OUSU’s Trustee Board is to decide whether a sufficient risk assessment has been conducted by the organisers of a demonstration in favour Free Education for students to be safely sent to the event.

The review follows concerns raised by the NUS about the event due to “an unacceptable level of risk that this demonstration currently poses to our members”. The NUS has since withdrawn its support. OUSU is now gathering the necessary information from the National Campaign Against Fees and Cuts (NCAFC), NUS and risk assessors, before the decision is made.

The NUS decided to withdraw its support for the demonstration, in a statement made on Tuesday by NUS President Toni Pearce and all NUS UK full-time officers. This reversed a decision made by the National Executive Committee of the NUS on 16th September to endorse the demonstration and encourage unions to mobilise for it.

The Free Education demonstration has already gained the support of OUSU and 15 JCRs, with many JCRs also pledging money towards transportation to the event. The demo was organised by the NCAFC, the Student Assembly Against Austerity and the Young Greens, and subsequently acquired NUS support.

The statement lays out concerns about the accessibility of the demonstration to disabled students, “inadequate measures” in place to mitigate against unspecified significant risks, the lack of public liability insurance and concerns from NUS Liberation Officers about whether the protest would be a safe space. It is further stated, “We do not believe there is sufficient time between now and the demonstration for these risks to be mitigated.”

The timing of the statement gives students’ unions “the minimum period” to review the situation and make decisions about whether to participate in the protest, according to the NUS statement.

The NCAFC have rejected the claims made by the NUS in the statement, claiming that they met every deadline laid out by the NUS and risk assessors, and have published anonymised emails of their interactions with the organisation. Furthermore, the NCAFC has claimed that “the biggest safety threat to students on a demonstration is the police”, which they say will be made greater by the NUS distancing itself from the demonstration.

Several NUS groups have also seemingly decided to continue to support the protest, in defiance of the national leadership, including the NUS Black Students’ Campaign and the International Students’ Campaign. NCAFC national committee member Beth Redmond commented, “Student unions are very supportive of the demo, and we are building a mass, sustainable movement for free education.”

NUS Scotland President Gordon Maloney said, in contrast to NUS UK, “I can’t understand the decision that some members of the NUS leadership have taken. The demonstration is going ahead, and all that pulling out of the demonstration can achieve is putting students in danger: when they mobilise,  they need their national union to be there for them, not abandon them.”

The Oxford PPE Society has had to apologize after dozens of emails were sent out to all members of its groupspaces page, many of which were sent by what appears to have been internet ‘trolls’ from outside the University.

The original inquiry read, “I joined PPE Society on the door at the Shami Chakrabarti event yesterday evening, but don’t think I was added to the list of members even though I paid the full £10. I was asked to email you to confirm my membership. If you can confirm that I have been added, that would be much appreciated.”

However as the email was sent to [email protected] it was received by the entire PPE society mailing list.

The matter was made worse by people complaining about the situation as the emails were received by everyone. One member wrote “Please stop sending me irrelevant emails,” which was sent to everyone on the groupspaces mailing list. Another person complained to everyone on the list, “Everyone. If you hit reply you are replying to everyone on the freaking list of group spaces. So stop it. Send your personal inquiries to the designated recipient.”

One person using a non-Oxford email account sent round spam messages to all members afterwards, asking “How do you feel about Benedict Cumberbatch getting married?” and “Do you have a no Jews policy?”

According to the PPE Society President Victor Jivanescu more than 50 emails were received within the space of 20 minutes, with the whole incident lasting for about an hour. 

When asked about how the situation was eventually dealt with, Jivanescu explained to Cher- well that “As I saw that some actually enjoyed this situation I took the only responsible action and changed the settings of our mailinglist to only allow group managers to access the ‘reply to all’ function. The first email came in at about 11:10 and by 12:10 the situation was under control and no more messages were received.”

Immediately after the incident, Victor Jivanescu sent round an email to all members saying, “On behalf of the PPE Society, we would like to notify you that we are sorry that this error has occurred, we stopped sending emails to everyone and replied only to particular senders.

“If you would like to not receive these emails any more than please stop using the groupspaces address (i.e. stop replying). Stop sending general emails to be removed from the list because you can do so yourself and you are only spamming people’s accounts. Don’t let this situation get out of control.”

Meanwhile the author of the original email commented to Cherwell, “Obviously, I shouldn’t be allowed out of the house or to use technology. Something perfectly innocent became quite embarrassing quite quickly, but it’s all been laughed off, so who cares?”

An Oxford postgraduate student won £3000 from the online retailer Amazon to spend throughout the coming academic year. 

The student, Thomas David, is one of six winners of the Amazon Student Prize Fund, a prize associated with the Amazon Student Scheme. The scheme offers students in higher education six months of unlimited free one-day delivery on over seven million products. David, whose DPhil is in Materials Engineering, will use the prize money to purchase academic books and digital equipment. 

Funding prizes, such as that offered by the Amazon Student Scheme, have been commended by current postgraduate students. Ben Hopkins, a first year postgraduate student at Linacre College, said that although he didn’t know specifically of the Amazon Student Scheme, “the more sources of funding the better!”.

Hopkins further commented on the issue of postgraduate funding, saying,  “Judging from my own experiences, the postgraduate funding system in the sciences is becoming increasingly difficult to navigate. However, this may well be due to the area undergoing something of a transition. Whereas before it seemed to be the case that one would apply for full funding packages and approach a supervisor with their own research proposal or apply directly for an advertised PhD position, there is now the added complication of Doctoral Training Centres.

