Campus News in Brief
By Gráinne Loughran | Nov 18 2015
UCDSU launch ‘Slutwalk’UCDSU will run a ‘Slutwalk’ as part of their #NotAskingForIt campaign on consent today (Tuesday) at 1pm. The event will be led by author Louise O’Neill, who is returning to campus after launching the initial campaign in the Fitzgerald Chamber in October. O’Neill wrote the award-winning novel Asking for It, after which the campaign was named. The Slutwalk is being celebrated as a “Stride of Pride” across campus, and will showcase the right to wear “whatever ye like” without being subject to derogatory comments or insults.UCDSU has faced criticism on various forms of social media for accusations of trivialising the impact of rape and sexual assault on the posters publicising the event. Issues were raised with the language used on the posters and the use of a photo of SU President Marcus O’Halloran for what many deem to be a female-centred campaign. An SU council meeting on 2nd November also voted in the majority for the event’s name to be changed, but this was not followed through on by the Union.The event will begin in the Student Centre Atrium before continuing on the walk around campus.[br]Fundraising drive for Youth Suicide Prevention IrelandUCDSU have begun work on a naked Christmas calendar to fundraise for a charity skydive in aid of Youth Suicide Prevention Ireland. Over 400 students have signed up to take part in the skydive so far, and over €5,000 has been raised. UCDSU hope to raise €100,000 throughout the year for Youth Suicide Prevention Ireland. The calendar will feature volunteers from UCD as well as members of the UCDSU sabbatical team, including Campaigns and Communications Officer Cian Byrne, whose own naked photo was recently published to the SU Facebook page.[br]Copi-print outageA persistent computer virus caused the public access computers in the Newman Building, the James Joyce library and various other locations around campus to be temporarily shut down last week.According to a statement issued by UCD Copi-Print, at the end of October Copi-Print became aware of a computer virus on the computers in the James Joyce library and the Newman building which had the effect of changing the users’ filenames to shortcuts and hiding the real files. IT Security advised Copi-Print to shut down their computers until they could identify the virus. It transpired that the virus is a new type of virus, which has only existed for a month.IT Security have sent on their samples to antivirus software manufacturer Sophos to investigate why the virus could not always be detected by their software. The computers are continuing to be rebuilt. As of November 12th IT Services were continuing to advise that staff and students should not use USB keys on open access computers until further notice. [br] TEDxUCDTEDxUCD 2015 will take place on Friday 4 December 2015 in the Dramsoc Theatre in UCD Student Centre. Now a global phenomenon, TEDx is a programme of local TED-like events that bring people together to spark discussion and connection. This will be the third annual TEDxUCD event. Former UCDSU Education Officer Amy Fox will MC the event, which will host a range of guest speakers including Maeve O’Rourke, Dr Cara Augustenbourg and Dr Brendan Rooney. The topics of the talks will range from a fossil-free Ireland to a cure for HIV. 100 tickets were made available for the event, and are currently sold out.