The Cherwell was founded as an undergraduate magazine by Richard Christian Cecil James Binney and George Adolphus Edinger in 1920. Binney and Edinger had both served in the First World War before coming to the University of Oxford in 1919 – Binney served with the Royal West Kent Regiment in France and Edinger with the Field Ambulance Convoy and later the American Red Cross in Italy. During their time at Oxford, both men studied at Balliol College and it is clear from early editions of the paper that they spoke regularly at the Oxford Union. The magazine was first conceived in the long vac of 1920, when the two men were heading to Austria to do relief work on behalf of Save the Children. On their way to Vienna, the packet boat from Dover to Ostend was running three hours late. As a result, Binney and Edinger talked about ‘the deplorable state of Oxford journalism’ to pass the time. The two noted that, at that point, Oxford had no undergraduate-owned weekly journal. ‘One of them said Oxford didn’t want one. The other said it would be worth trying.’
Of course this account of the paper’s founding is somewhat selective. The Isis had been recently relaunched in 1919 by Beverley Nichols, after a four year hiatus resulting from the war and no less than seven other undergraduate publications produced by political societies also existed. Both The Isis and the Cherwell were written by undergraduates and came out weekly – TheCherwell’s claim to be the sole undergraduate periodical only existed in its ownership. Whereas The Isis was owned by Holywell Press, which allowed students to produce it as long as it was profitable, the Cherwell was to be entirely financed, staffed, and owned by students. However, even this is not as neat as it sounds, with the magazine’s first editorial acknowledging the existence of a somewhat similar publication called the Cardinal’s Hat. Therefore, although the Cherwell was not entirely unprecedented, it is significant that itwas conceived as something that should be run – both financially and editorially – by students from the very beginning.
Binney and Edinger would both run the magazine until they graduated in 1923. Binney would go on to become a barrister and died in 1966. Meanwhile, Edinger would also become a barrister, but he clearly could not resist returning to journalism. In 1928, he got a job at the Sunday Express and was a war correspondent during the Second World War. After that experience, he moved to Southeast Asia, where he worked for the Strait Times of Singapore and as a freelancer. He would die in 1984. Whereas Binney disappears from the pages of the Cherwell after leaving Oxford, Edinger continued to write occasional guest contributions for the magazine. In 1975, when the paper’s editor wrote to Edinger, he replied telling them:
You do not need to tell me all the Cherwell has accomplished and provided over the last 50 years. But you do need to tell the world.
For me, it all comes back to the 13th September 2015. Following Jeremy Corbyn’s cataclysmic victory, there was a general mood of uncertainty over how the lifelong backbencher would proceed. There was optimistic talk that, true to his word, he would offer an olive branch to the Parliamentary Labour Party and appoint the talented Angela Eagle as his Shadow Chancellor – with the bonus of maintaining female representation in the top jobs. Alas.
One wonders if, in another universe, there exists a Jeremy Corbyn who stuck to the spirit of his campaign rhetoric; one who was interested in having a broad debate, one who was willing to work with wary Labour MPs. Imagine having that Corbyn as leader! Imagine a Corbyn who would have compromised and listened to the concerns of his MPs; a Corbyn who wouldn’t have overseen the creation of a party-within-a-party or exacerbated tensions by sacking Pat McFadden for the most capricious of reasons; who wouldn’t have played genial good cop whilst allowing bad cop McCluskey to hint at the deselection of the disloyal; imagine, if you dare, a Jeremy who would have done the decent thing when the majority of the PLP expressed no confidence in him. Alas.
Jeremy Corbyn isn’t interested in uniting the Labour Party. He never has been. Now that MPs have begun seeking the return of shadow cabinet elections, his team has responded by calling for the members to elect it instead. As if this wasn’t a recipe for further factional strife. His interview with Laura Kuenssberg on Wednesday saw him offering to “wipe the slate clean” and encouraging MPs to come together to combat austerity. He then went on to – remarkably – counterbalance this with the statement: “Despite a lot of very personal criticisms that have been made about me, all the unpleasant remarks that have been made to me by a very large number of Labour MPs, I have not replied to any of them.” Brazen divisiveness, as ever.
