UCDSU launch first Res Week

UCD Students’ Union has launched Res Week this week, for students living in on-campus accommodation. A series of events, aimed at all UCD residences, will be held throughout the week.Res Week has been organised by Campaigns and Communications Officer Paddy Guiney and Residence Coordinator, Adam Caldwell. Guiney explained that the main focus for Res Week is on students on campus getting to know their neighbours: “This is open to all UCD students, but the main emphasis is students who live on residence, so that they can get to know each other.”There are several events taking place each day, with the hope that students living on campus will participate in the occasion and socialise with other residences: “We have a cinema night just for first year residents, taking place in the Global Lounge, we have a debate with LawSoc on the four provinces,and we have a Freshers’ play with DramSoc,” said Guiney.In addition to recreational events, there are also plans for voucher giveaways so that food expenses will be lower for students: “We have the Centra challenge routine. We are going to give away a couple of hundred euros worth of vouchers to students for food,” Guiney explained.Many issues related to on-campus living are also being addressed during Res week. The 2012/13 License to Reside allows students to be filmed in their residences in cases where there is risk of injury to people or of damage to property. The measure, which has caused considerable controversy, is something that will be questioned as a part of Res Week: “We are looking into it [filming on residence] and making students aware of that, and we will be campaigning against that and we will be launching it from Res Week,” said Guiney.Other problems in residence that are set to be addressed include the structure of the Licence to Reside, in addition to the appeals process for students who have fines, which is considered to be weak at present.To further help students on residence get to know each other, there is an official Res Night organised on Thursday, October 4th, which will act as a replacement for last year’s cancelled Res Ball. When asked whether Res Week was going ahead in response to the negative reception of last year’s Res Ball, Guiney said: “I would not directly correlate the Residence Ball last year, and our planning of this year, I would have done it either way”.Guiney has two main hopes for Res Week: “There are two main things: that they get to meet their neighbours and they are aware of the issues while living on residence.”