It has emerged that Professor Andrew Hamilton, Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University, is the second highest paid university boss in the country.
In the year 2012-2013, the Vice-Chancellor received a pay-package of £434,000 – including pension – which is a 2.36 per cent increase on his 2011-12 salary.

This news has sparked concern amongst those who are currently campaigning for higher wages for all of Oxford University’s academic staff.

While Hamilton’s 2012-2013 pay increase of 2.36% was nearly in line with the inflation rate of the time (which was recorded at 2.9% in July 2013), academics were offered a far smaller wage increase.

The President of the University and College Union in Oxford, Terry Hoad, who campaigns for higher wages for academics and helped organise two academic strikes last year, pointed out this discrepancy. Talking to Cherwell, he said, “The University and College Union is about to consider whether to accept a pay offer which would see a 1% increase for 2012-13 and 2% for 2013-14. That offer represents a further significant cut in the real-terms value of our members’ pay, losses which have been suffered annually for a long time.”

He continued, “It is therefore galling that the already high salaries of vice-chancellors, including our own in Oxford – salaries that are many times higher than those of most other university staff – are increasing by very large amounts. It is not that redistributing the Vice-Chancellor’s pay increase among those other staff members would give them significant increases, but more that we are not seeing much sense of collegiality and even-handedness.”

“Vice-Chancellors have demanding jobs, but all university staff share responsibility for the very important work of sustaining the teaching, learning, and research for which Oxford has such a distinguished record. The Oxford Magazine has looked to the Vice-Chancellor to take a lead in work to ensure ‘our well-being into the future as a world-class university founded on academic and democratic values’. Those values should surely include the principle of fair rewards for all those on whom that well-being depends.”

However, the University of Oxford has said that the Vice-Chancellor’s salary is simply a reflection of the university’s wealth and global standing.
A spokesperson for the university stated, “According to last year’s Times Higher World University Rankings, Oxford is the number one university in the UK and number two in the world. It is consistently ranked as one of the two best universities in the UK and among the handful of best universities in the world. Its research output is vast, it has an almost billion-pound-a-year turnover, not including the colleges and the Oxford University Press, and it has great institutional complexity. The Vice-Chancellor’s salary reflects that.”

This view is not necessarily shared by Oxford students. A member of the Oxford Activist Network, Xavier Cohen, said he thought the example of the Vice-Chancellor’s pay was indicative of what he termed the ‘marketization of education’.

He told Cherwell, “A democratically unaccountable and unelected technocrat takes charge and power away from the members of our university, when we have not asked them to, and frames this power in terms of a burdensome bureaucratic responsibility that they deserve tremendous remuneration for.”

“The VC’s pay and power effectively takes pay and power away from the members of our institution, and to fight this means fighting the anti-democratic neoliberal rationality that it comes from.”

Other students appear firmly in agreement with Cohen’s point. Katharine Baxter, Keble student and student activist in last year’s academic strikes, said, “In a year when striking staff have, effectively, been fined for participation in unionised industrial action it is unacceptable that Oxford Vice-Chancellor Andrew Hamilton is the second highest paid VC in the country.”

An Oxford NUS delegate Nathan Akehurst added, “Vice-Chancellors’ salaries have risen by 8% in the last years whilst lecturers have faced the longest sustained pay cut since the Second World War. Pay distribution in HE (and in society in general) is unfair, which is why NUS voted to campaign for managers to be paid a maximum of five times the lowest-paid worker’s salary.”

Despite receiving a pay-package which is just under three times larger than David Cameron’s salary of £142,500, Hamilton’s salary still falls short of that of the new director of the London School of Economics, Craig Calhoun.

According to The Times Higher Education, Calhoun received £466,000 in 2012-2013, making him the highest paid university boss in the UK.

A Morris dancer taking part in the May Day festivities has said that they paint their faces black simply in order to protect their identity and not for any racial purpose.

The long-standing Morris dancing tradition in Oxford was recently criticised by students for causing offence, due to some of the dancers taking part in the annual Folk Weekend event painting their faces black.

In an article recently published by the Oxford Student, some students reported that they found the dancer’s decision to “black up” offensive.

Cherwell spoke to Jeff, a Morris dancer on the streets of Oxford. We questioned him why he decided to paint his face black and whether he realised that this could be seen as offensive. He said, “I black my face so that no one knows my identity, it’s an old tradition based on Pagan beliefs.