What unpleasant remarks might Corbyn mean? It brings to mind his victory speech last September, in which he condemned the media for its treatment of his family. For all his incompetence when it comes to the political battles that really matter, he is very good at using his image as Principled And Decent to maximum effect. Thus, every critique of his policy or strategy is denounced as a “personal attack.” This really began following Tony Blair’s painfully tactless intervention into the leadership battle last year; Corbyn refused to respond on the basis that he “doesn’t do personal.” Although Blair’s words were crude, he was not attacking Corbyn’s character. But Corbyn’s conflation of valid criticisms and “personal attacks” has made him invulnerable.
And so, even though we don’t know the result for sure, we can be pretty certain that Owen Smith has been beaten. It can’t be attributed to his gaffes. Indeed, although Smith is a talented communicator, there was almost certainly no way he could have ever beat the leader. We may wistfully consider what-might-have-been, if he had fully optimised the potential of his second-referendum bluster and signed up an army of Remainers as registered supporters. Yet even this is doubtful.
Regrettably, Corbyn’s supporters believe that bad polling can be attributed to a disloyal PLP. According to the prevalent narrative, if only every Labour MP got fully behind Jeremy, all would be well. Never mind that Labour was behind in nearly every poll behind the coup. Never mind that, apart from the likes of Simon Danczuk, Labour MPs were rather loyal to Corbyn. Those that knew he was unelectable – Eagle, Seema Malhotra, Lucy Powell and so many others – gave it their all whilst serving in shadow cabinet. A clear majority of those who went to the backbenches, like Yvette Cooper and Liz Kendall, were never loudly attacking Corbyn in the press. Concurrently, after his first month, Corbyn was receiving the worst poll ratings for an opposition leader since records began. Yet MPs are to blame. As is the nature of politics, truth is always beaten by a good story.
Even those who are aware of Corbyn’s incompetence are happy to support this spurious narrative: occasional realist Owen Jones has repeatedly criticised the PLP for choosing the opportunity of Brexit to rebel against Corbyn. Never mind that Corbyn’s team was uncooperative with Alan Johnson’s during the Remain campaign. Or that Corbyn was hardly an enthusiastic campaigner. Or that this would probably be the best chance to get rid of a leader who, in May’s local elections, had taken Labour to its worst results in Scotland since 1910, in third place behind the Tories. Never mind all that. Apparently, Corbyn could have used Brexit to undermine the Tories. But this is nonsense, as Corbyn himself ably demonstrated when, in the first PMQs after summer, he didn’t bring up Brexit once. We already knew that Corbyn was ineffectual though. When IDS resigned over welfare cuts, Corbyn didn’t bring it up in PMQs. Remember that disastrous Osborne budget last November? No? Oh, of course – you only remember that day because McDonnell threw Mao’s little red book across the Commons.
There are those who have claimed that, as Labour is likely going to lose in 2020 anyway, we might as well lose while being candid about our principles – an argument akin to responding to a blocked toilet by burning your house down. Then there are those such as Sam Kriss who sneer about how Tory-lite politics would be just as ineffective at winning elections – as if anyone was suggesting we should simply return to them. If it’s just a choice between anachronistic Blairism and Corbynism, then we’re doomed either way. But it isn’t. Owen Smith and the PLP at large have rightly embraced the anti-austerity agenda – it was a question of competence. If Corbyn stood down, his legacy could be a Labour Party that was a truly left-wing opposition again. But instead, he will work to exacerbate the tensions between members and MPs, and his team will work towards remaking the party in their own image, regardless of how many Tory governments they will guarantee for the future. There can be no compromise, and so there can be no unity.
In hindsight, Smith’s campaign was a bad idea, because of an even darker truth. If the members are to lose faith in Corbyn, then they must see him fail on his own terms, which rules out further pre-2020 challenges. Labour moderates will not and cannot consider splitting, which would only make things worse for everyone. What, then, is the future for Labour moderates? For now, there is no future. We are trapped in this never-ending nightmare.
Oxford’s commitment to the UN Women organisation and the HeForShe campaign, as well as the effectiveness of its policies to equalise gender imbalances in the University, have been assessed in a new report.
It was released to coincide with an event celebrating the second anniversary of HeForShe, at which Emma Watson was a keynote speaker.
UN Women’s progress report — the ‘HeForShe IMPACT 10x10x10 Report’ — looks at the extent to which ten universities have kept their promises to work against gender inequality.
The 10x10x10 programme has seen commitment by ten heads of state, ten CEOs and ten university chancellors to take action on gender inequality.
