine candles a even the most Slyth aks lo c d to “warm ! Hats, wands an in n g of souls” onal, but the eve at ti re p G o s’ were d in King was hostensformed into the Hall tra s Great Hall.

Hogwart

KING’S CULTURE

JANUARY 2018 Roar

Hannah Kendall’s ‘The Spark Catchers’ had its world premiere at the BBC Proms in 2017. Inspired by Lemn Sissay’s poem of the same name, this orchestral masterpiece transitions seamlessly between ethereal and frenetic.

‘News guy wept when he told us/ the earth was really dying’, Bowie sings in Five Years. The exploration of psychological and moral dilemmas in an apocalyptic world is expressed with characteristic lyricism.

l l Hannah Dennis MUSIC REPORTER

MGMT – ‘Hand it Over’

There’s much anticipation building for the new album from psychedelic duo MGMT. This track is the latest single from the upcoming release. I love George Harrison and ‘Hand it Over’ is certainly reminiscent of the ‘I’d Have You Anytime’. Melancholic vocals floating into an echo-y reverberating chamber of sound.

Peggy Gou – ‘Maktotok’

WHAT ARE WE LISTENING TO? Iggy Pop Sixteen One of the more unhinged, rock and roll tracks from a thoroughly raucous album. Gardiner’s guitar riff here is an absolute thrill. Iggy’s jagged vocals, full of tension and alienation ‘everybody’s so fine/ And they don’t need me’ - is a thing to behold.

Ben Sun – ‘Your Footprints’

This track came out all the way back in 2013, but I’ve been listening to it throughout the festive period and into the new year. It sounds and feels much like an early deep house record, rhythmic synthesized bassline, dreamy vocals suspended between tracks and infinitely danceable.

Nikhil Kanukuntla MUSIC EDITOR ROAR NEWS

Sufjan Stevens – ‘Tonya Harding’

From Berghain to Dekmantel and Glastonbury, Peggy Gou has spent 2017 touring religiously. The Berlin based South Korean DJ released her EP ‘Seek For Maktoop’ back in 2016, but there’s talk of an album to come some time in 2018. Gou is playing XOYO on 19th January if you’re keen to hear more.

Black Rebel Motorcycle Club – ‘Little Thing Gone Wild’

Veteran alternative/ rock group Black Rebel Motorcycle Club released their new album in early January and it’s full of potential anthems. Little Thing Gone Wild is one of these tracks.

l l

This dreamlike, euphoric single is Sufjan Stevens’ latest output. The digitised, harp-like sounds transpiring over the atmospheric, choral effects lull you into a blissful state of ease. Wonderful lyricism as always.

Rebecca Bajaj PRESIDENT OF THE KING’S RECORD

Mind of a Dragon – ‘Lemonade’

DRS – ‘The View (Calibre Remix)’

One of the best Liquid Drum & Bass songs ever made. Calibre has flipped an already great tune and created a soulful masterpiece at 174 bpm. Lyrics from DRS make this one a track you can’t get bored of.

This is a pioneering a completely new take on the UK Garage sound, pushing boundaries and helping the genre evolve.

‘Lemonade’ is a perfect combination of warm pads, a punchy bassline and syncopated drums.

Theo Halpern PRESIDENT OF KCL DJ SOCIETY

l NIGHTS AT THE MUSEUM - NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM - 9TH FEB - 3RD MARCH l MUSEUM OF MAGIC LONDON - HACKNEY - UNTL FEB 28TH l MALAYSIAN SOCIETY MUSICAL - GREENWOOD THEATRE - 16TH FEB l THE SEA BY THOMAS FROY - CAMDEN PEOPLE’S THEATRE - MARCH 1ST-3RD l WINNIE THE POOH: EXPLORING A CLASSIC - V&A - UNTIL APRIL 8 l JON SNOW - COLOUR IS MY BRAND - DESIGN MUSEUM - UNTIL FEB 25TH l

16 Roar

JANUARY 2018

IN MY SHOES

-rated Tragedy in LGBTQ+ Media

by SOPHIE PERRY Culture Reporter

I recently had the pleasure of watching Luca Guadagnino’s achingly beautiful romantic coming-of-age film, Call Me

By Your Name (2017). Framed by the lush Italian countryside, Guadagnino’s film is an intensely simple work that eloquently handles the complexities of youthful longing – with Timothée Chalamet’s stunning performance being, perhaps, career defining. However, as the end credits began to roll I was niggled by an all too familiar feeling of despair. This being because – spoiler alert – this all too beautiful queer love story ended in tragedy.

