What it’s like to be a disabled graduate student
I am a graduate research student in Evidence Based Health Care at Kellogg College where I am working on PLOT-IT, the implementation of an infrastructure where the public can prioritize, participate in, and conduct research projects they choose with the support of healthcare research experts.
I arrived at Oxford with a preexisting disability which I sustained in a serious car crash. I was left with broken bones and spinal, internal and brain injuries. I chose to declare these disabilities to the University following my admission.
I would absolutely recommend the University of Oxford as a welcoming environment for a person with a disability. Kellogg College and the departments of continuing education and primary health care sciences were wonderful. The administrators of the Evidence-Based Health Care program put up temporary ramps so I could navigate non-accessible buildings. They arranged for me to have an assistant to help with carrying books and other things. They even signposted the buildings so I would not be frustrated by getting lost due to the brain injury problem. My supervisor, Dr Amanda Burls, helped me to see where my language errors occurred and to do something about this.
The Disability Office was superb; they fought with me for specialist equipment and even appealed the ruling on my behalf after Student Finance England initially rejected my application for some of the equipment.
Many of my instructors provided me with materials ahead of time so I could keep with my classmates. My classmates were also really supportive — even physically, by carrying me when I was unable to keep up with them. I felt accepted and welcomed at Oxford, which has pushed me to surpass my natural best and gain new ground. No one looked at me as a throw away person or a liability and everyone made a special effort to help me feel included.
The one area where the University of Oxford can really make a difference and improve the lives of those with a disability would be to offer scholarships specifically for disabled postgraduate students. At present all scholarships are merit based and there is little room for a person with a disability to compete. It takes us longer to do what others do normally and the traditional pay and hours available are not manageable for those with a disability.
Getting a postgraduate degree or doctorate is a formidable task when facing both financial and physical limitations. By tackling this issue, the University of Oxford can continue making a life changing difference to the lives of students with a disability.
Disability is more diverse than wheelchairs
Working with disabled students in Oxford is a constant reminder of how diverse my peers are. On a regular basis I will meet people with astounding, unique circumstances who study here at Oxford, despite the obstacles the structure of our society puts in their way. As a group, we face a number of challenges, but the Student Union (OUSU), the Disability Advisory Service (DAS) and the University as a whole are working to tackle them.
Read Cherwell’s investigation into disabilities at Oxford University here
We are an eclectic group of people, and one not often associated with the typical image of disability. Well over half of Oxford’s disabled students are classified as having a Specific Learning Difficulty (SpLD), such as dyslexia or dyscalculia, and the majority are ‘invisible’ disabilities, such as some long term health conditions and mental health problems. Given how much we vary from the stereotype, many disabled students do not categorise themselves as disabled, and miss out on the support they deserve and may need to excel in their social and academic lives.
The Disability Advisory Service (DAS) is an excellent resource for students who already identify as disabled, providing advice on how to get funding for necessary adjustments and acting as an intermediary with examination staff and colleges to provide academic adjustments. However, there is little in the way of advertising to get our message out to the student body at large.
This year, we are running a Disability Awareness Week in sixth week to help students find out about what disabilities mean to students in Oxford, and we are breaking the OUSU stereotype of miscommunication by letting colleges organise and run their own events. I certainly hope to see many students going to film screenings and British Sign Language workshops, and finding out more about Oxford and disability.
Disability can often be a taboo subject, and taken to be very serious. However, we have a lighter side — many wheelchair-using students would love to go clubbing but are excluded from this aspect of Oxford’s social experience due to poor disabled access. Following the recent removal of Junction’s disabled access, the Disabled Students Campaign will be making it a priority to apply pressure to clubs that do not live up to their responsibilities to disabled students.
Finally, I want to see disability campaigns working with the other liberation campaigns. I am excited that WomCam has appointed a disability breakout group, and I would love to see the LGBTQ campaign and Oxford’s other advocacy groups following suit, and embracing intersectionality. Working together, we can tackle some of the most difficult issues that affect us all.
Investigation: Disability provision at Oxford
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This week Cherwell analysed the provision offered by the University of Oxford to disabled students, and how disabled students at Oxford rate this provision. As part of our investigation we phoned up individual colleges to find out what facilities are provided for students at a college level; however, much of the time we were referred to the University Press Office, which provided information and statistics for the university as a whole, but referred us back to individual colleges for more specific information. While speaking to individual students about their personal experiences, Cherwell found that this lack of coordination between University and College authorities is currently the biggest hindrance to provision for disabled students.