“This is first baseline report for the universities,” explained Elizabeth Nyamayaro, senior advisor to the under-secretary-general of UN Women and the head of HeForShe. “These schools have agreed to annual reporting and transparency.”
In general, the report highlighted many positives for Oxford, but with plenty of room for improvement. The report writes that the University “has leaned into engagement with HeForShe, facilitating a university-wide conversation around gender equality.”
“Oxford is dedicated to leveraging its international reach to achieve equitable practices, and to work with peer institutions around the world,” it adds.
A central part of Oxford’s commitment to HeForShe is its pledge to increase female representation in senior leadership roles and 30% in professorial roles by 2020. Other efforts mentioned in the report include OUSU’s mandatory sexual consent workshops for Freshers, and Oxford’s inclusion in the ‘Good Lad’ campaign.
The UN report describes the “significant preparatory work” for tackling sexual violence within the city, and acknowledges the front-line responders to sexual violence within colleges.
Louise Richardson said, “addressing gender equality and ensuring that the University of Oxford is a safe and inclusive space for all our students has been among my main priorities since I became Vice-Chancellor.
“We have already made significant progress in improving the representation of women in academic roles and creating a culture free from violence.”
Perhaps a more familiar link between Oxford and HeForShe than the 10x10x10 programme is actress and UN ambassador Emma Watson, who has also been made a visiting fellow at LMH.
Speaking at an event to celebrate the second anniversary of HeForShe on Tuesday, Watson said that, “in the last two years [HeForShe] have shown me that nothing is impossible. And that’s why I ask you to recommit yourself to gender equality. I genuinely feel that we are closer to a gender-equal world.” She also noted that, “A university should be a place of refuge that takes action against all forms of violence… Students should leave university… expecting societies of equality.”
Watson spoke alongside a number of celebrities and dignitaries, including Justin Trudeau and Edgar Ramirez.
Work on gender inequality and sexual violence in Oxford is set to increase, with mandatory sexual consent workshops happening again this year, and the First Response app, which equips students with information to respond to sexual violence “as a survivor, friend or otherwise”.
“A HANDBAG?” Lady Bracknell exclaims in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest; “You can hardly imagine that I and Lord Bracknell would dream of allowing our only daughter—a girl brought up with the utmost care—to marry into a cloak-room, and form an alliance with a parcel?”
‘Cherwell Square in Midight-Chalk-Coral Red’. Image courtesy of Mulberry
Scandalous as it might seem to Lady Bracknell, it appears Cherwell has unwittingly done just that: in true Wilde spirit, we seem to have gained a handbag for a namesake. The object in question is stamped tastefully with a small gold tree, designating it as made by Mulberry – who are, as we all know, a pretty big name when it comes to small objects vaguely used for transporting things.
“I have a Bayswater, my son’s grandmother has a Bayswater, Kate Moss has a Bayswater,” Emma Hill, Mulberry’s Creative Director in 2013, once said of an iconic Mulberry handbag. Similarly, I work at Cherwell, I row down the Cherwell, I live by the Cherwell, and now I could also own a Cherwell. Theoretically speaking. Could Kate Moss boast as much?
Johnny Coca, Mulberry’s creative director as of mid-2015, is all about bags – and Mulberry bags are practically British institutions. Their bags come in London boroughs. Their bags come in tasteful, muted colours. And one of Mulberry’s recent unveilings at the London Fashion Week has the critics raving, as you can get ’em now in Cherwells and Pembrokes too – inspired, we suppose, by the sophistication, class and subtle elegance of Oxbridge. Or something. Clearly they haven’t ever emerged from Cellar at 3am, sweatily, to grab a kebab at Hassan’s.
Small Pembroke in Midnight, image courtesy of Mulberry
In keeping with Mulberry’s Summer ’17 collection as a whole, both Cherwells and Pembrokes are eerily reminiscent of school uniforms. The Cherwell in particular boasts a base of good-quality leather in tasteful navy (or a classy, muted deep red – we’re spoilt for choice), and comes with optional stripes, for that maximum school-tie effect you’ve been craving. It is a triumph of subtle design reinvention. It also vaguely resembles a lunch box, though we can be assured that this was an intentional and clever riff; Coca cites the humble relic of primary school days as a chief inspiration for his new design.
