Heslington’s “New Building” could be renamed to honour outgoing Academic Affairs Officer Charlie Leyland, if new YUSU Active Policy is successful.
A motion passed at Week 4’s Union General Meeting has mandated YUSU to henceforth refer to the building as “The Leyland Study Space” and to pressure the university to follow suit. The proposal was put forward by Luke Malkin, who also chaired the meeting.
“After thinking that “The New Building” was an awful name for any study space, I could think of no better person to name the building after than Charlie Leyland,” said Malkin, speaking exclusively to Vision. “We have the Roger Kirk centre, the Dixon studio and the Berrick Saul Building. Why not celebrate the work of students a little more?”
Malkin went on to say that he did contact Leyland prior to submitting the motion – in his words, “she’s too modest to agree with it but she didn’t say no either, so I went ahead with the UGM and I’m very glad that enough voters agreed with me to make it Union Policy.”
Leyland, who has spent two years as an officer for YUSU, spoke to Vision, saying that she was “very flattered” but felt that we should “move away from personality politics” which could “undermine the hard work done by people at all levels within the organization and within the university.”
“Frankly, if I hadn’t made progress over these two years, making change for students, I wouldn’t be doing my job… I hope we’ve shown this year and last the amount that we can achieve together when opinions are vocalised in safe spaces, issues are raised, and we all work together as stakeholders in our education with the university to enhance student experiences in a supportive environment.”
I think anyone who knows Charlie will know JUST how much she hated this as an idea, and its a real shame that the proposer put his own vanity ahead of her wishes.
Hey Mole, as the article says I ran the idea by her before submitting it to council. It turns out she thought I was joking…but what’s happened has happened. The vote passed because a lot of students came out to support one of their sabs- when was the last time you saw that happening?
And if I was vain as you’re making out I’d probably appreciate critics (and boy would I be fulfilled if that were the case). Don’t make this comment thread about me, because that’s not its intention. Instead, go do something useful.
She’s worked bloody hard! It’s nice to be able to say thanks and she totally deserves it, although I don’t think she’ll have anything to do with making it happen!