Somerville College has admitted that it is “concerned” about the advertising material on the website of one of the summer schools that uses
its grounds.

The College told Cherwell that it instructs all summer schools with which it has dealings not to hold themselves out as representatives of the College or University, or to claim to be able to help students with admission to Oxford.

The Oxford Institute, which runs a residential academic course for a month at Somerville over the Long Vacation, costing £6,499 for a four week course, informs visitors to its website, “We offer comprehensive courses to help students prepare for the admission process at Oxford and
Cambridge Universities.”

The website goes on to claim that The Oxford Institute is “perfectly placed for students who intend to apply for admission to Oxford and Cambridge Universities”.

James Blythe, OUSU’s VP for Access & Academic Affairs, was keen to quash the idea that paid summer schools would increase a student’s chances of receiving an Oxford offer, saying, “The message must come loud and clear from everyone in Oxford to potential applicants: you do not need to spend any money on any private company’s programmes to get a place here.

“While I understand the financial challenges facing the colleges and the benefits to students that conference income brings, any benefit must always be weighed up against the potential damage to access to this University caused by allowing an organisation use of college premises, with the implicit or explicit suggestion of a close relationship between the college and the organisation.”

Somerville College told Cherwell that they had been in contact with The Oxford Institute and asked them to change their advertising. At the time of publication, however, no changes had been made.

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In a statement, the College said, “When the Conference Office accepted the application from The Oxford Institute originally, they signed a contract agreeing not to represent themselves as being in any way part of Somerville or the University. The current wording on their website is not as clear as we would like, and we are concerned also about the implication that they would be training people in how to apply to Oxford: both of those things have to change if Governing Body is to be content, and we have told Oxford Institute
so.”

However, Adnan Rafiq, Director (Social Sciences) at The Oxford Institute insisted to Cherwell, “Admissions guidance is only a small part of our programme and less than ten per cent of teaching time is dedicated for this purpose. Our summer programme can therefore not be dubbed as ‘Oxbridge Admissions Training’. Blowing the admissions advice aspect of our program out of proportion is unfair.”

He also repeated the claims from the school’s website, saying, “However, our programme is indeed valuable for students who are interested in obtaining admission in top universities and some of our students have indeed been accepted at the best universities in the world, including Oxford.”

“20 per cent of students enrolled on our 2014 programme were on fully funded scholarships… and were selected on academic merit.”

A video on The Oxford Institute’s website refers to Somerville College’s Senior Tutor, Dr Steve Rayner, as a “guest lecturer”, and shows him talking to students. Dr Rayner told Cherwell that he was in fact giving an admissions talk, explaining how the Oxford application process worked.

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There has also been controversy around Oxford Summer Courses, another summer school which uses Somerville College grounds. Somerville JCR voted in Novermber to express its disapproval that College grounds were being used for a school which, in its view, was “damaging to access”. 

However, while Somerville admitted that The Oxford Institute had failed to follow the College’s guidelines on advertising, it denied that Oxford Summer Courses had done anything wrong, pointing out that nowhere does Oxford Summer Courses claim explicitly to help prospective Oxford applicants. 

Investigating this, Cherwell emailed Oxford Summer Courses, posing as a sixth-form student worried about applying to Oxford, and wondering if the course would help. 

Barbara Phipps, the Course’s Admissions & Courses Administrator, replied, “We can certainly help you with interview practice whilst you are with us. All our staff are either current undergraduates or alumni. They have been through the process and will be able to help you with what to expect. All you need to do is decide which subject you would like to study”. 

Back in November, Somerville College told the JCR, “The summer schools we host are not acting as interview training camps,” and it repeated this assertion to Cherwell, saying, “The OSC website does not sell the company as preparing people for the interview process. The email you sent (which we have not seen) was presumably a personal request for interview help, and the answer you quote them as giving appears to be legitimate.”

Meanwhile, Robert Phipps, Director of Oxford Summer Courses, was quick to defend the programme, saying, “To make you aware, I have been through our application data and in the entire history of Oxford Summer Courses less than 0.2 per cent of the applicants have gone on to study at Oxford University and less than 1 per cent of the students who attended Oxford Summer Courses have gone on to study at Oxford Univeristy.