The 2010 Equality Act defines disability as “a physical or mental impairment that has a ‘substantial’ and ‘long-term’ negative effect on your ability to do normal daily activities.” This can range from dyslexia or ADHD to long term physical impairments.
Admissions statistics show that 150 students with a declared disability were admitted into the university in 2012, compared to 181 in 2011. Disabled students applying for 2012 entry had a success rate of 18.7%, very close to the 18.8% success rate of applicants overall. However, students with mobility impairments had an unusually low acceptance rate of 8% in 2012. In previous years this has been much higher, at 18.8% in 2011, and was as high as 21.9% in 2010.
However, these statistics are clouded by the fact that many disabilities, especially those related to mental health, go unreported: these are the so-called ‘invisible’ disabilities. The Disability Advisory Service (DAS), which provides support for disabled students at the University of Oxford, has 1730 registered students, which suggests that many students only report their disabilities once they have started their course.
On a national scale, the NUS has campaigned against this discrimination, highlighting the fact that one third of disabled people between the ages of 16-24 feel they have been discouraged because of their disabilities. The NUS also stresses the fact that it is against the law for universities, colleges and students’ unions not to be accessible to disabled students. The Disabled Students’ Allowance provides students with special needs with up to £10,000 in financial support, and the University matches this for non-UK students who require it.
The official statistics seem to draw a positive light on Oxford’s provision for disabled students: 9.8% of Oxford students currently have a disability, a figure which is in line with the Russell Group average. Furthermore, 4.7% of Oxford students have a mobility impairment, which is above the national average of 3.5%.
A spokesperson for the University of Oxford told Cherwell, “The budget of the central disability advice service is £1 million and the service employs four full time specialist disability advisors, two part-time disability advisors, and the head of the Disability Advisory Service. There are many more disability contacts in colleges.
“The central disability advice service works in collaboration with disability contacts in colleges to ensure that appropriate adjustments are in place for all students with a disability and offers workshops and training for staff in colleges and departments to help them support disabled students. The service runs an assessment centre that ensures a timely assessment is made of each student’s needs and that they get the support they need to study at Oxford.”
The University has a number of online resources specifying in detail the services it provides for students and applicants alike. This includes an interactive site with videos of current disabled students, as well as a wealth of documents and information pages for students with disabilities. The Oxford University Students’ Union (OUSU) runs a campaign for students with mental health issues, called Mind Your Head, as well as employing a Disabilities Officer, and holding a Disability Awareness Week, which is running this year in 6th week of Michaelmas.
In an anonymous survey directed at disabled students within the University, Cherwell found that a number of students felt that there is an issue of communication and collaboration between the different support mechanisms provided both by the University and individual colleges. Whilst efforts have certainly been made to provide support for disabled students, many feel that there is a lack of communication with students.
One student told Cherwell that there should be “better joined up action between each branch of the university. A guide book of entitlement.” They added, “It’s hard enough working out what I’m entitled to from central and local government, let alone having to wade through yet more information in terms of the university.”
One student was even more critical of the university’s provision for disabled students. They stated, “It’s all too bureaucratic. The university is well aware of my dyslexia but college (until recently) were not. My tutor seems to have no idea what dyslexia is. One of the key difficulties faced by dyslexic students is the misconception that they’re ‘slow’ or ‘not listening’ when in fact these kind of criticisms relate to working memory deficit typical of dyslexics. My experience so far has been that of frustration mainly, I don’t feel my tutors appreciate how much harder I have to work at things they find simple. I hate being called ‘lazy’, I thought I’d left that behind at school.”
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One of the most important issues with disabilities in Oxford are the ‘invisible disabilities’ which often go unreported because students feel afraid to approach a specialist about their issues. As one student put it, “The support provided by Oxford is exceptional once you find your way into the system. The hardest thing to overcome is self-discrimination. ‘Imposter syndrome’ as it is commonly known is a big problem. This leads to isolation — which in turn impacts productivity — it’s very hard to feel fully part of university life.”
Another major issue facing students with disabilities is the lack of information provided for students who don’t suffer from disabilities themselves. One student commented, “Communication with students needs to be improved; too many people assume that Oxford’s ‘disabled students’ are the ones that you see in wheelchairs, whereas the reality is that most physical conditions are not visible and mental conditions affect a huge number of people across the University. JCRs need to collaborate with the University to ensure that people are properly educated about the diverse range of conditions that affect the student body, so that people can be sensitive, understanding and informed.”