“Some people think that us painting our faces is racist but it’s not like that. It’s about hiding from the church, or it used to be, because they considered it a pagan ritual and in the past people were ostracised if they were seen taking part.”

When asked why he got involved in Morris dancing, he commented, “It’s not to do with religious beliefs, I’m not religious. I saw the group dancing at Halloween and I thought that could be a bit of fun. It’s a very social activity and we often hang out in the pub after we’ve been dancing.”

In a post on the Facebook group “Skin Deep”, there was some discussion of the controversy. The post included a photo of Morris dancers in Oxford who had “blacked up” for the weekend’s folk festival and May Day festivities.

There were a number of comments on the post about the controversy surrounding this and its possible offensive nature.

One student posted, “In my opinion regardless of the origins of the tradition the fact remains that it could be associated with ‘blackface’ which in any other context is seen as very racist so I don’t think it’s okay.”

Roger Comley, the Morris Ring area representative for the South Midlands, told Cherwell, “There are many different troupes of Morris dancers, some who paint their faces black and some who do not.

“There are a number of different reasons for this and no one really knows where the tradition came from.”

He also noted, “It is seen particularly in the Welsh troupes because traditionally those involved were miners and charcoal burners who had to protect their identity by painting their faces black because they did not want the owners of the mines to know that they were taking part.”

The exact origins of the face-painting are debated, as are the origins of the Morris dancing tradition itself.

Technology from Oxford University’s Wolfson Catalysis Centre will be used to help increase the production of sustainable aviation fuel.

Solena Fuels, has committed to building the first facility in the world to convert landfill waste into jet fuel, with the project being financed by British Airways. The site chosen was once home to an old oil refinery at Coryton on the Thames estuary in Thurrock.

Approximately, 575,000 tonnes of the waste left over from recycling, normally meant for incineration or landfill, will instead be converted into 120,000 tonnes of clean-burning liquid fuels.

Velocys, previously known as Oxford Catalysts, will be producing the speciality catalysts to be used in the generation of these cleaner fuels.

Usually the company makes these catalysts to be used in all kinds of fuel production, including through the use of conventional fossil fuels as well as renewable sources of energy such as biomass. Solena Fuels will be using their own technology to process the waste into fuel.

The process works by evenly heating a catalyst bed inside a gasifier using four plasma torches, so that the catalyst reaches temperatures of around 3500 degrees Celsius. The waste is inserted into the gasifier and falls on to the catalyst bed, breaking down without combustion thanks to the extremely high temperature. The released gases rise up within the gasifier chamber and form new bonds, creating new compounds. These are then cooled down and separated, so that impurities and unwanted compounds may be removed.

Earlier this month, the global aviation community met in Geneva to discuss the impact the flying industry has on the environment at the 2014 Global Sustainable Aviation Summit. Two weeks later British Airways made a long-term commitment to purchase all 50,000 tonnes per annum of the jet fuel produced by Solena Fuels at market competitive rates.

Willie Walsh, chief executive of British Airways’ parent company IAG, said, “We are always striving to reduce our impact on climate change and this first-of-its-kind project marks a significant step for the aviation industry.

“The construction of the GreenSky London fuel facility at Thames Enterprise Park will lay the foundations for British Airways to reduce its carbon emissions significantly. The sustainable jet fuel produced each year will be enough to power our flights from London City Airport twice over with carbon savings the equivalent of taking 150,000 cars off the road.” The chief executive was speaking in a video uploaded by British Airways on to Youtube, entitled “Fueling the Future”.

A fresher at Exeter College said, “It’s great to see that they are developing technology and using it to make more use of the huge amount of waste that humans produce. Maybe we should be thinking about making less waste in the first place though.”

The living wage campaign celebrated a further success this week, as a new pay rate for cleaners working in the OUSU buildings came into effect. Last May, then-OUSU President David J Townsend promised that staff working in their buildings would receive the living wage, after a Cherwell investigation revealed that cleaners in the OUSU buildings were being paid over £1.00 per hour less than the living wage at that time.

As of 1st May, staff working in the University buildings run by the Estate Services have recieved the living wage, now set at £7.65 per hour. The Estate Services manage some 235 buildings owned by the University.

