Tuesday, May 6, 2025
Blog Page 1006

Qatar funds new scholarship

Philip Pope
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Qatar funds new scholarship

High level dignitaries from Qatar visited Somerville College to sign a Memorandum of Understanding to provide funding for at least four new Qatar Thatcher Scholarships.

The guests were greeted by the Chancellor of the University and the former private secretary to Margaret Thatcher and Foundation Fellow at Somerville, Lord Powell of Bayswater.

The visit follows the recent donation of £3 million by the Qatar Development Fund to the Margaret Thatcher Scholarship Trust, established by the college following Lady Thatcher’s death in 2013. The additional Qatar Thatcher Scholarships will pay full tuition and college fees for students as well as their living and travel costs while at Somerville, and “special consideration will be given to scholars from Qatar and other Arab countries.”

Principal of Somerville College, Dr Alice Prochaska, told Cherwell the col lege “will only fund students where outstandingly well-qualified candidates apply, and we are particularly interested in supporting women from the region, as are our colleagues in Qatar.”

When asked why the Qatar Development Fund, primarily established to a perfectly reasonable decision Somerville improve the livelihood of communities around the world, is sponsoring a scholarship scheme at an Oxford college, she stated that “Qatar does in fact have links with the University of Oxford already. In this case, there is a history of admiration for Margaret Thatcher who was the first UK prime minister to visit the Gulf States.”

With increasing concern over the origins of donations to the university and the influence wielded by donors, Dr Prochaska stressed that “the programme is 100 per cent non-political” and that scholarships are awarded “regardless of their nationality, political or cultural background or beliefs.” The college already have a programme of Indira Gandhi Scholarships “funded a perfectly reasonable decision Somerville mainly by the Government of India.”

A University spokesperson told Cherwell the Qatari Government “does not play any role in determining who gets selected for the scholarships.”

Somerville JCR President Louis Mercier said “Somerville College has been committed for some time to the creation of a series of extensive schol- arships, in Thatcher’s name, for those excellent students who have overcome some sort of adversity – financial in particular.

“Ultimately, the students trust the college to make the right decision regarding these scholarships, and I personally do not believe a knee-jerk reaction is warranted when so little is known about the arrangement.”

A Beginner’s Guide to… Halsey

Emmanuelle Soffe
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A Beginner’s Guide to… Halsey

Halsey emerges in the midst of an age of cheap and soulless pop, when it becomes easy to forget what it feels like to experience a real musical personality.

The problem with popular music is that it dwells too lightly on sex, love and heartbreak without ever delving into the deeper meanings of these topics. Halsey’s lyrics dwell on heartbreak of the most shattering kind, is not afraid to describe and talk about sex in the way that a lot of popular singers will only allude to (‘with his educated eyes, and his head between my thighs’), will sing about drugs and their effects and the destructive reality of mental health problems (‘Do you tear yourself apart, just to entertain, like me?’).

There is a vivid husky reality to her words that can cut straight through you, stripping back lingering social and cultural stigmas and read, frankly, like poetry of the rawest kind. (‘Are you insane like me? Been in pain like me? Bought a hundred dollar bottle of champagne like me? Just to pour that motherfucker down the drain like me.’) The awful energy to her songs can leave you shaken, and ready to reconsider everything that you’ve ever believed in. There is something refreshing about her darkness; it boasts of strength and contempt for the traditional and the established; an aggressive declaration of her total freedom from sexual, social and self constraint.

Halsey tears herself apart within her own lyrics, reveals more about the complex, conflicting reality of the human condition than perhaps any singer from this generation. Finally, we have found something real.

Mann, MP, confronts anti-Semitism in Labour

Guy Bennett-Jones
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Mann, MP, confronts anti-Semitism in Labour

John Mann MP, Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group against Antisemitism, addressed OULC on Monday. He stressed the need for OULC to accept the Macpherson definition of racism, whereby a racist incident is “any incident which is perceived to be racist by the victim or any other person”.

Mann emphasised the difference between debates about Israel and Jews and other minorities such as the Rohingyas in Burma. Relating to his position as chair of the APPG against Antisemitism, he said “I receive scores of emails asking ‘Who is paying me?’ and ‘Who is pulling my strings?’ Isn’t it strange that I don’t receive these types of emails for any other issue?”

Mann touched on the long history of antisemitism, claiming that Britain is reverting to the antisemitism common in the 1980s. He stressed the public’s propensity to jump to conclusions of conspiracy when talking about Israeli politics. Asked whether he would condemn Malia Bouattia, Mann replied that although he didn’t agree with her, there are two ways to fix these problems.