Charlotte Hendy, OUSU Vice President for Welfare & Equal Opportunities, told Cherwell “OUSU is working alongside the Disability Advisory Service and in co-ordination with the University and Colleges on a newly established Working Group for the Provision for Disabled Students. Created to produce a common framework that all endorse, and designed to standardise access and provision for disabled students across the University, its intention is to improve the experience of disabled students at Oxford.”
Provision for disabilities also appears to vary widely depending on the disability. In particular, students with sensory disabilities feel that their needs are not adequately met. One student told Cherwell, “I have a visual impairment and in general the organisation and communication between my department and the university disability service has been very poor. There has been a lack of knowledge or awareness of the support needed for students with a sensory impairment.”
Sam Dickinson, a student at Merton, acquired severe disability issues as a result of an accident which occurred shortly after he received his offer to study at Oxford. He highlighted the varying levels of support recieved by students depending on their college. He said, “Merton in particular have been brilliant, they’ve done all they can (and more) to make the college accessible and help me feel comfortable, including completely re-landscaping the area in front of my building to give level access and putting a lift on the stairs into hall despite some fairly stiff opposition from English Heritage. The provision across different colleges seems incredibly varied, and there are plenty of potential improvements, although in general the University is pretty good.”
Indeed, provision for disabled students varies greatly across Oxford colleges. A number, such as Somerville, Queens and Balliol have disabilities representatives which work with JCRs to improve services and accessibility. Given the old age of most college buildings, adaptation is often hard, although a number of colleges have gone to considerable effort to improve their accessibility. For example, in 2005, Christ Church established a three-year plan in order to improve accessibility in the college. Access to Magdalen’s library is limited, something which is set to be addressed as the new library is currently in construction. Most colleges provide disabled accommodation for students with special needs.
In terms of accessibility to libraries, the Radcliffe Camera, a crucial library for History and English students, was not accessible to disabled students until this term, whilst plans for the New Bodleian Library intend to address accessibility issues. Ramped access to the English Faculty Library is enabled, although students on wheelchairs generally require assistance to access the reading room. Two passenger lifts are available to disabled students in the Music Faculty, whilst the Philosphy and Theology faculty library is fully accessible to wheelchair-users. Students with disabilities are entitled to special loan periods, assistance with finding books and are allowed to take a nominated person into the library with them. Guide dogs are also allowed into libraries and disabled students are permitted to eat and drink in all Bodleian Libraries.
The Accessible Resources Acquisition and Creation Unit (ARACU) create alternative formats for disabled students who cannot access printed materials.
However, the Bodleian Libraries online page detailing which libraries are accessible to disabled students has been offline all week, and when Cherwell approached staff in the Bodleian we found no printed material available.
Does Oxford take mental health seriously?
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Cherwell’s anonymous survey of disability provision at Oxford produced particularly negative feedback in relation to the provision of support for students with mental health issues.
One student wrote, “My illness made it necessary to intermit study for a year. During that time I have had no contact, support or counselling. Before intermission, the deterioration of my condition had a large negative impact on my work. Despite asking for additional help to catch up and provision to make it easier for me to fit my work around my illness, I have received no support. I believe there is a lack of respect for the serious nature of mental illness amongst university staff.”
Another student highlighted communication problems in university provision for disabled students, saying, “I think greater contact with students, possibly through holding information sessions — not only for freshers — at a college level, would be a great way to improve university provision for students suffering from mental disabilities.”
Mental health issues can be hard to address because they often go unreported; as one student highlighted, “I feel that I am not alone in having had issues which I did not feel I could approach someone about”.
Indeed, only eight out of 3233 successful applicants for 2012 entry declared a mental health related issue in their application, whilst seventy two declared a learning disability. This is in stark contrast to recent NUS statistics which suggest that up to twenty per cent of UK students suffer from mental health related problems.
Mind Your Head, OUSU’s campaign for helping students with mental health issues, aims to co-ordinate between colleges and the university, as well as holding information sessions for students suffering from mental health issues.
A spokesperson for the Mind your Head Campaign told Cherwell, “At Mind Your Head we feel that there are valuable resources available to those seeking help with mental health issues at Oxford, ranging from peer support to long term mental health monitoring.