Now, when I say ‘tragedy’ that can be a very broad term. Since we are discussing a romantic film then the general consensus of a perfect ending would be for the two protagonists to remain together happily-ever-after which, in this instance, doesn’t happen. While not ending up together in the long-term is the general definition of tragedy in any cinematic romantic relationship, it is actually the lighter end of the scale in terms of queer relationships on screen. For, as long as queer relationships and characters have been represented, not only in film but television and literature as well, their destinies have been plagued by the tragedies of death, suicide and terminal illness. Do you think there is any other reason why there is literally a trope called ‘Bury Your Gays’?

lour the characters get off pretty easily, because while they may be sad as they actually manage to survive to the end of the narrative. A fate that can’t be shared by the innumerable amount of queer characters killed off due to terminal illness, such as complications with AIDS/HIV and cancer, with Jimmy Gold (Beverly Hills 90210, 1996), Lee Fallon (The Big C, 2011) and Naomi Campbell (Skins, 2013) as just some examples. Alongside this, suicide has been the demise of many other queer characters where Paxton Curtis (How to Get Away With Murder, 2014) and Daniel Davenport (Dracula, 2013) are more recent examples. However, the most pervading trope in the narrative of queer tragedy is death for simply the sake of death, the sake of dramatic action and the sake of furthering another character’s development. Some may remember the fan outcry surrounding Tara Maclay’s death on Buffy The Vampire Slayer way back in 2002, but it wasn’t until 2016 that the death of Lexa on The 100 truly spurned an in-depth conversation on the topic.

Lexa’s death sparked social media outrage, to say the least. At the time her death being one of the most recent, but not the last, in a string of high profile LGBTQ+ character deaths in 2016 (Poussey Washington, anyone?).

It started a more mainstream conversation on the ‘Bury Your Gays’ trope outside of solely queer discussions, bringing attention as well to the fact

1984 in Vienna 1984 has been on at the Volkstheater in Vienna for a month.

It has received rave reviews as a topical take on the classic novel, focussing on the terrifying side of populism. Dark, striking, haunting, and at all times bizarre. The poster which has characterised bus stops and railway stations, and pasted across the front of the theatre in the months leading up to the opening, is a striking comment on the current state of the world. The blurry photo in the background is just clear enough to make out the figure with a horrifyingly familiar fake tan and bleach blonde hair, while a striking androgynous face dominates the foreground. Ticket prices have soared. The cheap seats, very reasonable, disappeared within seconds of being on sale. The play has been selling out every night.

As a temporary citizen of Vienna, I have been keen to take in what culture and opportunities the city offers.

Long before Herman SchmidtRahmer catapulted today’s world of Trump head first into the dystopian nightmare novel on the Volkstheater stage, I had been making the most of my time.

The first months of my life in Austria were occupied with frequent visits to the State Opera to take advantage of the staggeringly cheap standing tickets. I planned trips to neighbouring cities. Vienna is perfectly placed at the eastern edge of central Europe, making bus tickets to Prague, Budapest, Bratislava and Graz too cheap to be ignored. Weekends were consumed with it. I was using my Erasmus grant to fund an extended Interrail trip. I was fascinated with the idea that I could be in a different country in thirty minutes, another capital city in an hour, and in Venice literally overnight. I took opportunities when in Vienna to go to plays, concerts, snatching up every offer from colleagues and friends, devouring German books I found in the old second hand shop round the corner from my flat.

