Proposed segregation in Eden’s Court of Norwegian visitor has led to fears about isolation by Derwent JCRC.
From October, half of the houses in Eden’s Court will be given to 40 students and teachers from Norway who visit York for two weeks at a time.
The programme, organised by the Norwegian Study Centre has been in place for 25 years but, until now, visitors have been scattered around the main blocks of Derwent College.
Laura Pursey, an Eden’s Court Rep for the JCRC, has warned that the plans pose “a massive welfare issue.” She claims that “the few undergraduates living in Eden’s Court will be very isolated from other students because half the community will come and go every fortnight. It will be much more difficult for them to get involved in university life and feel part of the college with only a few of them living there.”
Current residents of the off-campus accommodation have also expressed concerns for next year’s freshers. One resident, Sally Bowman, said: “if there were half as many of us it would be much more scary and isolated than it already was for the first few weeks.” Eden’s Court at present has fewer than 90 residents, including many mature students and nursing students.
Derwent’s provost Ron Weir has described the move of Norwegian visitors to Eden’s Court as a plan that “doesn’t make a great deal of sense.” This is because the visitors tend to use considerable use of the porters’ service and the college bar, neither of which are in Eden’s Court.
The Norwegian Study Centre have cited the noise in Derwent, and the fact that visitors currently have to share rooms as reasons for moving.
The University told Vision that one of the main aims of the visiting programmes is to gain “maximum benefit from the English speaking environment,” which has worked effectively in the current rent accommodation. Current visiting student, Natalie Nguyen is against the proposed segregation. She argued: “you’ll learn a lot more English by mixing with English students… I wouldn’t have improved if I were just staying with Norweigans.”