“Despite this, there is still unnecessary and damaging stigma associated with mental illness. This stigma, especially with, but not limited to, college administration bodies may dissuade students from seeking help. We hope that by raising awareness the Mind Your Head campaign can help to tackle this.
“Our It Gets Brighter campaign collects and publishes short video testimonials documenting experiences of mental illness. By bringing people face to face with others who have experienced mental illness, the It Gets Brighter project aims to combat the stigma surrounding the issue.
“Our university campaign is working on a leaflet summarising help available to students and organises university-wide events and talks. The college campaign collects data about students’ experience with mental illness and liaises with colleges to help improve their welfare provision. We continue to maintain our website, which publishes ‘Student’s Stories,’ a collection of articles about student’s experiences with mental illness whilst at Oxford and has a comprehensive list of resources available to students.”
The University also provides a number of services for Oxford students with mental health issues. The Student Counselling Service is a free service which focuses on providing individual counselling sessions, although workshop sessions, group-counselling and self-help resources are also available . The point of the service is not merely to help students to get back to the libraries. The Counselling Service states on its website: “You can come to us with any problem […] whether specifically related to study or not.” They also employ a consultant psychiatrist, at the equivalent of full-time.
Another function of the Counselling Service is to provide training for the 250 ‘peer supporters’ in JCRs and MCRs. There is also specific training provided for the graduate medical school and the Said Business School.
Autism is not an obstacle to enjoying Oxford
I was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome, which is a condition on the autistic spectrum, when I was around the age of fourteen or fifteen. I remember the woman who diagnosed me saying to me and my dad that we should choose a few things – like learning to eat properly at the table, or dealing with major behavioural breakdowns – which we could work on and try to improve. The rest would stay the same, and there was no point trying to change everything because I was autistic. I still am, and I always will be.
She was right to say that I’ll always be autistic, and that will have certain consequences, many of them negative. But that doesn’t mean that I or my parents were ever going to let it define me. When I got to Oxford I expected the best and found the worst. I expected to be surrounded by people who were shy and quiet like me, and found some of the most confident people I’ve ever met. I expected to be able to easily get involved in societies, and found myself hiding in my room out of fear of meeting new people. From the moment I got here I wanted to be in the Labour Club. I turned up to one meeting, and despite meeting very friendly and chatty people, I spent the entire time judging myself, wondering if I was doing it right, questioning whether I was convincing people I was ‘normal.’ To this day, I haven’t been able to get involved in the society.
I spent four terms like this, in total anxiety, doing what I said I wouldn’t do, letting my Asperger’s define me. But in the Christmas vac of my second year I spoke to my parents about all of this, and they supported me wholeheartedly. I arranged to meet with a counsellor regularly and I got more and more support from the Disability Advisory Service, which I’d been registered with for the duration of my time in Oxford. I went to see the doctor who diagnosed me with an anxiety disorder and gave me relevant medication. But most importantly, I got involved in things. I met people through doing plays, through RAG, through rowing, through feminism, through LGBTQ campaigning. And all of these aspects of Oxford changed me. It stopped me being defined by my Asperger’s. It made me go and meet people from my college, people from other years and other social groups. It prompted me to start going to breakfasts and dinners in college – in my first year, I never dared to set foot in the dining hall without a close friend by my side.
I always will be autistic and I am right now. But there is so much potential in every autistic person, and I’m so proud of what I’ve got out of my time at university. I know what it’s like to feel like everything is shit. I know what it’s like to feel ignored, side-lined, left out, lonely. But every single student here is fantastic and has so much to offer a brilliant institution, and everyone deserves welfare support and the chance to succeed, particularly vulnerable students with disabilities like my own. Having a disability at Oxford is really, really tough. It’s also turned out to be really fucking amazing.
Preview: Chicago
Not only is the Fools & Kings Theatreproduction of Broadway legend Chicago one of the first instances of the musical being re-appropriated by non-professionals, it looks to be a fantastic adaptation of Watkins’ original play, and a rollicking ride for the audience. It will be performed in traverse, with the audience sat either side of a stage we are told will have moving platforms, and its running time should be under two hours.
The complete cast began by running through a couple of their warm-up routines, which, although clearly not part of the musical, served to show the troupe’s high levels of enthusiasm, and the choreographer’s vitality (turning around during “Cell Block Tango”, I saw Skingsley gripping her knees, miming out the moves and nodding through the cadences with fervent intensity).
