Student Volunteering: Project Coordinator (协调员) vacancies

Would you like to make a real difference to your local community? Becoming a Project Coordinator could be the role for you! We’re currently looking for our next set of volunteer Project Coordinators for the 2023—2024 academic year. Project Coordinators work with a team of students to run a project with support from the Volunteering and Mentoring Team. This year we are looking for teams to lead the following projects:

▪Chester Student Dog Walking Project—walking dogs for members of the community who would struggle to do so themselves for health reasons

▪Chester Healthy Eating Workshops—healthy cooking workshops for people who have experienced homelessness

▪Welly Wednesdays—one-off conservation activities that benefit the environment like tree planting and hedge laying

▪Get Talking—students raising awareness, fundraising and talking about issues that can affect students, helping to open dialogue about serious topics and reduce stigma (污名)

▪inCredible—students helping young people to identify what is credible information and reduce the spread of fake news

▪Dementia Café—a monthly café in Time Square, Warrington for people and families affected by dementia (痴呆) to come together and connect with others

Interested in running any of these projects? Find the role descriptions and application forms on the Volunteer Hub. Email volunteering@chester.ac.uk with any questions or with your completed application form. The deadline to apply is Thursday, April 20.

Most of us trust our doctors even when they hand us a prescription for a drug we can’t pronounce. But natural, holistic (整体的) products are fully in vogue nowadays, and the Internet has created a way for non-experts to become as or more informed as their general practitioner when it comes to obscure treatment methods. “People are now more willing to take their health and wellness into their own hands,” says Danielle Hardee, a wellness advocate for Do TERRA International.

Oddly enough, until fairly recently, Hardee was not one of those people. Her first experience with essential oils came in treating her pet bulldog. After seeking suggestions for the sickly pet on Facebook, a fellow fosterer told Hardee about certain oils she could try applying to the animal’s skin. Pairing her curiosity with healthy skepticism, Hardee dove deep into researching the safety of the oils. “I was very happy with everything I found,” she says. “I started not just using them on the foster dog, but also our son, who needed the benefits of the respiratory support.” While the dog’s recovery was soon apparent, the benefits for her son were almost immediate.

The oils in question are considered “essential” not due to any proven vitality, but because they contain the essence of the plants from which they are extracted. Peppermint, lavender and citruses are among the most common on the market today, but numerous essential oils have been in use for several centuries.

After seeing how beneficial the concentrated liquids were to both the two-legged and four-legged members of her family, Hardee soon found herself teaching essential oil classes. “It became something I felt so strongly about, I had to share it,” she says. The classes quickly grew in size and geographical span and Hardee soon became an advocate for doTERRA International, a natural nutrition and wellness company.

As growing popularity pushes essential oils into the broader market, Hardee recommends curious customers proceed with caution concerning quality and purity. Hardee believes the effects of quality oils will be the evidence that helps them prevail. “I’m not a holistic health guru (专家),” she emphasizes. “I’m just seeing it with my own eyes.”

On June 6th Columbia University announced that it will no longer co-operate with US News & World Report’s undergraduate rankings. It is the first top-notch institution to do so. Might its departure be the start of a mass departure?

Columbia’s decision follows a rankings scandal last year. In February 2022 one of Columbia’s own maths professors accused the college of fudging its data in several areas. The university later admitted to having used “outdated and/or incorrect methodologies”.

In the 1980s prospective students started to expand their college search beyond their local area, and it was hard to learn about universities and compare them. Hence, US News began ranking America’s top universities in 1983, and has released its findings annually since 1988.

Colleges have gone to great lengths to move up in the ratings. Richard Freeland, Northeastern University’s former president, capped class sizes and hired faculty to improve its spot; it moved from 127th in 2003 to 44th this year. Others went too far. A dean at Temple University’s business school was sentenced to prison and was ordered to pay a $250,000 fine after being found guilty of fraud in relation to artificially inflating his programme’s rankings.

The ranking system used to seem unstoppable. Universities have tried to ditch it before, only to find that doing so can backfire badly. US News still ranks non-participating universities, using publicly available information, and the data often do not go in their favour. Reed College, a liberal-arts college, stopped taking part in 1995. It tumbled from the top quartile to the bottom. Columbia did not submit data for this year’s analysis, citing concerns about Dr Thaddeus’s claims, and its ranking fell from second in 2021-22 (tied with Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology) to 18th in 2022-23 (tied with the University of Notre Dame).

Recently the mood has begun to change, however, especially among graduate schools. In 2022, of the 15 highest-ranked law schools, only the University of Chicago submitted data. Some undergraduate schools have already opted out this year (Rhode Island School of Design, Colorado College, Stillman College), but none are as prestigious as Columbia.

In May US News announced changes to its ranking methodology. It is moving away from metrics that rely on reputation and towards student outcomes. One way or another, the rankings—and universities more broadly—are in a state of constant change.