Exeter College is currently undergoing negotiations with its students about a rise in rent costs which could amount to an increase of 3.5% per year.
The proposal for the increase was put forward at a meeting in college on May 14th, and was initially rejected. On Sunday the college held a JCR meeting, which included a Q&A session with the Rector and the bursar, allowing students to voice their concerns about the proposal.
The suggested rise is due to “a large deficit in Exeter’s student accommodation,” said Exeter JCR secretary Chris Penny.
Penny said that College’s initial plans to raise fees “would take the rent up to £1,600 per term, which is much higher than the student loan. This would mean that students would have to find £800 from sources other than the student loan, and would have to cut costs significantly.”
The lowest tier of student maintenance loan is currently around £3,600 per year, meaning that some students would have to find an extra £1,200 per year to cover the cost of accomodation alone.
David Thomas, a second-year student at Exeter, said that currently, “there is nothing more than speculation; any figures that have been named are just suggestions.”
Frances Cairncross, Exeter College Rector, confirmed that the rent rise “will not exceed 3.5% in the coming year.”
Explaining the decision to increase the cost of rent, Ms Cairncross said the College would prefer to concentrate resources “on providing excellent teaching and on giving targeted help to students in financial hardship”.
She says that the Exeter currently subsidises rent across the board for all students who live in college.
“For those students who genuinely cannot afford their rent or other essential living expenses, the first recourse is help from the bursaries that the University provides (which are the most generous in the country). In addition, Exeter has substantial hardship funds.”
Yet Penny said that, “if they put up rents, the hardship funds would not be sufficient for the entire student body affected by this.”
Although Penny says that the college is “reluctant” to cut costs to services, he believes that “the message that students cannot afford to pay that much is starting to get through to the College.”
“We are in negotiations and haven’t decided on a figure yet,” says Katy Moe, Exeter JCR President, “but we’re looking to get a good deal for both the JCR and the College.”

All Souls College has announced that it is to abolish its traditional one-word entrance exam.
 In previous years, prospective entrants to the fellows-only College have had to sit a three-hour exam comprising solely a paper written on the subject of a single word. Words in the past have included ‘water’, ‘bias’, and ‘miracles’.
 The highly selective college, which admits only one or two new members per year, has scrapped the famous paper. The final decision was made by a majority of the 75 fellows at a College meeting last December.
 Sir John Vickers, Warden of All Souls, told Cherwell that in recent years the one-word exam has not proved particularly useful in determining candidate selection.
According to Sir Vickers, fellows felt the remaining four papers comprising the entrance process created a better balance between general and subject-specific topics, and that the one-word essay had run its course.
It is not without some sadness that the essay will be scrapped. The one-word essay was considered an important rite of passage for many All Souls fellows.
Robin Briggs, a retired fellow of All Souls, sat for the exam in 1964, when the title was “Innocence”. However, Briggs believes that it was the essays in the specific subject of history which were the real basis for his election as a fellow.
 Briggs said he agrees with the decision to get rid of the one-word question and had argued in favour of it in the past, on the grounds that this particular question paper, one of the five given to each candidate, “rarely seemed to play a significant role in the final choice”.
 Speaking of the fellows’ decision, he said “I cannot possibly know why individuals voted as they did, but it does reflect the discussions by both the examiners and the college as a whole.”
 Elizabeth Chatterjee, one of All Souls’ newest fellows, said that the one-word paper had a “mythical status”. She and her fellow examinees in 2008 were assigned “Novelty”.