Andrew Grey, Chair of the Oxford Living Wage Campaign, told Cherwell, “As the student-led Oxford Living Wage Campaign is an OUSU campaign, it is especially good news that all OUSU cleaners are now paid the living wage. OUSU have worked hard to ensure this happened, and it is very encouraging to see that the Living Wage is increasingly being implemented across the University.”

Grey continued, “Now that the University has made this significant step forward, the Living Wage Campaign hopes that the departments and colleges who do not yet pay the Living Wage will realise how important it is to do so.”

Posting on the OUSU blog, Dan Tomlinson, VP for Charities and Community wrote, “OUSU’s Living Wage Campaign has been out talking to cleaners in Wellington Square regularly this year. Their stories are what move us to campaign for the living wage. Working long hours, across multiple jobs, at unsociable hours and being paid less than the living wage is something no-one should have to do. We all deserve dignity in our work.”

He continued, “But the work goes on. As long as we keep meeting staff at our University who are being paid less than the Living Wage, we will be here. The University has a big decision to make this summer on the issue of the Living Wage so this is probably the most crucial time in the campaign’s history.”

The Oxford Living Wage Campaign has seen a series of successes this year, having secured the wage for workers at St Anne’s, Mansfield, the Balvatnik School of Government, as well as the Maths, Physics, Biochemistry, and Education departments.

The UK living wage is calculated annually by the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University. The current wage is set at £7.65, up from £7.45 last year.

A spokesperson for Oxford University told Cherwell, “We are pleased that the living wage will now be paid to all contracted staff working in University buildings managed by our Estates Services. The University has made considering ethical matters in its procurement practices a priority, which includes the payment of a living wage.”

A Christ Church tutor has criticised Oxford’s central administration as a “misdirected dictatorship”.

Peter Oppenheimer, Student Emeritus at the college, argued in the 0th week issue of Oxford Magazine, a weekly publication for university staff, that the solution to administrative problems can only be to cut ties with the UK government and become fully self-governing. “After decades of efficient and enlightened self-rule by the academic community, a bare 15 years has sufficed to replace it – how irreversibly remains to be seen – with inefficient and misdirected dictatorship by central bureaucracy”, he says.

He further attacks the fact that university administration defers to the government over the concerns of those within the university. “The perception and conduct of central office-holders vis-à-vis the academic community switched abruptly in the early 2000s from servant to overlord. In economic terms the administration, having formerly been the agent of those engaged in teaching and research, seems now to view itself as principal in the academic enterprise, with the teachers and researchers as mere agents and subordinates.”

He also criticises the University for its handling of new buildings and the city environment following the controversy over University building projects such as Castle Mill. “Ill-designed student apartments at Castle Mill, disfiguring the eastern side of Port Meadow, have caused outrage among the citizens of Oxford and been condemned in the strongest terms as a disgrace by the Planning Minister, Nick Boles.”

He further accuses university administration of not being entirely meritocratic in appointing academic staff, due to “administrative interference with the process of academic appointments, for example in cases where there is a lack of shortlistable female candidates”.

He blames its disregard for the concerns of its students and staff on excessive adherence to the demands of Whitehall, and argues for a greater degree of autonomy, with a radically different fees system based on the American model. “At prosperous American universities, high fees charged to wealthy students are (apart from the fairness aspect) a way of relieving calls on the endowment. Princeton (Oxford’s partner university) has an endowment only about one-third of Harvard’s but it has less than half the number of students.”

The revenue that the University does generate from fees, he argues, is used ineffectively under a “ludicrous” policy of targeted underspending by the PRAC (Planning and Resource Allocation), the body that allocates funding across the University. He says that money spent on “assorted Institutes or Centres” and some visiting appointments could be better spent elsewhere, and recommends cutting several hundred central administrative personnel to save money, arguing that there is “no alternative measure that would save anything remotely approaching this amount”.

He further recommends establishing endowments for teaching that could provide funding independent of fees. Professor Oppenheimer has previously spoken out in favour of cutting non-academic jobs. In an article published in 2009, he supported plans to reform the Careers Service by decentralising and reducing one-on-one consultations.

Students contacted by Cherwell have questioned Oppenheimer’s comments. OUSU President Tom Rutland said, “These comments seem somewhat overblown to me. There are advantages that stem from having a collegiate university (such as having close knit college communities) but there are drawbacks too, such as disparity in teaching hours and rent costs. There are definite benefits to having some centrally provided services.”