Don’t get me wrong, this is not to put down the look of the Cherwell; it’s a masterful bit of handbaggery. I’ve never seen a lunchbox that looked so patriotic, nor so chic. Besides, the bag in question retails for a cool £850, and at that price, in the words of the Financial Times, it’s “far, far too lovely to sully with sandwiches.” Well, maybe we’d consider doing so if the sandwich were gilt-edged – or is that too flashy? Edged with tasteful tartan, perhaps.
The Cherwell Square this time makes an appearance in White and Burgundy. Image courtesy of Mulberry
Considering your price tag, Cherwell handbag, I have but this to say: you are quite literally the handbag of our dreams. You are the bag of nostalgia-tinged British school-days, minus itchy starch and soggy sandwiches. You are a diminutive yet worthy, boxy yet classy, elegant yet practical expression of the fashion industry’s self-conscious half-irony. Your colours are reserved, yet resonate with a quiet and tasteful luminance. You are ultimately a tribute to that bastion of British bromidicity – the humble school lunch.
Fans of the now-vintage Transformers series will be thrilled to hear that the franchise is being filmed in Oxford – and the cameras are rolling in.
‘Transformers: The Last Knight’ which is the fifth of its kind in a series made famous by its now-threadbare list of major celebrities at its launch in 2007, will star Mark Wahlberg and chart the quest of Optimus Prime to resurrect the planet he accidentally killed.
In order to do so, he must find a precious artefact on planet Earth. In the last few hours, as news was leaked that filming would begin in Oxford following a shoot in London over the last couple of days, students have begun to speculate as to the artefact in Oxford the robot might need to find.
The previous film, ‘Age of Extinction’, took almost $250m at the box office.
Dominic Leonard, a second-year student at Christ Church said, “they’re doing another one?”
Filming will take place until 11pm on Sunday night, and is expected to feature cobbled streets in the centre of the city, including which Turl Street, Catte Street, High Street, Broad Street, Holywell Street and New College Lane.
Oxford University has risen to the top of the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings, as Cambridge remains in fourth place.
The ranking, which considers a number of different criteria to form an overall score, was this year subject to an independent scrutiny by accounting firm PwC – the first ever university league table to be audited.
Oxford Vice-Chancellor Louise Richardson said: “This wonderful news recognises the extraordinary talent and dedication of all who work and study at Oxford. We are delighted with this affirmation of our global success and will be working hard to maintain our position.”
This year, Oxford places above perennial table-topper California Institute of Technology, which has sat in first place for the last five years. The switch between first and second on the table was the only change at the top of the 2015-2016 rankings, other than the addition of University of California, Berkeley, in joint tenth with University of Chicago.
Joining Oxford in the world’s top ten are Cambridge, in fourth place, and Imperial College London, in eighth. In total, the UK saw two fewer of its institutions in the top 200, with 32 in this year’s cohort.
Phil Baty, Editor of THE, said, “It is fantastic news that the University of Oxford has topped the World University Rankings for the first time. It is a great result for the UK higher education sector and cements its position as one of the greatest university nations in the world.”
Despite the good news, Baty joined Oxford’s Vice-Chancellor in voicing concerns about the effect of Brexit on the UK’s higher education sector.
“The referendum result is already causing uncertainty for the sector. As well as some top academics reporting they have been frozen out of collaborative research projects with EU colleagues, many are admitting that they might look to relocate to a university outside the country,” he said.
“The UK must ensure that it limits the damage to academics, students, universities and science during its Brexit negotiations, to ensure that the UK remains one of the world leaders in higher education.”
Yet despite concerns, Switzerland, which is not in the European Union, was the only European country other than the UK to see one of its institutions in the top ten. The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology placed ninth in the rankings.
Other UK universities in the world top 50 were UCL (15th), LSE (25th), Edinburgh (27th) and KCL (36th).
The University of Cambridge declined to comment.
THE TOP TEN
1st – University of Oxford (2015/2016 ranking: 2)
2nd – California Institute of Technology (1)
3rd – Stanford University (=3)
4th – University of Cambridge (=4)
5th – Massachusetts Institute of Technology (=5)
6th – Harvard University (=6)
7th – Princeton University (=7)
8th – Imperial College London (=8)
9th – ETH Zurich – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (=9)
10th (=) – University of California, Berkeley (13)
10th (=) – University of Chicago (=10)
Television crews have been spotted in central Oxford filming the next series of Endeavour, season four, due to air next year. The series is a prequel to Morse and tells the story of the famous detective in his young days, played by Shaun Evans. Series four is set to take place in Oxford in the summer of 1967.