Bishop Fox, the Corpus Christi College tortoise, was declared the winner of the 2010 Tortoise Race on his home turf on Sunday.
The President of Corpus Christi College, Professor David Carwardine, was in high spirits despite the inclement weather last Sunday afternoon.
“I am, of course, delighted that Fox utterly outstripped his rivals,” said Carwardine. “I put it down to the qualities that have always been associated with Corpus: determination, commitment, plenty of sleep, a good diet, a little alcohol, and the threat of rustication for failure.”
Jan Willem Scholten, the Tortoise Keeper of Corpus, said that he hoped Bishop Fox’s success would increase his confidence, because “Fox’s sexual performance has not been up to scratch recently.”
Not only did Bishop Fox manage to beat seven tortoise competitors, he also thrashed his two human rivals too. Laurie Blair, a first-year student, was standing in for Oscar, the JCR Tortoise of Magdalen College. Blair also lost to his human counterpart at Balliol.
“I had always expected that the race would be tampered with, and I absolutely suspect foul play. We’ve heard reports of performance enhancing vegetables being used by the opposition”, he said.
The human competitors were handicapped by having to consume an entire lettuce before they could start running, described by Blair as “crunchy and delicious.” William Kelley, a second-year historian at St Johns, said, “Jan Willem pulled off a marvellous coup in organising such a successful race despite the rain.”
The afternoon was not without its controversy, however. The battle for second place threatened to turn nasty when Regent’s Park’s tortoise, Emmanuel, was awarded the silver medal ahead of Will Chamberlain’s own tortoise, James Bond. Chamberlain told Cherwell, “James Bond definitely won. Ask anyone.”
All the money raised went towards Maria Veliko’s Bulgarian Orphanage and Oxford Aid to the Balkans.

Oxford Catholics have voiced their concern after it was revealed that tickets for the upcoming play ‘Antigone’ wil include a discount on sex toys and pornography from ‘The Private Shop’ on Cowley Road.
‘Antigone’ is due to be performed this Sunday evening at The Cellar, which has never hosted play productions before.
There are rumours that drugs will also be circulating during performances, although director Jess Edwards stressed that the production team will be upholding the Cellar’s strict drugs policy at all times.
Edwards said that the prospect of an S&M show in Oxford had been met with excitement by students.
“What we wanted to do was sell sherbet and sweets that look like drugs, or herbal legal drugs, but apparently even selling talcum powder advertised as cocaine is still illegal.
“The Cellar was very clear in saying no to our idea, but I guess by putting [the play on] in a club we are running a certain risk in this respect”.
Patrick Milner, a prominent member of the University’s Catholic community, was left unimpressed by the production’s marketing.
He said, “I think it’s rather sad if student dramatics are forced to revert to sex, drink and drugs to attract people to performances; the producer can’t have much confidence in the acting ability of the cast. Each can be obtained in abundance through easier channels. It’s all rather embarrassing to be honest.”
Newman Society President Hubert MacGreevey told Cherwell, “I was aware that there was going to be a performance of Antigone coming up, but not that it was going to be a sex-fest spectacular.
“As a practising Catholic, I don’t approve of any aggressive promotion of sexual promiscuity. But let’s be honest: [we know] what lengths undergraduates will go to in order to make a splash and to receive lots of attention from their peers.”
Edwards admitted that using a sex shop discount was a marketing ploy rather than an artistic decision. She described it as “camp, amusing and experimental”, but not intended to cause offence.
The performance is billed as ‘the closest a party can get to a play’ with a live DJ, strobe lighting and shot girls. The actors will move amongst audience members.
The Oxford version of Antione describes itself as a ‘highly sexualised production with a sadomasochism costume theme’.
The production team claim that their version of the play is a “visual way to bring out the excess of Greek tragedy, frightening and relevant to a modern audience”.

The level of noise from revellers attending the Rhodes House Ball on the 15th May has angered finalists at St John’s College.

Jason Keen, finalist at St John’s, updated his Facebook status with, “Jason Keen can’t hear himself think through all the jazz music blaring over from Rhodes House Ball – clearly ear plugs must be included in the ticket price.” Remarks from other students showed they shared his anger. 
The ball, just under half a mile away from the St John’s site. included a string quartet and a live jazz band.
 
The Registrar of Rhodes House, Ms Mary Eaton, was adamant that they “followed all the correct proceedings laid down by the council”, including applying for a licence to have amplified music outside, and monitoring the decibel level throughout the night to ensure they did not exceed acceptable limits. 

However students at St John’s feel that the noise pollution was at an anti-social level and disrupted their studies. 

