Oxford’s most recently published accounts have shown a loss for the University for the first time in over twenty years.

The appointment of tutors, college funds and provision of lectures are now under close scrutiny, as the University decides how best to adapt for the financial loss coupled with a cut in government funding.

Before the donation of heritage assets, minority interest and transfer from accumulated endowment return are considered, the University recorded a deficit of £4.3 million for the financial year 2008/09.

No deficit has been seen at this stage in the University accounts since the financial year 1987/8.

Giles Kerr, University Finance Director, revealed how the University has suffered as a result of the global economic situation. “2008/9 was a year of unprecedented turmoil in financial markets, a very difficult period for investments and endowments generally. In that period, the endowment fund declined by 5.8 per cent and the capital fund by 3.9 per cent.”

He continued, “While those absolute returns are disappointing, when you put them in the context of global equity markets over the same period, they were much smaller declines than experienced by the markets generally.”

The University lost £14.7 million deposited in Icelandic banks last year. Last week Iceland’s parliament voted to hold a referendum on whether to repay depositors from Britain and the Netherlands who lost out when the Icesave bank collapsed in 2008. This came after the country’s president, Olaf Ragnar Grimsson, vetoed a bill authorising the repayment.

There is concern that the recession, coupled with impending cuts to university funding, is going to result in reduced funding in certain areas.

In December, Lord Mandelson announced that higher education funding was to be cut by £398m for 2010-11 compared with this year. As Cherwell reported last month, £10 million is due to be withdrawn from government funding to Oxford and Cambridge Universities.

Although the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) has not yet finalised its 2011-12 funding for Oxford, the University is braced for a tightening of its budget.

Lynn Hutton, Divisional Financial Controller of the Humanities division, told Cherwell that “any funding cuts are of great concern to the University.” She continued, “There is an £80m shortfall in public and fee funding for teaching each year, and a similar shortfall in the funding received for research compared to the full economic costs. Oxford makes up for this by transferring funding from other sources, and any further cuts to public funding are a cause of serious concern.

“Oxford will continue to exercise financial prudence maintain the strong financial position of the University during the global economic downturn, and will look to maximise efficiency and savings wherever possible. Any proposed new posts will be subject to careful scrutiny, and the University’s capital spending will tighten its focus.”

It is not yet clear how colleges themselves have performed financially over the past year, with their accounts not due to be published until later this term. It is expected, however, that they will have suffered along with the University.

David Palfreyman, the bursar of New College, and the director of the Oxford Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies, said that in the long run the tutorial system could be affected by funding cuts. Based on an estimate of a 10 per cent drop in funding in the short-term, students “won’t suddenly find [themselves] in tutorials of four.”

However, there would be need a need to balance the books, even if increased costs would be absorbed by colleges in the short-tem.

Currently nobody within the University is certain where the cuts are going to be felt the most. One History tutor believes that humanities subjects will be hit hardest, with the science departments much better insulated from the cutbacks, but not everyone is so sure.

Palfreyman said that although the situation was currently “delightfully vague”, with no confirmation of whether a reduction in funding would affect teaching, research or capital projects, there would probably be a seven-to-eight per cent cut in the funds a college has to teach its students.

He also expressed concern at the prospect of staff not being replaced. If a tutor were to leave a college, for whatever reason, then the financial situation could prevent a replacement being hired. In this regard, some colleges could simply be “unlucky”.

There is also some anxiety within the student body that funding cuts and reduced endowment income could impact on both the education Oxford can offer as well as other areas like grants and bursaries. There have been reports of some colleges already cutting back on expenditure, and there is a worry that students could be adversely affected.

St John’s have already started making cutbacks. The college may have the largest endowment of them all, as well as the second-highest income during 2007-08, but they are reducing the amount they spend in certain areas. Vacation grants, for example, are now limited to 21 days per year, where previously no limit existed.

At other colleges there have been reports of vacation residence being harder to acquire, as conference guests (who will pay higher accommodation fees) are given priority.

Olly Richards, a second-year History student, described his concern. “The fact that the jigsaw puzzle of university finance is coming apart piece by piece is the issue which concerns me the most today. Increasingly, the steady flow of money which used to ooze from central government is drying up and I am immensely concerned about how this could affect my education.