University administration was attacked similarly in the 8th week Hilary edition of the magazine, which highlighted the growing disparity between highest and lowest-paid university staff, as well as suggesting that the Vice Chancellor’s pay was disproportionate by comparison with other management positions, including the permanent secretaries of government departments.

Oppenheimer and the University were both approached by Cherwell but declined to comment.

According to recent Oxford Mail Reports, given the recent flooding problems in Oxford, significant progress was made this week after a first offer of funding was made to contribute towards the £125m project to build a flood relief channel in the city.

The Thames Regional Flood and Coastal Committee supported the Western Conveyance scheme at a meeting in Wandsworth. They put aside £12m for the project and have recommended that it be included in a six-year flood relief scheme set of plans. This funding comes from a local levy made to all the different organisations forming the committee.

The committee is designed to manage flood risk and is made up of representatives of organisations from areas across Oxfordshire, Berkshire, London and Hertfordshire. It is in a similar position to other committees across the country bidding to the Environmental Agency (EA) for project funding for other flood defence schemes. The EA previously said a further £30-£50m could be released for this scheme from the government on top of the £12m from the committee, subject to minister approval.

The scheme has attracted comments from a range of local MPs.

Bob Price, the leader of Oxford City Council, said that this marked the first of many financial commitments towards the project saying that, “over 100 homes and businesses were affected financially and domestically by the flooding.

“The Council is implementing the Government’s compensation scheme with supple tray funding, if required, from the flooding contingency that was included in the 14/15 Council budget.”

He further commented that, “This is a very important first step. It means that this is now a priority scheme which will lead to significant improvements.”

Oxford West and Abingdon MP Nicola Blackwood said, “It is great news that the committee has backed local residents and businesses and agreed with us that the scheme must go ahead. This is only the first hurdle we need to overcome but this decision sends a strong message to the EA, to the Government, to local authorities and other funders that this is the right flood defence project for Oxford and Abingdon and it is the time to commit to funding it.”

Andrew Smith, Oxford East’s MP highlighted that, “It is very good news and it is a further very welcome and necessary step. Obviously more money is needed and all the dominoes need to be in line for it to happen, but this is an extremely important one.”

This scheme comes to the relief of many who were faced with the wettest month since records began in January, according to Oxford University’s Radcliffe Meteorological Station. Many people across Oxford and Abingdon saw river levels rise, resulting in closed off roads and cancelled rowing fixtures.

One student at New College commented that, “The floods caused so much inconvenience for me in terms of my sporting commitments to rowing, so I am glad that measures are being put into place to ensure constant safe river levels.”

Her Majesty Queen Sofia of Spain visited Oxford last Tuesday as part of the celebrations commemorating the 700th anniversary of Exeter College.

Queen Sofia is an honorary fellow of Exeter College and the patron of the Queen Sofía Junior Fellowship, established to fund scholarship into contemporary Spanish literature and culture at the college. Exeter is also home to the King Alfonso XIII Professorship of Spanish Literature, established in 1927.

The Queen attended a colloquium on Spanish literature and its study in the University of Oxford, which was first cemented with the establishment of the School of Modern Languages in Oxford in 1905. At the colloquium, which was held at the Taylorian Institution, speeches were delivered by the current holder of the King Alfonso XIII Professorship, Professor Edwin Williamson, holder of the current Queen Sofia Junior Fellowship, Dr Daniela Olmor, and three students; Artem Serebrennikov, a DPhil student, as well as undergraduates Matt Stokes and Daisy Thompson. Each spoke about their personal experiences in the study of Spanish as well as their individual research interests in the field.

In a speech given during a formal lunch afterward at Exeter’s hall, Queen Sofia gave a brief speech in which he said, “I am truly happy to join you for the celebrations of the 700th anniversary of Exeter College, an august institution which throughout its history has contributed to the development of society through its remarkable educational vocation and its excellent academic achievement.

“Spain shares in the joy of this commemoration, not only because the Chair of Spanish Studies which, since 1927, has borne the name of King Alfonso XIII, but also because your university is one of the leading centres for teaching and studying Spanish, one of the world’s great languages, together with English.”

Her Majesty was then taken on a tour of the college gardens by college rector Frances Cairncross, during which Queen Sofia was introduced to Spanish students from the college.