LONDON Fashion Week Festival will once again arrive in the heart of the city from the 22nd to 25th February; and, in its new venue, (most will remember Fashion Week right in the middle of campus at Somerset House), it is a hop, skip and jump away from Kings’ Strand Campus.

The event promises to hold a curated edit of designer collections, key trend events, and, of course, exclusive shows, where you can bag yourself a seat on the infamous front row. Brands set to be showcased this February include Apples and Figs, House of Sunny, S’well and Vow London and fashion talks are being held by Orla Kiely, Markus Lupfer and The Gal-Dem Collective.

Tickets start from £20, and it won’t cost you an arm and a leg for travel, seeing as you’ll only have to give yourself the excuse that you’re going to the Maughan Library by way of LFW. So if you’re a fashionista who is looking to strut their stuff and be inspired by the latest designs, palettes and trends, head to The Store Studios at 180 Strand, nab yourself an exclusive LFW bag and get to shopping!

17

CHATTE

CAN we recomm en the Arcelor Mitt d ‘The Slide’ at al Orbit (aka, th at big red sculpture in Stratford, right next to the Olym pic Park?) It’s th UK’s tallest artw e ork and features a slide that is a high and 584f t lonwhopping 250f t g. It’ll whizz you down from the diz London at up to zying heights of 15 miles per ho ur with twists and turns galore. So if you’re lookin , g books for a while to abandon the ...go for it!

CULTURE by

In queer films such as Call Me by Your Name and Blue Is the Warmest Co-

by ILONA BUSHELL Culture and Lifestyle

JANUARY 2018 Roar

And then it started. With the arrival in Vienna of the fabulously inventive and striking staging of George Orwell’s novel, came the arrival on British screens of its most depressing spin-off. Celebrity Big Brother has darkened thousands of television displays since 2001, and I did not plan to make anexception to my usual rule and join the masses of people who watched as the unknown 90s popstars and reality TV stars vie for attention under constant watch. But one fateful day, I watched withinterest over the shoulder of my flatmate who had found it on YouTube. That’s how it started. And it continued. Before long I found I was totally hooked. The posters for the play remain in bus stops, the reviews keep coming, and all I can think about is getting home to watch the latest episode rather than searching online for cheap tickets.

This season, “The Year of the Woman”, however, has something new to offer. Established career women such as Rachel Johnson and Maggie Oliver join the house, and I have been interested to watch as Big Brother has become a lesson on how we educate ourselves. So far, it has challenged viewers to consider gender relations, sexual orientation, and the power of women. Transgender journalist India Willoughby and Courtney Act have dominated the first week, demonstrating very different ways to share their knowledge and views, and as the tone changes in the second week, the public call out the trivialisation of sexual assault and the necessity for women speaking out against derogatory comments. Even Anne Widecombe’s views are being challenged within the house, albeit by a drunken failed Apprentice contestant.

Could Big Brother be about to change global discourse on gender equality? Probably not, and I should probably splash out on tickets for the exciting production that flips horror on its head, making “constant surveillance a treat”. But I am going to keep watching CBB. It might not fit in with my new Viennese lifestyle but at least there is something to learn. Now that’s what I call a treat.

BRIGITTE ZHENG CULTURE EDITOR

that deaths of queer female characters are completely disproportionate to their actual representation on screen.

While it is easy to name drop character deaths and cite statistics, discussions of such tropes must seek to destabilise them and work out why, exactly, they are continually reoccurring. In my opinion at least, it seems that mainstream media is only interested in queer characters and their stories when they can be seen as objects of misery - because that is how society still views the LGBTQ+ community.

Deny it or not, Western society is still deeply queerphobic and so such tragic representations are simply the manifestations of such unconscious ideas.

How can we tackle this, though?

Simple.

We need more television shows, films, plays, books, radio shows and YouTube channels created by queer people, for queer people. Queer people know we are not tragic martyrs, we just need to spread the message. Like, ASAP.

Photo Credit: Armie Hammer as Oliver and Timothée Chalet as Elio. Courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

There is something enchantingly poetic about a journey to where time begins.