“Currently I have no lectures this term and I am puzzled as to where further cuts could come from. Moreover, cuts to the university funding as a whole could detract from the quality of tutor employed and result in students being taught by less experienced individuals.”

Alistair Strathern, a second-year PPE student, is concerned that decreasing revenue might affect the poorest the most. “Naturally I’m very concerned about cutbacks, particularly if they fall on the outreach and bursary schemes that are so vital in widening access to studying at Oxford.” 

Figures published by Oxford University have shown that black and ethnic minority students are underachieving in Finals.

In addition to demonstrating a continuation of Oxford’s age old gender gap, the 2008 breakdown reveals new and worrying patterns of underachievement related to both race and disability. According to the data, fewer black and minority ethnic (BME) students are reaching top grades. In 2008 only 84% of BME students achieved a first or upper second, compared to 93% of white candidates. Likewise, 29% of white students achieved a first, whilst only 9% of black students attained the highest classification.

This is the first time that the University has published a breakdown of the results for Final Honour Schools (Finals) which analyses not only the correlation between gender and achievement, but also examines the attainment of black, ethnic minority and disabled students.

The University maintains that this disparity in achievement is under annual review and emphasises that the gap is not as pronounced as that found nationally. Such comparisons with national statistics are hindered by the very small number of BME students studying at Oxford. Black and minority ethnic students constituted only 15.3% of the total Finals population for 2008, a figure which has prompted criticism of Oxford’s admissions process.

Commenting on the data, Matthew Tye, OUSU Officer for BME Students, stated: “Statistics never reveal a complete picture”, adding “the number of students from black and ethnic minority backgrounds is proportionally small at Oxford, but there are numerous campaigns and college schemes which have been and are doing important outreach work”.

Speaking specifically about the divergence in degree attainment, Tye stated “levels of academic support are exceptionally high at Oxford.” The National Student Survey (NSS) however, indicates that whilst 93% of Oxford’s white students agreed to being satisfied with their course, this was true for only 75% of black students and 88% of Asian undergraduates.

The University breakdown suggests that disabled students also fare badly. Less likely to achieve top grades than those with no known disability, 19% of disabled candidates graduated with a first, compared to 28% of non-disabled students.

However, Danielle Solomon, OUSU’s Officer for Students with Disabilities, highlighted the data’s simplified categorisation of candidates as ‘disabled’ or ‘no known disability’ and pointed out the small number of disabled students taking Finals. “Students with disabilities do not all fall under one umbrella, therefore expecting to find a single reason for the academic performances of students with SPL

Ds and students with hearing difficulties combined (for example) would be somewhat naive.”

The breakdown’s most in-depth analysis, reserved for gender, reveals the divide between the achievements of the sexes remains entrenched. In 2008, only 23% of women graduated with a first, compared to 31% of men. This pattern of relative female underachievement is an inexplicable reversal of national trends, where women are equal to or outperform men at all levels. Other than Cambridge, only three members of the Russell Group have shown significant female underperformance in the past five years.

Unsurprisingly, the statistics for the male-dominated division of MPLS (Maths, Physics and Life Sciences) demonstrates this divergence in attainment, with male candidates more successful in reaching top grades. Yet, even when well-represented, women continue to underperform. Of the total first class degrees awarded by Humanities subjects, only 44% went to women, despite female students making up over 50% of those studying within the division.

While elsewhere in the UK, research is now targeted at male underperformance, Oxbridge is struggling to understand why female undergraduates consistently buck the national trend.

OUSU has identified the often confrontational nature of the Oxbridge tutorial system, organising workshops designed to help students get the most out of this allegedly masculine teaching medium. Sally Mapstone, Chair of the English Faculty, commented: “In conjunction with the Education Committee and OUSU, English, along with other Faculties, also actively encourages initiatives such as study skills and finals forums.”

Some identify differences in exam and revision techniques as factors: an English student at Somerville said, “Perhaps males are merely better at withstanding exam pressure. Finals results are determined very heavily by exam performance.” Another finalist noted, “Girls I’ve known at Uni have been more focused on rote learning and being exact about their facts and figures, which fewer guys seem to work on as much.”