The first piece per se was perhaps one of their more perfected ones: “Class” is the duo between an irate Velma and an indignant Matron Mama Morton who, as they listen to the radio broadcast of Roxy’s trial, lament the degradation of the morals and ethics in the show business of Prohibition-era Chicago. Josie Richardson, who plays Velma, stalked onto stage like she already owned the place, and her clear, almost faultless voice blended well with Big Mama’s suitably mellow twang (Florence Brady). Brady’s easy, seen-it-all attitude did not fall into dramatic complaisance, however: both Brady and Richardson kept the comical tempo and the scene’s energy up, and sailed through the harmonies and canons.
The second number presented was “Roxie”. Georgina Hellier, playing the song’s eponymous heroine, combined her impressive physique and her throaty voice – with particular praise for her powerful vibrato – to create just the kind of self-conscious sex appeal one would imagine the aspiring showgirl to display, artfully bordering on simpering self-indulgence. Nonetheless, this is a relatively private moment, an insight into what populates the landscape of Roxie’s desires. Which conveniently leads me to the quattuor of male performers (Lecznar, Woodman, Nicols, and Bland) embodying Roxie’s fantasies of fame and sexual gratification. These guys are great (albeit not always in tune), dishing out the hip-pops and the lingering caresses in unison, amusingly over-the-top but by no means a mere accompaniment.
Their penultimate number was the infamous “Cell Block Tango”. Katherine Skingsley, a decidedly excellent choreographer, made ingenious use of space, replicating the traverse effect on stage, with the dancers either end of the stage, and each Merry Murderess consecutively in the centre. Despite their missing a few cues, and Melissa Varney’s Hunyak unfortunately amalgamating helplessness with soundlessness (her singing and dancing were otherwise fine), their performance was definitely promising. And if they haven’t quite reached the viciousness of the song’s musical pulse yet, sometimes overstraining their voices to compensate, the six Merry Murderesses are genuinely at their best when they work as an ensemble. As for the choreography, I was informed there would be the obligatory poles and a ladder, but from what I could see it was simply and effectively symbolic, making great use of diagonals and group effects of symmetry. A special mention should be made for Richardson, really coming forth as the Cell Block’s compact powerhouse, and for Leonie Ricks, who plays June (unforgettably “carving up a chicken for dinner”) and whose staggering bodily confidence and brilliant vocal hoarseness fuse into a rough, eminently appropriate sex appeal.
The last piece was “Nowadays”: Roxie and Velma have just buried the hatchet, and decide to collaborate their way towards glamorous glory. It’s a duo act which Jack Sain, the production’s wonderfully punctilious (and on-point) director, immediately presented as being very much unfinished. This was the first time it was put together, and its status as work in progress was unfortunately manifest. Richardson and Hellier were uncharacteristically subdued, nervously unsure of their cues and dance moves, and repeatedly out of sync. Hopefully, by the time the two leading ladies find their feet, “Nowadays” will be as energetic and convincing as Chicago’s other numbers.
Afterwards, I asked the director Jack Sain whether he felt there was tension between the production’s emphasis on “feminist interpretations” of its central characters, and its concurrent aesthetic bias for a return to the “the colour and vaudeville” of Chicago’s theatrical source. Didn’t he find it contradictory to use this highly stylised, self-professedly farcical form (the Press Pack dubs the show a “gaudy satire”) as a means of exploring the rather more serious feminist implications behind its murky plot? “I see there is a tension, but multiplicity of genre is natural in theatre. We wanted to use the gaudiness and the unrealism as a dramatic means of apprehending the horror behind it all.” For her part, choreographer Katherine Skingsley confessed that her one of her pet peeves with the staging and dancing of many past productions has been the compulsory presence of “fishnets and big sexy splits” for songs like “Cell Block Tango”. She explained that she meant to focus far more on the songs as spaces of “empowerment” in which their performers, exploited and abused, were the agents of a “female coming together”. And whether or not one reads such feminist potential in Chicago’s deliciously satiric storyline, the fact is that this is a troupe whose brilliancy lies in their unison: the best and most powerful moments in the preview were the duos, the quattuors, the ensembles.
All in all this is already a seriously impressive production, with ambitious choreographing, superb (if at times a little uneven) singing, and a great, driven cast. The Oxford drama scene could do more with more musicals, and I have no doubt that under Sain’s demanding, finely tuned direction, Chicago will unfold into a memorably fabulous performance.