Amongst the cobbled streets and transportive grounds of the University of Greenwich to the panoramic views across London in Greenwich Park, there is a wonderful feel to this town in all its quaint river side charm.

Westminster Pier to Greenwich Pier The day begins on the floating platforms of Westminster Pier. If you miss a boat take in the views from the bobbing platform; the London Eye is afforded a heightened majesty in the perspective shifting descent into the river.

After 15 minutes waiting you will have the superior advantage of being first to board. Sailing under Tower Bridge, past HMS Belfast and Canary Wharf afford some sights to behold.

The Queen’s House This house has an amusing narrative which hilariously contextualises the visit. King James I supposedly swore at his wife Anne of Denmark when she accidently killed one of his favourite dogs during a hunt. The aftermath of this event was a swearing King and this house commissioned as gift to apologise. Highlights include the Great Hall who’s intricately painted ceiling is designed by Turner Prize-winning Richard Wright and the Tulip Stairs, the first geometric self-supporting spiral staircase in Britain.

Royal Observatory Greenwich In Greenwich Park, a surprisingly strenuous (but short) ascent will see you into the Green-

by LILY SAWYER Culture Reporter

As you may have seen by now, the Tate Modern Gallery is currently hosting a collection of swings in their ‘Turbine hall’. “One, Two, Three Swing!” is part of the third annual Hyundai Commission, a series of site-specific works created for the ‘Turbine Hall’ by renowned international artists, as part of the partnership between Tate and Hyundai Motor.

The brains behind the exhibition, collective Danish art group ‘SUPERFLEX’, are best known for their playfully subversive installations and films. Founded in 1993 by Danish artists Bjørnstjerne Christiansen, Jakob Fenger and Rasmus Nielsen, SUPERFLEX has gained international recognition for collaborative projects and solo exhibitions around the world.

The Tate Modern claims that: “Each swing has been designed for three people …Swinging with two other people has greater potential than swinging alone and One Two Three Swing! invites us to realise this potential together. Swinging as three, our collective energy resists gravity and challenges the laws of nature.”

However, art boils down to interpretation. So, in the context of the subjectivity of artwork and the fast paced London that surrounds us and the Tate Modern Gallery, I am inclined to disagree with Tate’s official ‘definition’ of the exhibition.

Instead, my initial interpretations of SU-

wich Observatory with views of the river and Canary Wharf. An alternative view of this scene can be found behind the blackout curtains of the Camera Obscura. The obligatory stance of one leg east and one leg west over the Prime Meridian Line can be satisfied here too.

The Astronomy Centre: Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year The exhibition is the culmination of a global competition entered by thousands of amateur and professional photographers. This year’s winner was Russian photographer Artem Mironov who captured the ethereal dust and gas clouds in the Rho Ophiuchi Cloud Complex, 400 light years away from earth.

The show which is set in a dark room, lit only by the glowing photographs of aurorae and moons, stars and planets, is a magically curated composition. Sean

PERFLEX’s work prompted me to draw alternative conclusions…

At first encounter with “One, Two, Three Swing!”, I immediately raced for the best seat on the three-person swing, with total disregard to the motivation or ‘deeper meaning’ behind the exhibition.

As I sat and swung higher and higher, sandwiched between my two best friends from Uni, I was immediately transported back to my childhood, and the uncomplicated glee of simply… swinging! As my friends and I unabashedly laughed, we forgot everything else around us: the fact that we were in public- in an art gallery of all places!

Surrounded by the feeling of pretension and lofty superiority art galleries can sometimes conjure, I came to reflect that the motivation behind “One, Two, Three Swing!” could be a simple nostalgia, a mourning for the unpretentious happiness that seemed so accessible in childhood.

Exemplified by the simple and childish nature of the title, the exhibition can be seen as a rejection of pretension: a nostalgic nod to uncomplicated childhood modes.

As I looked around me, and with previous musings in mind, I noticed how many ‘respectable’ adults frequented the other swings. Professional businesswomen and men alike swung back and forth, positively carefree in comparison to the usual stony-faced glare usually sported on public transport during rush-hour.