Crowds of tourists and locals watched the filming on Catte Street, near the Bridge of Sighs, whilst film crews and extras were also spotted around Turl Street on Wednesday. Earlier this year, the cast and crew were spotted filming near the Radcliffe Camera and also stopped to pose for pictures with fans when filming in New College.
Alice Jaspars, a Magdalen second year, managed to take in some of the action. She told Cherwell, “Walking past Hertford it is fairly apparent that something is going on. The street is strewn with tourists taking even more selfies than usual by the Bod. White vans of a dubious nature are lined up outside the Sheldonian. A woman dressed in ‘60s garb dashes from one side of the street to another.
“Shaun Evans and Roger Allam are deep in conversation. Encouraged by my aunt I walk over to try and get a photo with the cast before filming resumes. Praying I won’t say something totally ridiculous, I manage to behave like an almost normal human being and keep the conversation to the fact I love the show, and asked if the tiger in the last series was real. (It was.)
“In a brief conversation with an extra it seems that the tea is free flowing, the days are long, and the shoes are excruciating. She’s been an extra a few times and has absolutely loved her time as part of the show, with the outfits (shoes excluded) her favourite aspect.”
1) Shop the sale at Neal’s Yard Remedies – and pick up a free bag
A beauty industry favourite, Neal’s Yard Remedies began trading in December 1981 and have featured on the bathroom shelves of well-informed individuals ever since. The company’s 20% off sale ends at 9am on Friday (http://www.nealsyardremedies.com/home), but if you’re looking to revamp your entire skincare collection you can still benefit from a free tote bag for orders over £30 until Sunday.
2) Join the #CampaignForClarity
The horse meat scandal of 2013 forced the food industry and the government to respond to the public’s demand for transparency in food production. When it comes to the beauty industry, however, people are still left in the dark about the ingredients in their beauty products. Join the conversation surrounding transparency and the beauty industry by using the #CampaignForClarity hashtag on social media.
3) Get The Soil Association Beauty Box (worth £75) for only £20
If, like the rest of us, you’re on a budget but you would still like to try organic beauty for yourself, try the Soil Association Beauty Box (buy it here at: https://box.you.co.uk/luxury-boxes/soil-association-beauty-box-2016). For £20 you get 7 products to try, allowing you to sample facial oils, serums and beauty balms without unsettling any delicate bank balances.
4) Look Out for the Logo
There is little legislation surrounding the use of the word ‘natural’ in beauty advertising, so be aware that many beauty products labelled ‘natural’ will be anything but. In order to be certified Soil Association organic, however, there are strict requirements that have to be met – 95% of all ingredients must be organic for a product to be labelled ‘organic’, while 10% of all ingredients in a product must be organic if a company wants to use the phrase “made from organic ingredients” on its packaging. Taking advertising with a pinch of salt – and looking out for the Soil Association’s logo – are great first steps for becoming more informed about the beauty products you buy.
As interest in fashion has grown exponentially in the past decades, fashion schools all over the world have taken on the challenge to understand and keep up with the latest technological and economic developments that have shaken the business to the core. How do schools stay relevant when one can potentially go from blogging on the couch to Instagramming in a front-row seat at fashion week with a touch of luck? As the competition for landing a job in fashion (social media related or not) is more aggressive than ever, developing a certain set of skills and experiences has become imperative.
In this context, a modern school like Polimoda International Institute of Fashion Design & Marketing proposes itself as an incomparable learning centre that can prepare students with serious ambitions for their future in fashion. Since the beginning of 2016, when Linda Loppa stepped down as Dean of Polimoda, Danilo Venturi has taken the rein of the Institute, welcoming the challenge of educating young, hungry minds and pushing the boundaries of education in one of the best fashion schools in the world.
Danilo Venturi, dean of Polimoda. Images courtesy of Polimoda.When I first met writer and lecturer Danilo Venturi in 2014, I sat in a spacious lecture hall at Polimoda, my heartbeat accelerating by the second, both scared and excited. Dressed simply in dark jeans and a black blazer, Mr Venturi stood in front of hundreds of students with an austere look on his face and a no-fuss attitude about him. My assumption turned out to be right. Precise and poised in his use of words, he supported our at-first-wavering interaction during classes while firmly waving away any banal response and encouraging us to dive deeper into the topics at hand. Like all the other teachers at Polimoda, he possessed an unfaltering knowledge about the fashion world that levered on his personal work experience of the business, as well as a quick mind prone to philosophical and cultural analysis. Now, as a Dean, he certainly feels strongly about education and what his school has to offer.