Chicago is on at the O’Reilly Theatre from 20-23rd of November. Tickets are £8.50-£10
Review: The Hypochondriac
Delving into the longstanding theatrical tradition of a man’s affinity for having his stool checked, The Hypochondriac was truly hilarious. Set in 17th century France – though everyone’s a cockney who likes “a bit o’vino” – it is a farce about doctors, self-obsession, and a good enema.
The lead part, Argan, played by Kieran Ahern, was a fool in the classic sense. His quest to be overcome by his mortality was not only the heart of the narrative, but a source of endless laughter. Perhaps the funniest part of this misguided obsession involved a hoover being placed in and torn out of his anus several times. Ahern gave a suitable expression.
Alongside him, the chamber maid Toinette (Georgia Bruce) savaged her employer’s folly with quick wit and a fine beard. A standout moment came in her disarming a suitor for Argan’s daughter with a speech on the reign of Louis XIV. Rambling, bizarre, and hilarious, it culminated in a bow to the Sun King himself, who had been sitting in the back row all along.
The rest of the cast put in similarly strong performances. Angelique and Cleante, Alice Sandleson and Keelan Kember, performed an ad hoc opera filled with witty pauses and an obsession with all things rhyming with ‘o’, such as ‘I love yo.’ Thomas, Cameron Abery, mastered the art of playing a moron and dancing like the Skull Kind in Majora’s Mask – an N64 title I highly recommend.
The show’s villains – doctors and a scheming trophy wife – were also entertaining. The sycophantic Dr Diafoirerhoea (Barney Fishwick) dispensed wonderfully inane medical advice and genuflected in a manner both funny and acrobatic (seriously, the bow was crazy). Elsewhere, Dr Purgon (Jamie Biondi) channelled the fury of Daniel Day-Lewis by dry humping his supine and weeping patient.
At times, the humour went awry. Some jokes fell flat, and there was a tendency to get a bit too self-referential, but, on the whole, wit won the day. In the end, the asides of Toinette, groans of Argan, and head-lolling of Thomas were too charming to pass over.
The climax of the play was its finest moment, though. A mixture of singing, declining Latin verbs, and more Majora’s Mask dancing created a surreal and hysterical final act. Praise must go to the director, Charlotte Fraser, for staging this medley of insanity, as well as the angular knee movements of all involved.
Witty, farcical and mad, The Hypochondriac was a sheer delight.
The Hypochondriac will be playing each evening at the Keble O’Reilly at 19:30 until Saturday 16th November; tickets are available here
Freddy the Fresher: Part Five
‘Hmmm…’ he pauses, scowling over his pince-nez. ‘Hmmm…no…hmmm…’, he finally looks up, ‘not at all up to scratch Frederick. Sloppily written, hardly any secondary reading – If I wanted to read a Wikipedia article then I’d do just that. You’re an Oxford undergraduate, you need to be doing much better than this.’
He shakes the essay in Freddy’s face. The stupid words seem to jump straight out at Freddy’s stupid face. ‘I expect you to write something exceptional next week, or I’ll have to have a word with the Senior Tutor…’
Walking out of his tutorial, onto freezing cold Turl Street, Freddy can’t help but despair. After a solid week of euphoric sex and toe-tapping manliness, he’s finally back down to Earth. He’s going to fail his degree, get kicked out and Bernadette won’t wait for him – he’ll be off to UCL and she’ll be hooking up with some rugby playing misogynist before you can say ‘Fuck Freddy!’
No, this is her fault. She’s been distracting me from my work, he thinks, kicking a Missing Bean coffee cup into the gutter. If it hadn’t been for her I’d be a political theory wunderkind! I’d be the wet dream alumnus of all special measures headmasters! I am Freddy, hear me roar!
‘How was your tute?’, says the voice on the other end of his phone. ‘Fine,’ he lies, stepping out onto the High Street, ‘you know, pretty standard. PPE’s a bit of a doss.’ She voices her agreement, ‘Yeah, my tutor totally lapped up my last essay- gave me a 72 and I only spent like a day on it.’
Good for you Bernadette. Good for you and your eff ortless success. Good for you and your pretence of not giving a shit whilst secretly studying like a serial killer.
I think you’re fantastic and clever and sexy, but if you continue to succeed whilst I fail hopelessly then I’m going to burn down this entire city.
‘Well done baby!’ is all that he actually says.
‘Are you coming over tonight?’ she asks.