Goebel’s Mauna Kea Moonset and Bartlomiej Jurecki’s Nacreous Clouds were particular favourites for their depiction of earth with such enchanting transcendence. Kurt Lawson’s The Cable Route of Half Dome at Night, was also a favourite for its energetic portrayal of the hikers’ ascent, captures Yosemite in its nocturnal activity. Rarely is an exhibition so spell-binding, enhanced by the accompanying captions, it informs as well as delights.

Insight Astronomy Photographer of the Year @ The Astronomy Centre until 22 July 2018 ROG and Thames Clipper Return Concession £15.50 board and return to any port in Central London.

PHOTO CREDITS: William Sjoberg, Sean Goebel

Perhaps, then, the exhibition alludes to something more. A ‘stop in time,’ a site in which people can temporarily forget their troubles, inducing an uncomplicated happiness from the simple pleasure of swinging.

“One, Two, Three Swing!” is not only representative of childhood, but a rejection of the conventions of a facedpaced City, urban modernism and technology: just outside the door existed the hustle and bustle of the Southbank, but shrouded in the secluded ‘Turbine Hall’ of the Tate was the opportunity to escape this, to take a moment, to relax and laugh.

More generally we can view the exhibition inherently as a mode of escapism.

Therefore, whether you are harrowed by the stress of deadlines this Semester, or just fancy a swing and a laugh with your friends, take the time to pop down to the Tate Modern and enjoy the opportunity to revert to childhood modes and forget the world…even if it’s just for a minute!

The exhibition will be there until the 2nd April 2018, giving plenty of time for some opportune escapism.

Photo Credit: Installation views including SUPERFLEX, Jakob Fenger, Bjørnstjerne Christiansen and Rasmus Nielsen on One Two Three Swing! Tate Modern Photo: © Tate’

ART ISN’T ALL SWINGS AND ROUNDABOUTS, IS IT?

TOP 5 things to do 1. Watch ‘Call me by Your Name’ in your nearest cinema Luca Guadagnino’s hymn to innocence, love and the beautiful landscapes of Northern Italy is a must- watch of this award season. The poignant love story that develops between the characters of Timothee Chalamet and Armie Hammer will leave you longing and in tears. The soundtrack, an eclectic mix of nostalgic 80s euro pop tunes and new songs by Sufjan Stevens make this coming of age tale as evocative as it is.

2. Visit the ‘Winnie-the-Pooh: Exploring a Classic’ exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Revisit your childhood by discovering the story behind Winnie the Pooh and his creator, A. A. Milne. V&A exhibitions have a unique and holistic approach in presenting its subject matter through photographs, paintings, ceramics and fashion. The exhibition runs until April 8th.

3. Watch ‘Hamilton’ at the Victoria Palace Theatre Lin Manuel Miranda’s revolutionary musical has finally arrived in London! Although it’s obviously sold out, there’s a daily lottery in which you can win tickets for only £10.

Hamilton: An American Musical retells the story of Alexander Hamilton, founding father of the United States, by incorporating rapping, hip hop and pop music, as well as performances by non- white actors as historical figures.

4. Go to an ‘Annie Mac Presents’ Party Annie Mac, the Radio 1 DJ, will take over the Roundhouse, KOKO and the Jazz Café all throughout February, from the 1st - 24th. She will be performing in the Roundhouse and KOKO whilst the Jazz Café will host a well curated array of young musicians. A standout lineup is Superorganism, Billie Eilish and Dream Wife on the 15th February.

5. Visit the Permanent Collection of the Courtauld Gallery To be a King’s student and to not have visited the Courtault Gallery yet is inexcusable. Tucked between Somerset House and the Strand Campus, the Gallery is home to masterpieces from the 20th and 19th century, such as Edouard Manet’s ‘A Bar at the FoliesBergere’. Also, entry is free for students. Stop procrastinating and go there during a lunch break.

Catching up with the Regents

18 ROAR

JANUARY 2018

The year 2017 was a big one for KCL sports. With four gyms, over 30 weekly BeActive sessions, 28 performance scholarship athletes, and over 1000 users on King’s Move, KCL is well on its way to becoming London’s most active university.