The Same-Sex Hand-Holding event hosted by OUSU and RAG on Valentine’s Day this year in has been short listed in Event of the Year Category for the NUS Lesbian Gay Bisexual and Trans Awards 2010.

 On 14th February, the organisers of ‘SSHH’ marshalled over 100 people to hold hands in same-sex pairings, creating a chain which was almost long enough to encircle the entire Radcliffe Camera. The stunt was inspired by national project, ‘A Day in the Hand’, which aims to encourage acceptance for same-sex couples holding hands in public. 

 OUSU LGBT Officer Jasper Minton-Taylor commented during the activity that he hoped to foster “a sense of community, a sense of friendship, a sense of acceptance.”
 The event was run as part of Oxford’s Queer History month, is one of four activities to be short listed.

Every year reports emerge about the difference in results between male and female Finalists. However, a survey has uncovered worrying ambivalence among students at Oxford towards the notorious ‘Finals Gap’.

Research has revealed that a significant gender gap exists in Finals results in six out of the twelve main subjects at Oxford. These subjects are English, History, Classics, Philosophy, Maths and Physics. Women have not once outperformed men in English, History or PPE between 1996 and 2008.

There are only three British universities with a larger and more persistent gender gap: Bristol, Imperial and Warwick.

Yet in a survey completed by over 250 students, only 50% considered that the gender gap was a problem that should be addressed by the examining board. Many students seemed to be completely unaware that there even was a gender gap in Finals results.

The University pledged to initiate research into the issue over twenty years ago and take action as appropriate, but the reasons behind the gender gap have proved difficult to ascertain.

Oxford’s future Pro-Vice Chancellor for Equality, Dr Sally Mapstone, is currently chairing an investigation into the gender gap in English Finals results, one of the several subjects to have been examined.

When asked to comment on project’s progress, Dr Mapstone said that she could not comment on reasons for the Finals Gap, as her research was still in progress.
Psychologist Dr Jane Mellanby has been carrying out extensive research on the gender gap for over a decade. She was commissioned by the English faculty in 2004 to conduct a comprehensive annual analysis of examiner attitudes and marking profiles.

She stressed that the gender gap is specific to certain subjects and is “not a general phenomenon”. In 1997 she conducted intelligence tests on more than 230 students about to sit their Finals, and demonstrated that there was no intrinsic difference between the sexes’ abilities.

Disparities in Finals results between the sexes have greatly decreased over the last twenty years in some subject areas such as the Biological Sciences, Engineering, Geography, Law and Modern Languages.

“There wouldn’t be such a great change [in results] if the cause was genetic”, said Dr Ann Dowker, a fellow researcher in the Psychology Department.

Cultivating the idea that the problem was genetic might in fact adversely affect women’s performance in exams, and unconsciously prejudice the examiners. Only 26% of students taking part in the survey dismissed the possibility that there might be examiner bias.

According to Mellanby, the most likely explanation for the gender gap is “Stereotype Threat”, a disruptive concern, when facing a negative stereotype, that an individual will be evaluated on that stereotype.

For instance, if a group of women are told that men have greater mathematical abilities, men are likely to outperform those women in subsequent tests. Women’s performance also has been shown to decline, according to research at Brown University in 2000, as the proportion of men in the exam room increases. Men’s maths performance, on the other hand, remained stable in every combination of proportions of men to women.

61.1% of students taking the survey believed that men do better in Finals because they are better at risk-taking. Dr Diane Purkiss, English tutor at Keble College, said, “Nobody on the working party likes to admit it, but girls who like to do confident and slightly careless arguments are truly unusual. But that is what the 50-minute essay is all about. It’s all about being bolshie. Fight ‘em. Bite ‘em.”

Many other theories have been disproved by research, among them that men are more intelligent because they have bigger brains, and that pre-menstrual syndrome might cause a woman to drop one point on the Norrington score.

When asked to comment in the survey, students often attributed the gender gap to men’s greater “variability”, pointing out correctly that men are more likely to get Firsts, but that they are also more likely to get 2.2s and Thirds.