Queen Sofia, who was born into the Greek Royal family in 1938, married the current King of Spain, Juan Carlos in 1962. She studied at Athens University before spending time at Fitzwilliam College in Cambridge.

OUSU Council voted to cancel the Safety Bus on Wednesday night. The motion, supported by OUSU Council stated that it believed the current Safety Bus service was inadequate and failing Oxford University students.

The Safety Bus service is run in partnership with the Oxford Brookes University Students’ Union, and costs OUSU £12,000 per year to run. The service provides a safe means of transport for students late at night.
However, no information is available about the number of Oxford University students that use the bus, despite OUSU repeatedly asking Brookes Union to collect the information.

A survey conducted two years ago, by the then OUSU Vice-President for Charities and Community, found that 70% of respondents had never used the bus during their time at Oxford University, while 20% had used it once and 10% had used it more than once. The average waiting time for the bus was found to be 16 minutes, with 17% of users having to wait more than 20 minutes for the service. A small number of users who had used the service found the volunteers “confrontational”.

The Safety Bus is run with the help of student volunteers from Oxford Brookes who are given training by Brookes Union. However, one of the key concerns raised was that volunteers are not asked to sign any form of contract or agreement regarding their expected conduct.

Another concern with the service is that it does not run for 25% of the full Oxford University term. In Trinity term of 2012, OUSU Council mandated the Vice-President for Charities and Community to ensure that the Safety Bus runs the duration of the Oxford University term.

The Current OUSU VP for Charities and Community, Daniel Tomlinson, told Cherwell, “Recently, I have been in discussions with Brookes about the Safety Bus and it became clear that they were not able to require the volunteers on the bus to sign codes of conduct for their behaviour, about which we have had concerns. They also won’t look into or keep a record of the number of University of Oxford students that use the bus.

“OUSU now has £12,000 to spend on an improved safety scheme, or other things that students think are important. I’ve been mandated to report back to students before the end of term on progress of finding an alternative, and I’ve already started speaking with local taxi companies and Common Room Presidents about potential alternative schemes.”

In the debate on the motion, concerns were raised that bus and taxi companies might be reluctant to transport students who were seriously drunk. However, a lack of willingness to reform the current service led to the Council voting to cancel the bus.

A first year historian said, “Without the safety bus, I don’t know how I could’ve got a member of my college home one night. They were helpful, and knew what they were doing.”

Students at Hertford College were left with ringing in their ears after a mishap with the college’s fire detection system caused alarms to sound continuously for nearly two hours, disturbing students until after midnight last Sunday.

The sirens were first activated at around half past nine on Sunday morning on Hertford’s two residential quads, which house first years and some finalists. Students sheltered from the morning drizzle in staircase porches before being told by porters that the alarm would likely be ringing for up to an hour, awaiting the arrival of an electrician.

An email sent to students from the Home Bursar on Sunday morning offered apologies for the disruption and stated, “As you might be able to hear, we’ve suffered a fairly serious issue with the fire detection system on the main site this morning. We are trying to correct it ASAP, but are awaiting specialist engineers.”

Florence Kettle, a first year studying English, noted the disastrous timing of the disturbance. She said, “Hertford students put in an excellent showing at the Purple Turtle on Saturday night, and this brutal disturbance of the required Sunday morning recovery period is very serious indeed.”

Though the alarms had stopped ringing by mid-morning, students were again forced to vacate their rooms at around quarter past eleven that evening as the electrical error, thought to have been fixed, persisted.

A fire engine was spotted outside the college and students also took shelter in the college library or in the nearby King’s Arms as the sirens sounded for a further hour. There were reports of students attempting to sleep in corridors to escape the noise of the powerful alarms installed in their bedrooms.

Another fresher, who did not wish to be named, expressed despair as the fiasco disrupted his meticulous study regime, complaining, “When are we supposed to write our vacation essays if Hertford sounds like it’s preparing for a nuclear apocalypse all night on Sunday of 0th week? It’s outrageous.”

A spokesperson for Hertford College told Cherwell, “The college has systematically updated its fire detection systems over the past few years, across both its residential and non-residential portfolio. With over 500 bedrooms, and in excess of 600 fire detectors, we have occasional failures, and they are usually addressed quickly. Such repairs take longer outside of ordinary working hours, as I’m sure you can imagine.”