In addition, KCL boasts 75 different sports clubs with over 3500 participating students.

Indeed, 2017 was a fantastic year for all of KCLSU’s sporting societies full of growth, challenges, and success, and this especially couldn’t be truer for the KCL Regents, the college’s American football team. Entering their decennial year, the Regents have a vast amount of achievements to be proud of. Roar Sport was lucky to catch up with club president Dominic Prince to gain insights on what it’s like to be part of the fastest growing university sport in the UK at KCL. The Regents have come a long way since their humble beginnings.

Founded in 2008, the team was originally comprised of a mere handful of students playing together in the team’s namesake location, Regent’s Park. This season, the Regents led the league in points up until the very last week of the season when they suffered an unfortunate loss to the currently top-seeded Brighton.

Now sitting in second, the Regents are on their way to securing a playoff berth for the first time in five years following a season of extraordinary play from the entire squad, including standout defensive end Hassam Kashmiri and running back Andre Queirolo. Prince, the team’s quarterback, has been sidelined with a torn ACL, and much like in 2016 when star NFL QB Teddy Bridgewater, was out of the game before the thrill of the season could really take off.

Having an injured captain is never an ideal scenario, but Prince re-

ROAR

Sport

By MADELINE ANDERSON

mains hopeful that he will return in time to join the Regents in representing KCL in the Varsity Series. Prior to the exciting Varsity evening kickoff under the March Tuesday night lights, the Regents will play a couple more regular season matches. The remaining contests will be played against the league’s 7th seeded BNU on February 18th and 5th seeded UCL on the 25th.

This past year, the Regents saw successes both on and off the field, remaining very active in the local community. In December, the club teamed up with KCL’s own HotChocSoc to deliver festive cards, gifts, and Christmas cheer to the homeless on Strand. Furthermore, the Regents are proud to announce that they’ve been awarded a full grant by the Widening Participation fund to create an outreach scheme for a target school. Starting in February, the team will be teaching kids how to play football as well as whilst emphasizing the importance of higher education.

Just a couple weeks into January, its already clear that the Regents are gearing up for an infinitely successful decennial campaign.

With the arrival of second semester, Prince hopes to make a big recruitment push, targeting potential talent arriving from overseas in the form of exchange and study abroad students; any and all skill levels are welcome.

For King’s Sport, 2017 was a year that will most definitely be looked back upon with unbridled pride. In 2017, new heights were reached in terms of student involvement with the number of sports teams exceeding 75, leading the amount of participating students to skyrocket above 3500.

New facilities were opened, adding another state of the art gym to the College’s armada of current up and running fitness spaces.

Finally, new initiatives were undertaken by sports teams, clubs, and societies through a range of community driver events, proving that success in sport can be found equally on and off the field. All in all, 2017 was a record year whose achievements will allow KCL to forge ahead in its ambitious journey to become the most active university in London. As we enter the new year, Roar Sport is excited to take a reflective back at 2017 and run down some of the most prominent sporting achievements that occurred throughout the year.

JANUARY 2018

KCL LED MIND TECHNIQUE SEES SPORTING IMPROVEMENT

pus. It boasts over 70 workout stations as well as a timetable filled with over 50 classes per week. The list of available classes includes yoga, pilates, bootcamps, Bodypump, and more! In addition, gym memberships are now made to cover every location, meaning that if you ever find yourself near Guy’s Campus itching to work out, the London Bridge facility is now there for you!

activities are located near the College’s different campuses, whether it be in residence halls or in one of the gyms. With events ranging from yoga raves to 5 a side football, there’s always a little something for everyone with BeActive. Be sure to watch the BeActive Facebook page to keep up with their ever expanding agenda this new year!

Standout Year for BeActive

King’s Sport Gives Back

King’s BeActive saw unparalleled growth in 2017, consistently holding up to 30 sessions per week.

Formed through a partnership between King’s Sport and KCLSU, BeActive serves as the college’s social and recreational sports program open to all students. The program works to provide students with social sport and fitness events during term time for all levels of experience. The activities are all run by student volunteers, or Activators, alongside a supporting cast of instructors and coaches.