However, in the period 2005 to 2008, only 9.4% of Finals results were 2.2s or Thirds, with a difference of 2.75% between men and women, compared with the 30% of men and 22.5% of women to achieve Firsts. The proportion of Thirds (2.2% in 2005-2008) and 2.2s handed out is too small to draw a reliable conclusion.

Several students suggested that women’s tendency to be more anxious might be detrimental to their results, but Dr Mellanby’s research shows that the more anxious women are, the more likely they are to achieve better grades. With men, there is absolutely no correlation between anxiety and exam performance.

Men are far more accurate in the estimation of their own abilities. Of the men who expected to get a First at the end of their course, 70% were proved correct. Only 55% of the women were similarly successful.

Dr Mellanby also emphasized how important it is that students are properly instructed how to cope with revision strategies and “organize their work”.

Oxford University Labour Club has unveiled a grand plan to “Reunite the Liberal Left” by persuading disaffected Lib-Dem voters to switch sides.

Starting last weekend, 370 hand-addressed letters were sent to a list of students culled from a Lib-Dem facebook group.

The letter says, “The decision to ally with the Conservatives…has elevated the forces of conservatism and destroyed the Liberal Democrats’ credibility. A party that supports a government with more homophobes in the Cabinet than women or ethnic minorities can longer claim the mantle of ‘progressive’.

“A party that supports a cap on immigration has forfeited its claim to be a compassionate party. And a party that will not oppose tax breaks for the married is not fit to call itself liberal”.

Students are warned, “The Liberal Democrats will be finished as a credible progressive force for generations. The proud tradition of the liberal left should not be destroyed along with its party.”

The letter urges that “the proud tradition of the liberal left should not be destroyed along with its party.” It concludes with an invitation for students to become members of OULC at a half-price rate.

The letter is signed by Alistair Strathern and Stephen Bush, the OULC Chair and Chair-Elect, respectively. Bush is understood to have proposed the letter within OULC as a move to try and reunite the progressive parties in Oxford.

Bush explained his policy to Cherwell. “I’ve always believed that the loss of the SDP in the 80s when the Labour party split was a traged…I would have preferred a Lib-Lab coalition leading to the reconciliation of those two traditions…”

Bush said this campaign was “an opportunity for us to hold our hand out and say, ‘there are things we can learn from you, there are things you can learn from us, let’s reunite the left again’.”

The price of OULC membership has been slashed to ten pounds for the duration of next Michaelmas term. However, membership of the Oxford University Liberal Democrats (OULD) costs just £3, compared to OULC’s usual £20 life membership fee.

Andrew Lomas, a pharmacology DPhil student and Labour’s parliamentary candidate for Wycombe, supported OULC’s initiative. “I think it’s a great thing to do” he said. “It’s only fair to point out that the Lib-Dems have sold out the voters and give people on the progressive left a place to actually voice their opinions…£10 is a bargain when you’re talking about having a say in the future of the democratic Left.”

Leading Lib Dems were outraged at Labour’s tactics. OULD Campaigns Officer Emily Baxter said in a written statement:”OULC’s letter exhibits classic New Labour spin tactics. As they themselves acknowledge, numerous difficulties would have faced a Lib-Lab alliance. A ‘Rainbow Coalition’ was simply not viable… I hope that students will recognise this and not buy into OULC’s cheap and cynical offer. OULD campaigned tirelessly against Labour at the General Election, with the support of many students, because we recognised Labour’s many failings over the last 13 years. That has not changed. Labour cannot now claim to be ‘the good guys’ simply by virtue of having gone into opposition.”

This sentiment was echoed more earthily by Lib-Dem grassroots activist Robin McGhee of St Anne’s College.
“The letter is sermonising in a rather twee and hypocritical way. The OULC, it would appear, are simply unable to comprehend the fact that they are not the only people with a moral backbone.

“Even OCA have one, albeit rather crippled by port-induced rheumatism. Labour are also unable to understand the difference between forming a tactical alliance with the Tories with the blessing of the party membership, as we have, and converting into the Tories against the wishes of their party, as New Labour did.”