“The best approach seems to be to approach supervisors directly and ask what they recommend but, from my experience, it seems that some academics are more aware of the ever-changing system than others. Perhaps this is unfair but it seems as though the big research councils are implementing systems that benefit individuals with broad or as yet undefined research interests and perhaps penalise those who have comprehensive research proposals already, which seemed to be the historical route taken by postgraduate students.

“Postgraduate funding has always been a competitive business but with an increasingly diverse array of sources (including colleges, universities, charities, research councils, private donors, industrial companies, individual labs) and more comprehensive guides to funding the savvy student has an increasing number of options from which to build up their funding.”

Whilst some postgraduates, such as Hopkins, see Doctoral Training Centres as an “added complication”, others see them as an opportunity. Fourth year postgraduate Karl Heilbron told Cherwell, “they [Doctoral Training Centres] strike me as a really great idea too because you spend your first year in lectures learning a variety of useful things, then you do two 10-week rotations working on a research project. Afterwards you pick which of the two you preferred and that’s the lab where you do the rest of your DPhil (3 more years), so the rotations give you a chance to try before you buy”. 

Nevertheless, applying for postgraduate funding has proven daunting for many prospective students. Phil Madgwick, a third year Biological Sciences undergraduate at Merton College applying currently to start a DPhil in 2015, commented that “Postgraduate funding is really confusing. I have spent ages trying to find out how postgraduate study works for DPhils and there has been little formal support of my enquiries.

“The dual system of needing to get both a supervisor and funding is bewildering when I first approached it, as there is no simple or straightforward path to getting a DPhil. DTPs do provide a more honed route to funding (given the many means of getting funding) but I have ended spending a lot of time and effort sending emails out to supervisors to enquire whether or not they had any funding, as often it isn’t advertised clearly, or what route should be approached if they would like me to come and work with them.

“It is very hard to find a comprehensive review of the opportunities in Oxford. The lack of certainty is very disconcerting as it means that I can expect no idea of where I will be next year, and in fact the move towards DTPs, as far as I am concerned, is a step backwards as it involves greater emphasis on grades and lesser emphasis of a more holistic assessment of research potential.

“These concerns are actually really damaging because they detract attention from all the others things going on in finals year that getting to grips with a disorientating funding system whilst trying to keep up with lab work, tute deadlines and still make it to lectures at 9am is a nightmare. Most of my peers haven’t, and feel reluctant to, put the time into working out how postgraduate study works and what opportunities there are available.”

A spokesman from the Oxford University News Office told Cherwell, “Fundraising for postgraduate scholarships is one of the University’s key priorities and this year over 1,000 fully-funded scholarships were available from the University, its colleges and supporters for new master’s and doctoral students in 2014-15, which puts us in a very fortunate position compared to our UK peers.

“But for the many aspiring graduate students who do not receive scholarships, it can be very difficult to find the money for their studies and we hope that more can be done at a national level to ensure postgraduate study is open to all.” 

Agreeing with the difficulties of self-funding a PhD, Heilbron also added: “To the best of my knowledge, only a small minority of DPhil students are self-funded. This makes sense because three years of tuition and college fees alone will equate to ~£34,000 for British nationals and ~£52,000 for internationals”. 

Student Radio Station Oxide has suspended all shows for the “foreseeable future” due to “sporadic technical difficulties” with the office’s computer. OUSU IT staff are reportedly trying to fix the problems, and despite hopes that the hiatus will be short-lived, the problems have upset students and presenters.

Apologising for problems with the studio’s computer, Oxide Pro-gramme Controller Tom Brookes told contributors on Monday, “I’m really sorry about this […] in the last few days the state of the Mac has deteriorated significantly. It is with great frustration, therefore, that we are forced to suspend all shows for the foreseeable future, while the OUSU IT staff try to sort it out.

“Although this is a situation that none of us wanted, however, I am confident that it won’t be long before it is resolved. We’ve had good news on that front today [Monday], and once the problems are sorted we can get on with some great radio for the remainder of term. It shouldn’t be too long before we’re back on air.”

Meanwhile, an anonymous ‘inside-source’ told Cherwell, “Oxide has the capacity to be one of the most vibrant and engaging student media outlets within the University. The problem is that it’s never been given the proper support or funding it deserves. None of the technology in the studio is designed for a radio station — it’s a patch-work job that was stitched together several years ago and therefore keeps falling apart.

“It’s a total anomaly that such a vibrant student community has such a poorly resourced student radio station, particularly when the only other major student broadcasting outlets are simply off-shoots of The Oxford Student and Cherwell.”

Magdalen student Max Long echoed the need for better investment, telling Cherwell, “As a former presenter on Oxide, it’s a real shame to hear that the station will have to cancel their broadcasts for the time being due to a wonky computer. The fact that Oxide’s equipment is so sub-par is very telling with regards to the regard with which the station is held. An investment in proper radio equipment, rather than what is essentially a bedroom broadcast could result in the odd person actually listening to Oxide. Maybe their neighbouring and well-endowed union-run newspaper could spare them a Mac.”

Eleanor Sharman, a Philosophy and Theology student at Oriel, found the news hard to stomach commenting, “I co-host the best breakfast show around, ‘Full English Deckfast’, and the faulty computer’s bacon me really sad. I want Oxide to ketchup to the needs of the student body soon, as I’m not sure our three listeners can last much longer. Still, we’ve used up all our comedic talent for the week on this quote, so it’s probably for the best that we don’t have to broadcast for a while.”

Responding to frustrated presenters and listeners, Oxide Radio tweeted on Wednesday, “There are widespread concerns at the Oxide offices that there’ll be rioting in the streets if our computer is not fixed soon!”