All

This past year, King’s Sport proved the importance of finding success both on and off the field. In between training sessions and matches, teams and clubs around the College were able to use sport as a platform to make an impact in the local community. Several teams, including the Regents and King’s Athletics, moved to provide children from local schools with the opportunity to play and learn more about different sports. Moreover, charity events and matches were held to benefit great causes, such

King’s College London in association with Ford and UNIT9 have created an experiment which seeks to explore mental techniques in relation to sport.

The experiment has seen the set up of a number of machines including an EEG (electroencephalogram) headset and a virtual reality driving simulator.

The aim of this experiment is to analyse the ways in which performance can be improved by adopting the mental techniques employed by professional athletes.

The two techniques tested within the experiment include an ancient Tibetan breathing exercise, alongside a ‘success visualisation’ activity, which calls for participants to mentally picture successful situations.

The results of the study found that the brains of professional racing drivers performed a whopping 40% better when looking at focused attention than those who were simply regular participants. Described as ‘in the zone’, the experiment trained the minds of the drivers to focus on small sensory signals.

ROAR 19

Dr Elias Mouchlianitis, who works in the IoPPN at the College stated: “The results reveal a mere 10-minute mental preparation can significantly improve focus and, with it, performance... normal drivers were able in some cases to improve their performance by as much as 50%.”

And it is clear that although this technique has been tested on sportspeople, it may well be transferable to other areas of life, such as important interviews, exams or high-octane situations that need a steady thought process and calming techniques.

KCL ATHLETICS JUMPS HIGH IN 2017 King’s Athletics finished 2017 on a high having entered a massive team to the LUCA Indoor Championships where they picked up silver in both the David Morgan Cup and the United Hospitals Shield. Benefitting from a term of Olympic-class coaching at Southwark Park, every single King’s athlete put in a fantastic performance, with an array of personal bests being achieved across the board.

alongside their usual jammed-packed social calendar (with the club’s first ever warm weather training holiday coming up!).

If you are interested in competing at BUCS, or simply want to go for a group run around the Thames once a week, check out www.kingsaxc.com and join one of King’s largest sports clubs today!

Building on this success, King’s Athletics is looking forward to a great season ahead with BUCS Indoors (Sheffield) rapidly approaching,

New Gym at London Bridge One of the definitive highlights of 2017 for King’s Sport was the opening of the London Bridge gym.

The shiny new facility is conveniently located on Borough High Street, adjacent to Guy’s Cam-

THE 2017 REVIEW! Want to showcase your sports team in the paper?

as the Great King’s Run. Held in the fall, the GKR raised funds for Penguins Against Cancer, Mind for Better Mental Health, and Action Against Hunger.

Finally, numerous events were held in junction with BeActive to raise awareness for fantastic movements, such as This Girl Can. We can only look forward to 2018 with intense hope. Fingers crossed that it’s an even better year than the last!

Tweet us! - @RoarNews | Message us! | Roar News on Facebook | Email us! - sport@roarnews.co.uk

• Competitive Wins • Incredble feats of sportsmanship • Sporting Events

Student Opinion

20 Roar

JANUARY 2018

THE BUSH HOUSE TIMELINE

1941-2012 - HQ of BBC World Service June 2014 - work completed on renovation of all wings 10 March 2015 - KCL acquires 50 yr. lease.

September 2017 - Union Shop opens

Roar sat down with Business faculty students Reeva Rathod, Faye Leung and Haroon Hashimy who expressed their delight at the new building now forming the centre of their academic study.

“We’re surrounded by businesses, the city and real life all around us,” said Faye, “We’re not cocooned into a campus life, and we cannot lose a connection to the world around us.

King’s is expanding and we’re expanding with it. It was a very much anticipated change to move here, and it definitely lives up to our expectations. It makes me extra proud to be a part of the university and proves how valued I am as a student that King’s could take the time to dedicate a building to my faculty, as well as my personal development.”

