BNC boiling over
Students at Brasenose, at an emergency meeting last Thursday, overwhelmingly called for moves to be made to limit the powers of the Domestic Bursar, Michael Ewens, following a number of controversial interventions and growing aversion amongst students.
The emergency meeting, which was called following a petition of over fifty students, proposed an "appeals procedure to be set up to enable students...to register their discontent with any decision the Domestic Bursary has made". The moves would enable powers to overrule Ewens as well as acting as a preventative measure.
Brasenose JCR President Laura Hannay described the proposal, which was taken to the governing body yesterday, as implementing a "safety net". Insisting that the moves were "not a personal attack", Hannay described the moves to be in line with current provisions already existent in relation to the Principal and Executive Council.
The motion was triggered in response to the final JCR meeting of last term, which described the event as "rife with discontent" amongst "powerless" students. Following a line of previous interventions, moves to implement a coffee machine in the JCR area were vetoed by Ewens, warning that students risked "burning themselves".
One student, who requested not to be named, commented that "there is a mood that it will prevent this happening in future", whilst momentum was being heightened by "being stirred up by certain people with personal feelings".
2nd May 2002