“I’ve not been happy with her statements. [But] there are two options. One is you call them out, you condemn them, you isolate them. The other is you educate them. I called for Naz Shah not to be suspended by the Labour party. I was working with her and my office was working with her.

“I thought it was very significant that a prominent, reasonably young, Muslim woman MP had shown she understood why what she’d said was offensive.”

Talking about attitudes in the UK, Mann said, “I represent one of the most white working class communities in Britain, there is what I call a benign anti-Semitism in my constituency. If you said ‘Jews’ and ‘money’ people would make an association immediately – Jews are rich… This type of low-level anti- Semitism is usually in the Muslim community.” Mann has recently made national news for shouting at Ken Livingstone declaring him a “Nazi apologist” after Livingstone defended Naz Shah.

The talk follows a difficult few months for OULC. Alex Chalmersstood down as OULC co-Chair in February, alleging the existence of anti-Semitism within the Club. The Issue sparked a national debate on anti-Semitism that has come to a head following the election of Malia Bouattia, who faces similar allegations of anti-Semitism, to National President of the NUS.

Before Mann’s address, the Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis said that universities “are ignoring vilification of jews” in an interview withThe Sunday Times.

“To vice-chancellors I would say: see what is happening under your noses, what is happening to the reputation of your universities.

“What troubles me is that Zionist bashing on campus has gone unchallenged.”

Part of the solution, he continued, lies in safe spaces, “Freedom of speech needs to take place in a healthy and appropriate context.”

After Mann’s talk, OULC passed a motion on empowering women in the club. Noting that men dominate both OULC events and the committee, the motion introduces gender quotas. It also states that one of the holders of the position of Chair and Deputy Chair (both equal in co-chair status) must identify wholly or partially as a woman.

Two committee positions will also be reserved for those “who self-identify partly or wholly as a women or transfeminine.” If no women stand, the committee will produce a report and a remedy.

During the Q&A, David Parton, co-Chair of OULC, twice encouraged those who self-identified as women to ask a question. Following the talk, all men had to vacate the room so the women members of OULC could hold a discussion in private.

One thing I’d change about Oxford… Reading weeks

Tilly Nevin
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One thing I’d change about Oxford… Reading weeks

Should Oxford terms be longer? Should the mythical reading week or revolutionised fifth week be introduced? The possibility of such a momentous change remains a bone of contention.

There’s no denying that Oxford terms pass before you know it. Let’s face it: in holidays you’re probably sleeping a lot since you’re a) exhausted and/or b) most of your friends are still at university, or working. You might be trying half-heartedly to prepare for yet another collection while your siblings look on in disgust.

It’s too simple to ask why we shouldn’t just lengthen the infamous eight week term and eradicate fifth week blues. There are financial considerations, worries that having an extra week would only mean more work. Another week of term isn’t what students here signed up for.

But imagine a fifth week that was a genuine reading week. A week without tutes, without classes. A week which would actually be implemented – because nothing seems to come of the many debates. A lot could come of a reading week: the chance to de-stress, to prepare for exams looming large on the horizon, the opportunity to not feel guilty about going out with friends.

Oxford’s hard. That’s weirdly one of its selling points, held up at open days and throughout term itself. And we should work hard. We’re lucky to have this chance, to be in such an amazing place, to have such dedicated tutors. But a reading week would allow for us to appreciate this that little bit more.

Review: The Fairy Queen

Antonio Gottardello
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Review: The Fairy Queen

Following a series of Shakespearean plays falling on the 400th anniversary of the bard’s death, Purcell’s adaptation of A Midsummer Nights’ Dream is arguably the apex of this term’s theatre season in Oxford. Diving into the mystical regnum of Oberon and Titania, the play maintains the promise made in its prologue, tailor-made for the Oxford student population, and entices the audience into an accessible, though mystical, dimension. With a superb soundtrack laying the grounds for a light-hearted narrative, one cannot help but be amazed at the fact that this is a student production.

Often, theatrical works receive much praise if they achieve a semblance of topicality and relevance to modern times. And yet, director Dionysios Kyropoulos’s work deserves admiration for delivering quite the opposite to his audience. The comic machinations of the characters, along with the magical feats of the fairies, make it hard for audience members to draw parallels with their own lives, but certainly engender a longed-for escapism that contemporary plays often struggle to achieve.

For three hours, the spectator waves goodbye to his everyday worries and divorces himself from the moody Oxfordshire weather, to view a light-hearted comedy that would fill the most morose of men with blitheness.