“Bush House gives King’s a boost no doubt,” Haroon stated, “Having a building like this definitely adds to the reputation of the university. I wanted to be in London for the vibe and the energy you get from the city, and I’m definitely getting a chance to experience all of that here. In King’s there is an amazing balance between work and social life which is really represented within this space. There is great space to work in at Bush House, and this adds to the advantages King’s has over other universities.”

“As a student, I’m very lucky to be here, this is a big change,” Reeva said, “I feel more motivated to come to university every single day. There are so many things to get involved in, whether its corporate relations, working in an office or just spending time with friends, and Bush House really emphasises this. This campus already just gives me a very good feeling.”

Behind the

scenes

“Leading the business school was such an exciting opportunity for me.

To take a leading university with incredibly passionate students and to take it to the next level, develop something new. The opportunity to transform a school into something new which really looks ahead - ‘where is business and society going?’ - now that’s too good of an opportunity to pass by.”

At the launch of the Business School in November, Professor Bach

l a e d e h t ’s t a h W with KCLSU? WHEN Macadam closes its doors, I’m sure some will greatly miss the KCLSU building. But the alternatives are shaping up to be everything Macadam boasted and more.

The Shack - a KCLSU cafe, non-alcoholic space which is set to offer tea, coffee, sandwiches and pastries for the hungry student - Ground Floor Bush House SE Wing

ROAR’S EXCLUSIVE TOUR O F BUSH HOUSE Get Bush House updates! kclsu.org.uk

The Vault - found in the ‘Undercroft’ of KCLSU, this is the brandspanking-new bar venue which will contain all of your favourite Waterfront features and more. Pool table, bar, open space and, what’s more, a direct link to other food outlets Undercroft Bush House SE Wing Social Spaces - KCLSU promises spaces for cinema, table tennis, performance and much much more.

The aim of social space in KCLSU is to allow more area for societies to utilise the heart of KCLSU. n So, let’s bring on Spring 2018, it’s not too far away and we can’t wait to see Bush House in all its glory!

WE’RE BOASTING ABOUT IT THERE is no doubt that Bush House is a fancy new building, but what does it really have to offer?

DEAN STEPHEN BACH One person who is excited to share Bush House News, is the Inaugural Dean of the Business School, Professor Stephen Bach, who Roar spoke to exclusively about his plans for the faculty and his opinions on Bush House as a new King’s campus.

SPRING 2018 - KCLSU relocates from Macadam to Bush House

n A ‘Harvard Style’ Lecture Theatre - this looks like something out of the UN, if we’re completely honest. n An ‘Arcade’ for drinks

receptions - perfect for distinguished events that are so popular at KCL. n An auditorium with 395

seats - again, looking very futuristic and cutting-edge.

n The Eighth Floor amazing views over London in all directions, if not just a tad windy and cold!

BUSINESS HAT ON...

Professor Bach balances teaching & leadership

Going the Distance Professor Bach is a distinguished leader who joined King’s in 2000 after a variety of roles.

Photo Credit: KCL stated that “students must be prepared to deal with uncertain times”. This was a statement he elaborated on, during our conversation, where he stated, “When starting out in business, people need a range of skills. You need to be very digitally savvy, analytical, interpretative, possess an inter-cultural mindset and integrity.

But the most important thing is to be a critical thinker, and to deal with ambiguity as we live in an uncertain time. Grasp every opportunity presented to you.”

And Professor Bach also expressed his love of the city: “It’s amazingly global.” he stated, “It will continue to go from strength to strength.

And King’s needs to continue to attract amazing staff and students from across the world.”

Professor Bach also took the time to share his current reading list with us. “The Economist, The FT, things you’d expect me to read,” he laughed, “But I’m also reading The Golden

Passport, which is about the evolution of Harvard Business School. It’s presented strengths and weaknesses which are invaluable for a school like ours, a new school, a developing school. That’s been interesting.”

Professor Bach presented a Business School which is set to grow immensely, and make amazing achievements. With Bush House at its centre, it presents a forward-thinking King’s which we can all appreciate.