Measures are being taken by FXU to dissolve the faultline separating Foundation and Undergraduate students at UCF's Tuke House.
Tuke House, the smaller of the two University halls, houses both foundation art students based at Wellington Terrace and first years based mainly at Woodlane.
However, both parties feel that neither has mixed well together: "Although we live in the same place I think the fact that [foundation students] coming down first made a difference. Maybe we seemed a little more intimidating as we settled in before?" says Flo Fitzgerald, an Art Foundation student.
Foundation students came to Tuke two weeks before the Undergraduates, and outnumber them substantially. They do have two lectures a week at Woodlane campus also.
"The fact that we had two separate Fresher's weeks I think played a major part too. If we were all in the same boat then I think things would be far different,” she said.
She also spoke of how the FXU should organise more “joint parties” for both the parties at Tuke.
Carley Huxham, an Undergraduate from Tuke also believes the staggered move in dates was the reason why there is segregation: “It’s all because the foundation students moved in first and made their own friendship circles before we came down. It made us feel we were almost intruding.”
She also agrees that more events for both sections of students would “help them to mix and socialise more”.
FXU President Steve Whiting said he was aware that there was a segregation between both bodies of students. However, the FXU seem to have implemented some measures to help both bands in mixing together: “The College this year has introduced Foundation Mentors for the new foundation students as a start towards improving relations between the two different groups.”
Steve Whiting also explained how the FXU will be even more explicit with the foundation students, to make sure “that they are welcome to Freshers Fortnight events”.
“We represent all students who study at UCF and UECC and encourage integration by treating the student community as one.”
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1 comment:
You have demonstrated a good grasp of the inverted pyramid with this story and have written appropriately in short paragraphs. Your research is thorough and you have backed up your intro with some original quotes. Having said this, the story as written is quite weak. Ask yourself how many students are really interested in this? You could resolve this to a certain extent by using Steve Whiting’s revelation about the Foundation mentors as your peg. The news here is that something is being done about the problem. Let me know if you would like to talk this through further.
Stick to ‘said’ or ‘added’ when attributing quotes.
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