“There are some organisations that offer Oxbridge admissions consulting (with success rates well above the c. 20 per cent average) however we would wish to distance ourselves from those providers as we are in the business of running an academic summer school.”

Abby Carroll, who has just completed her tenure as Access Officer at Somerville, did not agree with the College though, telling Cherwell, “I think it’s encouraging that they’re taking our worries seriously enough to contact [The Oxford Institute] and ask them to remove any potentially misleading advertising, although it’s my opinion that these companies rely on people assuming they’ll be given an advantage in the application process by taking part and do little to dispel this assumption.

“The OSC website is considerably more subtle than The Oxford Institute’s, but it’s about the affiliation with Oxford, the ‘Oxford life’, the Oxford tutorials. Using University property gives the impression that they’re sanctioned and encouraged by the University (although OSC explicitly states they’re not affiliated with either the University or the College), and I think this gives participants the impression they’re helping their chances.”

Another anonymous Somervillian, a former tutor for the charity Team Up, commented, “The University and its colleges need to act to stop our facilities, image and names being used to manipulate potential applicants and do lasting damage to access.”

St. Hugh’s College made a controversial decision to change the theme of their first bop of Hilary term from the student-elected ‘Queerbop’, to a more generalised ‘Express Yourself’.

The LGBTQ rep at St. Hugh’s, Matthew Shaw, explained to Cherwell, “Over each vac Hugh’s students vote on a poll for the bop themes for the following term which have all been suggested by the JCR and compiled into a poll, out
of which the theme ‘Queerbop’ came top. Numerous concerns appeared to have been raised with the Entz reps over the theme. Concerns were mainly raised for two reasons, people felt uncomfortable or excluded by the theme, or did not understand the meaning of the word.

“Whilst I completely understand that not everyone understands the term queer or queer culture, hushing it away does not improve the situation but merely silences an important voice and damns any further notion of the understanding and progress that can be made. I think it is a shame that what would be a celebration of queer culture and support for the LGBTQ community at Hugh’s could be perceived as exclusionary, uncomfortable, and that people immediately thought they would offend or ridicule instead of celebrate and support; there is clearly more work to be done.”

Tasha Gillies was among those who disagreed, commenting, “The theme just
seemed a recipe for disaster. Any costume under a queer theme would just
represent one of the many harmful ideas of who queer people are, as if all LGBTQ people can be shoehorned into one distinct way of looking.”

Commenting on the change, OU LGBTQ Society President Otamere Guobadia said, “I feel for the queer St Hugh’s community, who are being denied the wonderful feeling of being prioritised and represented in the oppressive framework that is mainstream culture and college life. We have Black History Month and LGBTQ History Month because things like heteronormativity and white supremacy are so ingrained in the way people are raised that minority history and culture are relegated to the margins; I think that this erasive rebranding of the bop under the guise of preventing
offense is ridiculously paternalistic and othering hen it was clearly the popular choice.

“Frankly I give absolutely no fucks if straight people are rendered uncomfortable by the thought of having to, for once, channel nonnormative
ideas of gender and sexuality at a bop without devolving into tasteless parody
or making queer people the punchline of a bop costume. Conversely the ‘kid glove’ fear advocated by straight people who believe it is impossible to interpret a queer theme inoffensively is bullshit. There are lines between
appropriation and appreciation which take common sense and empathy to respectfully navigate, and at Oxford we should all be capable of doing so.

“Misplaced post-queer, assimilationist ideas convince people that there is not a necessity of queer spaces and events because we are all just part of the human race, and there is no ‘straight bop.’ But guess what? Under
Patriarchy every fucking bop is a straight one.”

St Hugh’s Entz reps could not be contacted for comment.

A team led by Oxford researchers has begun a trial of the latest potential treatment for the on-going Ebola epidemic.

The team is investigating a drug called brincidofovir, which has already been used to treat Ebola patients around the world. Ebola, which has claimed over 8,300 lives, still has no definitive cure.

