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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 20, No. 1. 4th March, 1957
Where to go what Know at V.U.C
Where to go what Know at V.U.C
Newcomers to Victoria College should not allow first impressions to discourage them. After a week of trailing around in its medieval gloom through tangling corridors the atmosphere will suddenly become quite hospitable, and, on occasions, even homelike.
The vital spot to locate in the building is the Cafeteria. This is in the basement immediately below the telephone boxes at the north end of the ground floor. Don't be misled by the name, and feel obliged to eat there for the Caf. is the intellectual centre of the college and many a now political theory has been born there among the philosophers who linger long after cups of coffee have gone cold and been absent-mindedly drunk.
At the end of the Cafeteria corridor past the Women's cloakroom is the Common Room artfully camouflaged behind a tobacco-born smoke-screen and filled at all times with students of the Arts Faculty.
A notable fact about V.U.C. is that it has a Common room Uncommon in that it is a common common room.
Those Students who prefer to learn by swotting will find the atmosphere of the Library more conducive to work if a trifle ratified. This noble scriptorium is to be found on the first floor to the left of the main staircase. The first plunge is alarming but the ears appreciate the next.
Exec. room, where such odds ond ends as stationery, V.U.C. badges, locker keys, past editions of Cappicade and Exec. members may be found, is at the end of the verandah of the archaic building rejoicing in the title of Gymn. which teeters above the site of the new Student's Union Building (better known as the tennis courts). in charge of the office is the Executive's permanent secretary, Mrs. Yaldwyn.
The Administrative office is the
rectangular building best approached by those unfamiliar with the landscape from Kelburn Parade. It is here that pessimists buy copies of last year's exam, papers, optimists lodge complaints about the sub-Arctic temperature of the lecture rooms, and bursars collect money at the end of each term.
These being the pressure centres of the college, it is necessary to have the jargon to go with them.
Students Association.
Better known as the Stud. Ass. the Association is one to which every student automatically belongs. It is represented by the Exec., the chosen few elected by two per cent, of the students after the usual incredibly inactive election campaign.
N.Z .U.S.A.
This is a national Students' Association representing all the constituent colleges of the University of New Zealand and deals with matters which concern all colleges.
Cosec.
This organization, the Co-ordinating Secretariat is the result of a schism in I.U.S. (International Union of Students) about four years ago when certain of the western nations felt that the parent body was becoming too Leftist in its views and broke away to form a separate organization. As the situation is at present, some nations have associations with both bodies—this applies particularly to the Latin American and Afro-Asian students—and members of either association can send observers, and in some cases, delegates, to meetings of the other.
W.U.S.
This is another international association wider in membership than I.U.S. or COSEC and is concerned more with cultural work among students and student relief.
—F.S & K.B.