The Fairy Queen appears to function as a potent painkiller. The orchestra brings to one’s mind Vivaldi; the dialogues read as witty and passionately as a Donne sonnet; it’s time to return to the gloomy essay deadlines mentioned in the prologue does indeed and such a visionary delivery makes the Oxford Playhouse seem almost unworthy as a venue, despite the grandeur one usually associates with it.

But, like any painkiller, the effect is temporary and the ‘come down’ proportionate to its high. As one is forced to leave the theatre, with sore hands after minutes of well-deserved clapping, the knowledge that it’s time to return to the gloomy essay deadlines mentioned in the prologue does indeed feel like coming down.

One contemplates going to watch the play a second time, but cannot help feel that the original feeling will be hard, if not impossible, to replicate. The Fairy Queen may not be the sort of play that ignites a great revelation, but its impressive aesthetic and ludic value makes one glad to have spent the evening at the Playhouse.

Vaping on the NHS: should it go up in smoke?

Alec Fullerton
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Vaping on the NHS: should it go up in smoke?

Do you smoke? Don’t quite fancy chipping out for a vape, but oh so aware of the Instagram potential of those Snoop Dogg style smoke clouds? Fret no longer, as in a couple of months you might be able to get one free on the NHS.

Last week, the BBC reported that the UK’s Royal College of Physicians said that smokers should be offered e-cigarettes by GPs to help them stub out the fags for good. Back in January, the first brand of e-cigarettes was medicinally licensed for use in the UK, so it seems that it’ll be only a matter of time before GPs are dispensing them.

However, at a projected £20 cost for the initial kit, followed by roughly £10 per week for the nicotine cartridges, this would amount to an enormous cost for UK taxpayers. So, with so much money at stake and, more importantly, peoples’ health, are we certain e-cigarettes can help people quit smoking?

First of all, e-cigarettes turn smoking into a novelty. The way e-cigs are marketed and advertised turns a harmful and addictive product into the next ‘must-have’ gadget, and inevitably attracts impressionable young people.

What’s more, unlike cigarettes, smoking a vape has no finite length. Since you can smoke it virtually anywhere, it would be very easy to just continue inadvertently puffing away, ending up smoking considerably more than you would have done if you were just going for a single fag.

Using an e-cig completely lacks any of the elements of ritual or social interaction that you get with normal smoking, arguably one of its only positive aspects. Since you can do it anywhere and it doesn’t have a definite length, people don’t go for ‘vape’ breaks in the same way. Having never consistently smoked myself, I’m not going to assume the moral high ground and make the ignorant and overused claim that ‘willpower’ is all you need to stop. However, the whole basis of using an e-cig to stop smoking relies on people periodically turning down the dosage to wean themselves off nicotine. Surely if they have enough willpower to do it this way then they could do the same with normal cigarettes instead of having the NHS pay for a fancy gadget? This process of cutting down by lowering dosage is not as obvious and tangible as simply reducing the number of cigarettes you smoke per day, which offers more motivating, physical evidence of the progress you’ve made.

I would argue that attempts to stop smoking using an e-cigarette are misguided and a poor public investment. Above all, they confuse the process of quitting, which unfortunately does require some application of willpower, with simply deciding to pick up a vape instead of a Marlboro red.

Image credit: vaping360.com. License: CC BY 2.0.

Unheard Oxford: Neal Marjoram, member of the Pembroke maintenance team

Sophie Dowle
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Unheard Oxford: Neal Marjoram, member of the Pembroke maintenance team

Usually two or three of these lights go at the same time, so I’ve got a couple of them to do today. It’s shame it’s today that they’ve gone, because it’s raining.

I like the sort of variety you get working here. You never know what you’re going to get that day. A lot of it is routine. We get a lot of heating problems. On an average day I get in to Pembroke early in the morning and begin my day by checking the system and seeing what’s been reported overnight. I spend my morning responding to them. A problem to do with heating is nearly always among them. They are priority so I make sure to get them done. The boilers normally need the pressure dropped on them, or you need a new part. Sometimes I have to call someone in to look at things like that.

I mostly work at the GAB (Sir Geoffrey Arthur Building; Pembroke’s off site accommodation), and I prefer it down there. I just know it a lot better. When someone describes a fault I know what they mean or I know what it’s going to be, whereas up in college I don’t know the set up so well.

This time of year we start to get some stranger requests. Everyone’s got their exams coming up so little things get more annoying and more highlighted. For instance, last week I had people complaining about banging and squeaking doors. It’s little annoying things. It’s not a big deal, but when your exams are coming up it becomes more of a big deal. You do get more of that at certain times of the year, which is understandable.

It’s the routine, small things that are important. They’re part and parcel of the job. The most important thing is to keep the students happy. If they’re happy then it’s a lot easier, and college runs a lot more smoothly.