Academics are keen, however, to stress that the gender gap is by no means universal and that even within problem subjects such as PPE, English and History, variations are complex. There is a fear that the attention paid to gender equality issues could be counter-productive, causing clichéd and outdated arguments which may only reinforce incorrect suggestions that women cannot cope with intensive Oxford study.

Sally Mapstone, Pro-Vice Chancellor for Personnel and Equality commented, “work is ongoing and not completed, so it’s not possible, or indeed sensible at present to offer comment as to what might be the reasons for possible underperformance by female candidates.”

It is hoped that disparities in achievement will be illuminated by future research, which will be conducted on a departmental level.

Two Oxford students were convicted of causing criminal damage against the Canadian High Commission in London.

Jake Colman, from St Peters, and Daniel Whitely, from University College, are participants in Thames Valley Climate Action.

The two students, along with Oxford resident Bradley Day, pleaded guilty to the charges. They were given Conditional Discharges, and were ordered to pay £50 in court costs each.

The Judge referred to the protesters as “Three principled young people acting on a course they believed to be important.”

The court heard that on the 15th of December, protestors cut loose the Canadian flag from the Canadian High Commission.

It was then alleged that Whitely super-glued himself to the balcony window, whilst Colman and Day defaced the flag.

The protesters stated that the action was in response to the actions of the Canadian government at the Copenhagen International Climate Summit. They accused Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper of acting in an obstructive manner in order to protect Canada’s Tar Sands Industry.

Tar Sands in Alberta, Canada is criticised by protesters for being highly polluting. Tar Sands has been accused of destroying areas of the Boreal forests and of producing toxic waste.

There have also been accusations that the Canadian government is not respecting the rights of indigenous people in the area.

During the Copenhagen summit, Clayton Thomas-Muller, an activist with the Indigenous Environmental Network stated, “The Canadian government continues to ignore its own laws, which state they must consult with Indigenous Peoples who have been trying to convey concerns about Tar Sands development. Tar Sands are killing our communities and trampling over our rights.”

One protester stated after the action: “This is just the beginning of a UK-based direct action campaign to stop Canadian Tar Sands… We won’t stand by and let these greed driven corporations cause catastrophic environmental and human destruction.”

A Romanian orphan born with no arms has won a place at Oxford.
When Cornel Hrisca-Munn was born, doctors gave him only days to live. Now, 18 years on, he has been offered a place at Keble College to read Theology & Philosophy.

Cornel’s acceptance at Oxford was an early birthday present for the 18-year-old, who received his letter the day before he came of age. He said: “It’s such a shock, I really can’t believe it, but I’m so excited.”

A spokesperson from the university commented, “We have had many students with disabilities who overcome many odds to study here. We are delighted to be able to offer Cornel a place at the university and believe he will be an asset to us.”

Born to Romanian parents in 1991, Cornel was placed in an orphanage where, aged 9 months, he was found by aid workers Ken and Doreen Munn. The couple fell in love with the baby boy who was born with no arms below the elbow, and one leg severely deformed.

They brought him to England for treatment, where he had his leg amputated and was fitted with artificial limbs. He was officially adopted in 1994 with the permission of his birth parents.

Cornel’s mother, Doreen, commented, “For Cornel to get into Oxford is such an achievement. I’m so proud of him.

‘’To come from Romania and overcome the mountain of struggles he’s been through, this is just fantastic.”

The university confirmed that he would not be the first student with congenital amputation to matriculate.

In 2008, Oxford was recorded as being home to 1,013 students classified as disabled, two-thirds of these being undergraduates. Success rates for disabled applicants compared to other applicants were actually higher in 2006 and 2007. However, it is still unusual for students with mobility difficulties like Cornel to be admitted. Only 56 such students currently study at the university. Oxford does endeavour to provide disabled students with as much help as possible, including voice recognition technology in the exam schools.

In 2005, The Cornel Trust was set up with the aim of funding a clinic in Romania for those born without limbs.

