14 February 1985: Tory students shift right

• Amnesty auction rivals Sotheby’s: Edinburgh University Amnesty International raised over £250 for their funds on Saturday with a lunch and an auction of items donated by famous people.
• Rifkind supports working Rector: As the campaign to elect Nelson Mandela as Rector intensifies, Malcolm Rifkind, Minister of State at the Foreign Office and MP for Edinburgh Pentlands, discussed the changes that have recently occurred in South Africa.
• Bellamy calls for more environmental education: David Bellamy was in Edinburgh on Monday to launch an education trust and to deliver a lecture at a new branch of Friends of the Earth set up for Edinburgh colleges.

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21 February 1985: Mandela entry for Rector rejected

• Colleges dominate Edinburgh demo: A total of 11 arrests were made at the NUS demonstration in Edinburgh last Wednesday. About 200 students took to the streets to protest at the Government’s grant cuts in a demonstration dominated by Edinburgh’s colleges of further education rather than its universities.
• The happiest days of my life: Outgoing University Rector David Steel reflects on his time in the role.
• Ecology – the acid test: The last few years have seen a phenomenal growth in the number and size of ecological environmental groups known collectively as the Green Movement, and yet many people still assume that ecology is the exclusive domain of bearded eccentrics.

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28 February 1985: GM gives support to the District Council

• GM gives support to the District Council:  The issue of Nelson Mandela’s nomination as a candidate in next month’s Rectorial election has been reopened after Monday’s General Meeting which passed unopposed an emergency notion resulting in the Association formally decrying the University’s disqualification of Mandela from candidature, and increasing its active demands for his release from prison.
• MacDonald states rectorial priorities: Margo MacDonald has stressed the issues of university accommodation for first years and the shortfall in funding for the library as priorities to be tackled if she becomes Rector.
• Match postponed by MacPherson: Despite having to cancel his campaign launch in Teviot last Thursday because he was filming for the BBC, rectorial nominee Archie MacPherson remains convinced that he will be available to serve the needs of students and staff, should he be elected.

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