Guiltily, he looks down at the stack of books that he has to read and, sitting on top of them, his latest essay. The ‘48’ glares up at him like a little cock-blocking psychopath. He needs to work; he has to do better; he has to study harder.
‘Sure, what time?’
St Hugh’s JCR condemns "sexist" drinking society
A number of invitations were sent out this week inviting a select group of students at the college on a pub crawl, to take place on Friday evening.
Women taking part in the event were instructed to ‘pass the following obstacles’, including a set drink to consume at a number of different pubs, with ‘huntsmen in pursuit’ in order to ‘evade mauling’, according to the invite.
The participants were set to head ‘towards Wahoo foxhole’ before the foxes would be subject to ‘eventual capture by the huntsmen.’ ‘Ladies’ attending the event were instructed to dress up as ‘foxes’ while men were told to come in ‘hunting attire’.
The JCR motion, which was passed in a meeting this evening by a significant show of hands, mandated the JCR to issue ‘a formal statement of dissociation from, and condemnation of, the Black Cygnets.’
Carenza Harvey, the fresher who proposed the motion at the JCR meeting, commented, “I decided to propose this motion because I and many others at St Hugh’s felt that language used in the invitations sent out by the Black Cygnets and indeed the very premise of the ‘Fox Hunt’ is offensive and inherently sexist. Suggesting that female attendees should have to avoid ‘mauling’ and that the end of the night would lead to their ‘eventual capture’ is distressing and degrading for everyone involved – both for those who were invited and for those who were made to feel inadequate having not been invited.
“I am certain that the vast majority of students at St Hugh’s College are staunchly opposed to this event; many of them over many years have already made clear their absolute disgust at the ‘Fox Hunt’. We know that organisations like the Black Cygnets are not exclusive to St Hugh’s but, by taking a stand, we hope to convey the message that this college will absolutely not accept this kind of misogyny.”
She added, “While a topic like this inevitably sparks debate on many levels, other JCR members have all been incredibly supportive and positive about the action that myself and others have taken thus far. I have been hugely enthused by the amount of encouragement that has been directed towards myself and the motion in general. I feel it is true to say that sexism and prejudice is very much in the minority here.
“I definitely think that similar societies have been allowed to exist and get away with their actions for too long. It is appalling that this sort of behaviour can still take place in a university which is supposed to be a centre of learning and progression – it is this sort of conduct which gives the university a bad name and perpetuates the negative stereotypes already surrounding Oxford.”
However, not everyone associated with the college has agreed with the motion. The author of the ‘St Hugh’s Freshers’ twitter feed tweeted earlier today, “Aside from the content of the Emergency Meeting Agenda, it is ridiculous that it is littered with basic grammatical and syntactic mistakes.” Later this afternoon, the twitter feed poster said, “Does anyone fancy a light pub crawl before Wahoo this Friday?”
In a statement, the Principal of St Hugh’s College, the Rt Hon Dame Elish Angiolini DBE QC, said, “This College was founded to secure equality for women, and has a strong and continuing tradition of furthering the cause of women’s rights and education. We are utterly appalled that any member of our community would consider belonging to, or participating in, this repugnant, sexist and secretive group. This group is already banned from our College and is treated with contempt by the overwhelming majority of St Hugh’s students. Any student involved in the distribution of material of this kind, or participation in any of this group’s activities, will be subject to the College’s disciplinary procedures.”
Tim Ellis, a third year at St Hugh’s, told Cherwell, “The black cygnets are an embarrassment to St Hugh’s, and I think they’re frankly a bit pathetic, if I’m to be honest. It is absolutely right for the JCR to condemn this.”
Another St Hugh’s student, Thea Bradbury, said, “I imagine that the vast majority of the JCR will be in support of the motion; very few people I’ve spoken to see the Black Cygnets as anything other than disgusting and unacceptable. While there are a few people saying that it’s relatively harmless fun, they’re very much in the minority. The reaction seems to be much the same as last year: people are upset that the society exists, but don’t really know what to do about it as it has already been banned by college for the past five years and has very little support among the student body. Many people are aware who the members of the society are, but the only formal sanction that we can take is to disassociate ourselves from them; there’s no way to actually force them to disband…I feel that a united movement of JCRs opposing them would be a step in the right direction.”
Another St Hugh’s student, Charlie Hempstead, told Cherwell, “The emergency meeting allowed for constructive debate on both sides without derogatory name-calling or a witch-hunt breaking out, despite this being such an emotive issue. I personally am proud to be part of a college which has chosen to take a stand against an objectionable and sexist event.”