Cornel has visited his country of origin several times since to explore how to help others who have not been “blessed with the same opportunities” as him.
He hopes to continue working for charities when he has finished his degree.
Cornel is working towards 4 A levels – in sociology


, philosophy, English language and critical thinking – and is predicted 4 A stars.

While not studying or raising money for charity, Cornel is involved in music. He plays both drums and bass and is part of the band The City Walls who played their first gig in 2008.

Two Directors of the Student Loans Company have resigned after the massive delays in this year’s student loan payments.

Wallace Gray, director of IT, and Martin Herbert, director of marketing and customer service, both resigned from the SLC’s board after a damning report from an inquiry into the payment problems.

The inquiry, which was headed up by Professor Sir Deian Hopkin, stated that the SLC had shown a “conspicuous failure” to deliver the service. The inquiry blamed the failures on “management indecision and over-optimism”.

During the course of the inquiry, it was discovered that the board of the SLC had failed to take quick and appropriate action when the new computer system that was used to process applications failed. This led to staff having to manually input applications themselves.

The inquiry went further and stated that these technical difficulties were made even worse by the SLC’s ‘shut doors policy’ of not communicating, or engaging with, universities, Students Unions and the press about the problems they were having.

A student from St Hilda’s said “I was waiting over a month for my loan payment and had to go massively into my overdraft until it arrived.”

The Shadow Universities and Skills Secretary, David Willetts said, “This year’s student finance fiasco has been a disaster for students and a disaster for the reputation of ministers. The Government explicitly changed the system of student finance promising that it would be faster and more efficient. But in the first year of its operation the new system went into meltdown and ministers did not act despite warnings that serious problems were emerging.”

He further commented, “Ministers should hang their heads in shame, both for their serial failure and their attempt to pass the buck.”

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said that nobody was available for comment.

Meanwhile, the NUS has expressed surprise that the head of the SLC, Ralph Seymour-Jackson, has remained in place, stating, “it will be difficult for students and their families to view Ralph Seymour-Jackson as part of the solution rather than part of the problem.”

The SLC has responded, “We are determined to do whatever it takes to ensure processing and payments are faster next year, so that we can deliver the service that students and their parents have every right to expect. We would like to say sorry again to those customers who have been so let down by us over the last few months.”

It has been suggested that 28,000 students are still waiting to receive their loans and grants.

A lecturer has warned of university overcrowding, following a December announcement from Lord Mandelson that Higher Education funding is to be cut by £398m this year.

In a letter to the Higher Education Funding Council for England (Hefce) dated the 22nd December 2009, the business secretary declared the need to withdraw some £135m to meet the additional pressures caused by higher than anticipated numbers of students seeking support during the recession.

Sally Hunt, the general secretary of the University Lecturer’s Union, claimed this week that budget cuts would mean “some of the biggest class sizes in the world” by 2013, and also claimed that “the dreams of many hardworking parents for their kids to go to university…will be over”.

Together with £83m “efficiency savings” outlined in October 2008, universities will face a massive decrease in their funding as of this year.

To meet the cuts, £84m will come from the capital funding budget, designated for buildings and equipment, and a further £51m will be taken from university teaching.

Some universities will also face penalties where they have exceeded government caps on student recruitment.

Alongside these reductions, Mandelson pledged to maintain support for research funding, which will receive a £109m increase in funds.

In the letter to Hefce, Mandelson also outlined plans for more degrees to be completed over two years rather than the conventional three. He intends to use these shorter degrees to broaden university education so as to include more students. This, he believes, would create more Foundation and Fast-track degrees most appropriate for more vocational qualifications.

The Conservative Party has hit back at these money-saving schemes. Shadow universities and skills secretary, David Willets, criticised the cuts that Mandelson has put in place. The party has promised they would make 10,000 more university places available, should they be in power.

Oxford University also faces the withdrawal of additional funds, from an allocation shared with Cambridge University, amounting to around £10m between the two institutions.

David Palfreyman, Bursar of New College and director of the Oxford Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies warned that such cuts could threaten the tutorial system which makes the university so unique.