Linking Linklater’s Latest

Jake Kennedy
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Linking Linklater’s Latest

Everybody Wants Some!! is the newest effort of film-maker Richard Linklater, a man who understands the complex relationship between time and cinema. With the release of Boyhood almost two years ago he was universally recognised as a true great of the medium. About time. The evidence has been there since Slacker and Dazed and Confused. Linklater is not a flashy filmmaker. His films are modest, their genius understated. Neither manipulative nor sentimental, their interest in people celebrates humanity in a very real and honest way.

Often going unnoticed is Linklater’s mastery of story: Dazed and Confused, with its wandering plot line and high-school setting, feels like an easy, inconsequential movie. But this is only because of Linklater’s brilliant handling of pace, his unconventional narrative and its numerous characters. The film’s 102 minutes make us feel like we’ve lived every second of the 12 or so hours over which the film takes place. This is the subtle genius of the director, who can provide a short but sweeping look at real characters with real lives, while simultaneously expressing the inarticulacies of youth in a way that only cinema could. Boyhood takes this approach to another level: the film spans 12 years and by the end we feel like we know Mason as well as his own mother.

It is easy to miss the artistry in these films because they are not experimental in the conventional sense. Linklater seems to adopt a uniquely passive approach to his craft: the best of his films unfold themselves naturally before us, with no sign of being forced. They have a realism – not the kind of realism that is created by a shaking camera and grainy cinematography, but by the way he just seems to let his films happen. They mimic the experience of living and it’s this kind of passivity which is innovative and new. It is also deceptively hard to achieve.

Yet, Linklater also understands the artistry and artifice of cinema. Linklater’s cinema strives for realism but he doesn’t forget that film-making is about telling stories, and that stories are made up of moments in time. In films like Dazed and Confused and Boyhood, he demonstrates his expertise in knowing exactly which moments best reveal these stories, so that 102 minutes feels like 12 hours, 165 minutes like 12 years. But, due to Linklater’s subtle genius, we don’t even notice that we are being told anything.

Everybody Wants Some!! was released on May 13th.

Review: Melted Butter

Ellie Siora
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Review: Melted Butter

I’m always hesitant to go to any showcase of Modern Greek culture here in Britain. I’ve always tactically avoided all my family visits to the North Manchester greek orthodox eklesia, where the light of the candles flickers against cloudy skies rather than the lilac sunset of my grandmother’s village. I believe it stems from a stubbornness to keep ‘Greekness’ as something that is exclusively my own, to maintain the vibrant allure of my childhood memories rather than settle with bland replicas of my homeland over 3000 km away from their original.

It turns out, however, that amidst Oxford’s dreaming spires, I wasn’t as successful as I’d hoped in keeping my two separate cultures as distant from each other as I’d thought. I’ve missed the hybrid culture that I had at home, where we would in very British fashion over the pettiest detail, all while eating Mediterranean food. Therefore, although still hesitant, I couldn’t help but be enticed by OUGS’ Praxis’ performance of Serefas’ Melted Butter.

Still, as I walking towards the Simpkins Lee Theatre, I cringed at the idea of the tweed-clad classicists who were at liberty to judge the crude clichés that often manifest themselves in such instances. What’s more, I was worried the script would be loaded with the superficial drama and histrionic acting that could be found in the 3pm Greek soap operas I watched on hot, lazy afternoons. Melted Butter was exactly that – but, to my surprise, wonderfully so.

The script stands as a melodrama, with the plot line of the small town girl longing to sing in the big city, the deceptive pseudo gent who plucks at the heartstrings of her dreams, the slow unravelling of murderous details and the voyeuristic Oxford academic. Anastasia Revis’s direction lives up to the cliche, packed with sensational commonplaces: the dancing girl in the red dress, silhouetted against a spotlight on the curtain with roses thrown at her feet as her seducer claps the rhythm, foreshadows tragedy. The performance of the actors was the kind that would cause outrage amongst fans of subtlety. And yet, it all worked, with the writing, direction and acting preventing the common themes of deceit, lust and friendship from seeming trite. Any hellenophile who still harks back to the golden age of ancient Greece would have little to judge, for Serefas’ Melted Butter was a modern classic. As he himself intimated to Cherwell following the performance, Ancient Greek Theatre had inspired his writing and this was evident in the gripping nature of his play.

As entertaining as Melted Butter was, however, the political element of Ancient Greek theatre is lacking from its modern counterpart. But that itself is the lasting impact of modern Greek theatre – the fact that it mirrors the vapid drama of soap operas, and their focus on the ever-present theme of human nature, reveals the contextual relevance of such performances. The eternal culture of this ‘Greekness’ that I have been so adamant in protecting from judging eyes has become more popular than ever to modern Greek playwrights, theatre companies and, of course, audiences – just as it has to television producers and authors.