Brincidofovir is an experimental oral treatment developed by private American
healthcare company Chimerix. Run by volunteers from Doctors Without Borders and the University of Oxford and funded by the Wellcome Trust, the cooperative trial will test the effectiveness of the drug.

Up to 140 adult Ebola patients in Liberia’s capital Monrovia, one of the cities hardest hit by the West African outbreak, are undergoing two weeks of brincidofovir treatment. To determine the drug’s impact, researchers will
compare the fatality rate of these patients with previous death rates in the hospital.

Professor Peter Horby of Oxford’s Centre for Tropical Medicine and Global Health, the trial’s chief investigator, said, “The Ebola epidemic is causing an unprecedented health and socioeconomic crisis in West Africa. There are many things that need to be done.’’

“Amongst them is a proper evaluation of experimental treatments that have been developed for Ebola virus disease. The only time we can fully evaluate these potential therapies is during an Ebola epidemic.”

Typically, clinical trials of treatments for deadly viruses like Ebola take over a year to organise. However, the scale and urgency of the epidemic means that this Oxford-led trial has come together in less than four months.

Since the epidemic’s outbreak in late 2013, Oxford has been a leading figure in Ebola research. Over the past few months, Oxford has hosted several trials of mass-produced preventive vaccines that may be used to protect healthcare workers in affected countries.

Oxford’s efforts to develop a treatment, which include an upcoming study of another drug in Sierra Leone, are part of a wider global rush to develop therapies, vaccines, and even a cure for Ebola.

Professor Trudie Lang, another member of the Oxford research team, emphasised the value of thorough, well-funded scientific trials like the one run by the University of Oxford and Médecins Sans Frontières. “It is important to do a trial because you cannot learn about a drug from treating individuals,” she told Cherwell.

“We are setting out to evaluate several potential therapies within the rigour and formal protocol of a clinical trial, with the aim of identifying an effective and safe treatment that is oing to be available for African communities
at scale.”

The first Ebola patient received the study drug on January 2nd 2015. If this ongoing trial is successful, Lang explained, there will be a second, larger trial in one of the three countries most affected by the epidemic – Guinea, Liberia, or Sierra Leone. If that too had positive results, brincidofovir would be released on a wide scale.

The Government Revenue Support Grant to the Oxford City Council is expected to fall from its current value of £4.43 million to nothing by
2019.

Deputy Leader of the Oxford City Council, Executive Board Member for Finance and Labour councillor, Ed Turner, informed Cherwell, “We
estimate that over the period of the coalition government we’ll have lost around 47 per cent of our government grant, and it is clear from
the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement that there is even worse to come. This is clearly dreadful news for all who are concerned about public services.”

Turner explained, “There is an aim to reduce the national deficit (an aim which the coalition has been failing to meet at anything like the pace it anticipated by 2018/19), and the vital services provided by councils do not appear to
be much of a priority.”

The Head of Finance at Oxford City Council, Nigel Kennedy, added, “The bulk of this target will be achieved through cuts in local government spending.” The Local Government Association (LGA) has estimated that the spending
cuts in local government funding may be as high as 40 per cent. For this next year, the Government Revenue Support Grant is expected to account for 19.2
per cent of the Oxford City Council’s net budget requirement, compared to 26.4 per cent in the previous year.

Different sources of funding will therefore constitute a greater proportion of the council budget in the coming years. As Turner told Cherwell, “Council tax becomes a bigger proportion of our overall budget.”

He added, “However, we are not allowed to raise this by more than two per cent (without a referendum, the legal requirement which is constructed in such a way that it isn’t really practical).

“So we need to work even harder to generate other sources of income, including trading with public and private sector bodies, and work more efficiently, doing things like reducing the amount of office space we occupy, and looking at the way in which we work. We are not considering outsourcing large areas of council activity, as some councils are doing.

“In recent years, we have had to take many tough decisions – such as charging for services like garden waste collection which used to be
free – and there is no doubt that there will be some more.

“I would expect cuts to the Council to have a very bad impact. Next year we will see the implementation of cuts to homeless hostels in central Oxford, and I am gravely concerned about those receiving social care.”