Palfreyman, who edited a paper on the Oxford Tutorial in 2008, said that it is “too early to tell exactly what [the funding cuts] mean” but he questioned whether small tutorial sizes would be sustainable when the Oxford-specific cuts combine with the nation-wide plans for funding withdrawal.

The most optimistic situation, he suggested, would see funding cuts avoid the crucial area of teaching. However, it is possible that teaching could face a 15 or 20 % cut.

He was quick to dispel the idea of Oxford adopting Mandelson’s proposals for more two-year degrees. “I can’t imagine us thinking about it,” he commented, citing the concentrated studying Oxford entails as reasoning for the inappropriateness of shorter degrees at the University.

Mandelson’s announcement has been met by renewed discussion of the issue of university funding across the Christmas period, including David Blanchflower’s calls for higher tuition fees for richer students. A government inquiry into tuition fees, chaired by the former BP chief Lord Browne, is already in progress.

Students have expressed their shock this week at OUCS’s decision to ban the popular music sharing website Spotify.

The University’s computing services, OUCS, attributed the ban to the excessive bandwidth that the program requires, especially when so many people are using it.

The decision has not gone down well with students. “I was shocked when I realised there was a total ban,” said Finola Holyoak, a first-year student at Lincoln.

Students were baffled when Spotify suddenly stopped working, and no explanation was sent out as to why such a popular site was banned. A second-year Economics and Management student describing it as “discrimination against music lovers… I hoped that it was a technical glitch, and that the university would be able to fix it. I never realised it was against the rules.”

The University website states that “…the unauthorised use of peer-to-peer resource-sharing software on machines connected to the Oxford University Network is prohibited.”

However, there are inconsistencies in the ban, as some students are still able to use Spotify in their colleges, whereas others cannot. In many colleges, students are able to access it via wireless, and in some it is even possible through the ethernet connection.

A second-year law student at Magdalen said, “plenty of my friends still use Spotify, and to be honest I can see nothing wrong with that – it’s not as if every single person is on it every single hour of the day.”

Another first-year music student argued that the site was a valuable research for his degree. “I use it loads. It’s the most comprehensive collection of classical music in one place. Much better than Naxos,” he said.

Spotify, although legal, falls into the category of a ‘peer-to-peer resource-sharing software’. This means that the music is not located in a central memory bank, but rather on each user’s computer and the software allows users to share their music libraries with all other users.

OUCS claims that the problem with allowing peer-to-peer software is that it requires an enormous bandwidth (the amount of data that can be sent and received on one connection).

OUCS explains that, “Bandwidth that seems insignificant for one user will soon add up when scaled up to the many thousands of users connected to Oxford University’s networks. It is one thing attempting to justify a network upgrade on the basis of a genuine academic requirement, such as the petabytes of data expected from CERN when their latest collider comes online.”

“Taxpayers and research councils tend to like to see their money being spent more wisely”, said one college IT Manager. He said that unlike a host of other sites which use up a lot of bandwidth, Spotify cannot be justified as being educational.

Dr. Stuart Lee, Director of Computing Systems and Support at OUCS, did not wish to comment.

Lincoln College MCR has voted to disaffiliate from OUSU.

A motion was presented at the General Meeting on the 23rd of November, and the MCR voted to disaffiliate with immediate effect.

Several reasons were given for the disaffiliation, “The financial aspect of OUSU is probably the most worrying, considering the lack of transparency in OSSL and the massive loss presented at the end of last year,” read a letter from the MCR to OUSU.

The letter further suggested that the salaries of the Sabbatical officers “should be reconsidered”.

The MCR noted “the importance of OUSU’s role in representing the students toward the University and that the current OUSU sabbatical team is taking steps in the right direction.”

Lincoln MCR expressed a hope that they would be able to reconsider their position towards OUSU in the future.

Thames Valley Police were videoed by a member of the public this week sledging on a riot shield. The film was taken off Berkely Road in Boars Hill, Oxford.

Supt Andy Murray commented, “The snow has a habit of bringing out the child in all of us.”

Using police equipment to play in the snow is against Thames Valley Police policy. However, the shield did prove an effective sledge, as one of the policemen demonstrates in the clip below.