OUSU Elections: Policies and Politics
Having come under fire from all three slates for my first round of analysis, it’s time to step back and look at the policies and politics of the different slates that you can vote for in the 2013 OUSU elections.
Jane4Change
Jane4Change are the only slate to have gone with a really bold central policy. I use the word ‘bold’ because a centralised student hub hasn’t exactly been on people’s lips of late. Cahill’s manifesto talks of fostering a closer relationship with students – ‘something you can use, not just something that delivers services to you’ – but it remains to be seen whether the student body is sufficiently interested in this central policy.
Cahill and James Blythe have also put a lot of emphasis on academic feedback, which seems to be a perennial promise that doesn’t get enacted. Ultimately, these policies require a president who will take a tough stance with the university, as well as sabbatical officers who are willing to be outspoken on their committees. Placating the points that get raised by the student barometer is probably more a matter of vote engineering than genuine policy concerns.
Jane4Change is the de facto OULC slate, though there are a number of Labour supporters on other teams. The last couple of years have seen mixed levels of success for the OULC teams: David Railton lost out to DJT’s grad campaign (which, for what is worth, was also ‘Labor’ in the Australian sense), but Tom Rutland swept to victory last year. Their politics don’t seem to particularly bleed into their policies, though their agents (Helena Dollimore, Henry Zeffman and Will Brown) will be banking on getting the OULC faithful out in numbers. That said, Jane4Change seems to be setting out as the most ‘centre’ of recent OULC campaigns.
Reclaim OUSU
Reclaim OUSU represent a fascinating departure from the standard far-left slate. For a campaign that has branded itself ‘for students, not student politicians’, the far-left campaign seems to, finally, be understanding student politics. Akehurst is a proper student politician and only sits outside of the perceived ‘OUSU elite’ because of his more radical political stance. You only need to look at the Reclaim OUSU website and its cheesily posed-for photos to realise that Akehurst, and his extremely dedicated team of supporters, are tying to make a proper go of this ‘student union’ thing.
The ‘big’ policy of Reclaim OUSU seems to be the redemocratization of OUSU. In a way, this is an even bolder policy than Jane4Change’s student hub, because it relies upon students actively desiring an even greater level of involvement with their student union. Given that only a handful of the Reclaim OUSU team are even OUSU council regulars, I do wonder why they think there is an appetite for more consistent involvement in student democracy. Still, at least there is a clear policy change at the heart of their movement, and it, to some extent, justifies the ‘reclaim’ tag.
The politics of the campaign sit in the classic far-left position. The slate last year was pretty minimal, though Emily Cousens managed to scoop up an NUS delegate position. This year, however, their organised and have put out three sabbatical candidates and a stack of part-time exec and NUS delegates. As a result, they’ve had to soften their hardline stance a bit because they now have to present realistic manifestos on the off chance that one of them is actually elected to a prominent position.
Team Alex
Of all the teams, in all the gin joints, in all the world, Team Alex is the one with the least discernible policy position. Bartram’s main policies seem to be ‘feedback’ (that old chestnut), ‘gym facilities’, and the general spiel about fees, accommodation charges and access. With Bartram, unlike Cahill and Akehurst, there seems to be some confusion about his motives for running- he’s a very able and popular JCR President, but there’s little in terms of policy or track record that suggests a particular interest in the myriad failings of our student union.
Team Alex’s sabbatical officers are both perfectly plausible candidates, though, once again, there seems to be a question about why they’re running. Pike is the Teddy Hall welfare rep but seems to be quite a divisive character, perhaps more than his sole opponent, Andrew Rogers. The Corpus JCR President Trish Stephenson is running for VP Women but she’s going to struggle to justify her decision to line with Team Alex for a traditionally independent role, especially up against the WomCam supported Anna Bradshaw.
One suspects that, in a slightly altered version of our university, Team Alex would be a totally plausible OULC slate. They certainly don’t seem to have the Tory vibe of Team Westbury and their part-time exec, NUS and student trustee candidate seem quite diverse, and include the co-chair of the Oxford University Liberal Democrats. A comparison to Nick Clegg’s ineffectual third party doesn’t seem completely implausible.
Analysis will continue throughout the election period. Get in touch by tweeting @Cherwell_Online or using the hashtag #cherwellousu