We, as Greeks, are all struggling to preserve the vibrant allure that our country so effortlessly offers in its beautiful landscape and rich history, in a present where the very same country is crumbling both politically and economically. For me, PRAXIS, the first theatre company to translate Serefas’s work, is both brave in shamelessly exposing ‘Greekness’ to others, and skilful in implying its significance – at least to a Greek person- by doing so.

What new admissions data actually means for access

Charles McGrath
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What new admissions data actually means for access

The release of the 2015 admissions statistics has led to the usual charges against Oxford and how it is letting down those from disadvantaged backgrounds by continuing to accept a large proportion of privately educated students. While this is true, and Oxford still suffers from this systemic problem, it is only half of the story.

Perhaps the most significant aspect to these statistics is that, on a year-by-year basis, there doesn’t seem to be much change. Around 62.5 per cent of applicants were from state schools, while 37.5 per cent came from independent schools. Of these, 55 per cent of acceptances went to state school students, compared with 44 per cent from independent schools. Around 63.8 per cent of those applying were UK domiciled, compared with 24.4 per cent from abroad; 80.8 per cent of offers went to UK domiciled applicants.

All of these statistics are useful in their own ways, in the sense that they show – despite the University’s best efforts to improve its access scheme – things are beginning to look pretty constant. However, perhaps the most useful thing that these statistics tell us is what access should focus on next.

It’s clear that the disparity between independent schools applicants and the number of acceptances they receive compared with state school applicants is here for the long haul. The 2015 statistics are roughly comparable with those from 2007, when around 52 per cent of acceptances were from state schools.

The development of the access scheme in the coming months and years will hopefully address the disparity between applications and acceptances from state schools and those from independent schools. As recognised by the University on its report, ‘state school’ as an indicator of social disadvantage is ineffective; a more sophisticated model is needed in order to truly gauge what Oxford and other Russell Group universities are doing to improve diversity within the student body.

Yet, I would contend that even using Government indicators like Free School Meals and Pupil Premium poses the risk of ignoring students from equally deprived backgrounds as those eligible for such schemes. To venture into anecdote, I was an applicant from a single-parent family whose mother was working for around about £16,000 per year at the time of my application, and who was in receipt of Working Tax Credit and Housing Benefit. This immediately disqualified me from receiving FSM or Pupil Premium. I’m sure there are many others from relatively deprived backgrounds who, because of quirks like this, are not visible on the University’s radar when it comes to measuring the number of students from disadvantaged backgrounds being accepted. That is why I believe that an access programme that takes other factors into account, rather than simply those used by the Government, would be more effective in improving the socioeconomic diversity of students at Oxford.

Within the UK, there is a clear North-South divide in applications and acceptances to Oxford. Again, however, this is already on many access workers’ radars, and my own college – Pembroke, where I’m the JCR Access Rep – performs a lot of work in our partner region of the North West (Cheshire and Greater Manchester) to not only encourage applications to Oxford but to develop Sixth Formers’ critical faculties so that they even consider higher education at all.

There is still work to be done on this, including a more co-ordinated response to access work in different parts of the country between colleges. OUSU is taking its first steps in building a database of committed access workers, noting the regions from which they derive, so that each college has a pool of people from their ‘catchment areas’ who can then go to schools and represent the university in those regions. The most effective way in getting the attention of an assembly hall of Sixth Formers is to have someone who you can relate to – from the same area, with the same accent – giving a talk, and so these are definitely steps in the right direction.

The highlight of the 2015 statistics in my view is the disparity between UK domiciled students and international students applying and accepted into Oxford. I suppose this is unsurprising considering that, from my experience of friends who have come from abroad, only a select few schools are given the chance to apply to Oxbridge. Equally interesting with the EU referendum on the horizon is that the number of applications from within the European Union seems to be increasing at a slower rate than applications from outside the EU. Despite this, both figures are dwarfed by the number of UK domiciled students accepted into Oxford, and shows a need – in my view – for programmes such as the Reach Scholarships provided by OUSU to be pushed even further and to a wider range of schools in other countries.

The statistics present relatively little that’s new, but affirm the need for Oxford to continue its commitment to access and perhaps call for new approaches towards access, particularly involving international applications and ways for colleges to keep in touch with their partner regions. While the statistics aren’t a cause for celebration, they do show that – with a bit of effort – the University through its many ccess programmes could improve further the diversity of the student body here and lead the way amongst other top higher education institutions.

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