Although Mr Venturi considers theoretical knowledge and an academic approach to the subject incredibly important, Polimoda provides students with practical and professional knowledge that can buff off the edge of a rigid by-the-book education. “Fashion is a complex field requiring an interdisciplinary approach,” Mr Venturi explains. “One can mix different information to find an original form of expression but there must be a code, a matrix, a lens used for reading and filtering what is going to be issued.” In an open environment where trends and market demands can always influence the students more or less alike, a student needs to learn different ways to code and decode those inputs in order to look at problems from unexplored perspectives.
In short, “students have to learn to make choices not to repeat formulas.” A flexibility of skills, then, needs to be combined with a flexibility of mind and attitude. Entering the fashion world is not the last step to a career: according to Mr Venturi one needs to be able to “move from place to place, from company to company, from task to task.” Adaptability, then, and the ability to lead change are for Mr Venturi crucial skills needed to pursue a career in fashion: here “HR don’t really look at titles. They look for people with attitude who can do their job.”
While encouraging critical analysis and flexibility in his students, Mr Venturi also feels strongly about fostering active creative minds. When it comes to fashion design, we’ve heard it all: everything interesting and different that can be created already exists; what we see now is simply an array of copy-cats who nest a necrophiliac tendency to sleep on the cinders of the past and never wake up from their retro-tinted dreams. It reminds me, however, of a comment I heard years ago about the futility of archaeologists: my god, haven’t we found everything there is to be found already? Where else do you want to dig?
Starting from the premise that 95% of our behaviour is irrational, Mr Venturi explains the concept with the idea of seasonal sales: “do we really need to stand in a queue and fight with other people just to buy an item on sale? Rationally yes, because according to the economic law of value for money, this is an opportunity, but in reality we don’t need it because maybe we already have similar items at home,” he affirms. “What we need there is to fight for the best of the rest, like when primitives were trying to have the best portion of a dead animal. Now, the system is full of these tricks and when concerned with fashion they touch our identity, what we are, what we can be and what we want to be.”
Models wearing the designs of Hannes Wandaller, an alumni of Polimoda. Images courtesy of Polimoda [http://www.polimoda.com/en/home.html]It’s difficult to believe that there is any active relationship between us and our identities if even our desires are merely clouded perceptions. Yet, by not exercising the power to externalise who we are, we give up the possibility to at least express the way we feel about ourselves and the world. In this sense, fashion is extremely political.
Citing examples like the debate on letting women wear burkas in Western countries or that on sustainability, Mr Venturi agrees: “What kind of fashion we want is a political decision; not caring about fashion is like not voting. If you don’t participate in this discussion and you let somebody else decide how fashion has to be, you let them exercise a power over your identity.” The idea of fashion as a creative endeavour as we intended it with McQueen or avant-garde clothes might have been eclipsed with the mass production of a democratised fashion, but this does not mean we have no say in who we are and how we show it. We might dress to kill or to fulfil a biological need for a sexual partner, but as long as we do it in style, where is the harm? After all, “in any way you put it, you can’t escape from fashion.” Best enjoy it, while we’re at it.
OUSU have released a statement and a video outlining their opposition to Oxford University’s plan to raise tuition fees for new home and EU students to £9,250 per year from 2017-2018.
In their statement, OUSU state that, “We have made the case repeatedly that the fee increase is unfair and damaging, and have urged the University not to progress any further with this plan of action.” They also note that students came to Oxford believing fees would be £9000 per year, and that they might have chosen to go to similar universities, like Cambridge, which have chosen not to raise their fees.
As well as reiterating their disappointment at this decision, OUSU have started a petition “to express student anger at fees increasing for continuing students”. They have also announced that they are using Freedom of Information requests “asking to see the legal advice sought by the University and various colleges on this fee increase”, to “give complete assurance to our students that the adequate processes have been followed”.
![Danilo Venturi, dean of Polimoda. Images courtesy of Polimoda [https://www.polimoda.com/en/home.html]](http://www.cherwell.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/danilo-venturi-portrait-polimoda-200x300.jpg)
![Historical designs at Polimoda. Images courtesy of Polimoda [https://www.polimoda.com/en/home.html]](http://www.cherwell.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Historical-designs-at-Polimoda-300x75.jpg)
