Dame Eileen Atkins, DBE, is one of several famous figures to be given an honorary degree by Oxford this year. The star of numerous films, including Gosford Park and Cold Mountain, as well as hit TV show Upstairs, Downstairs and the BBC drama Cranford, is set to be given the degree of Doctor of Letters.

Professor Geoffrey Hill, one of the most distinguished poets of his generation, will also receive this honour. They are joined by Lord Sainsbury, a minister under Tony Blair and a major donator to the Labour Party, who receives a Degree of Doctor of Civil Law. Justice Stephen Breyer, an Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court, will receive the same degree.

In addition to this Professor Sir Ian Kershaw, Lord Weidenfeld and Professor Brigitte will also receive honorary degrees. All such degrees are subject to approval by Congregation and if passed will be awarded at Encaenia, the University’s annual honorary degree ceremony, on Wednesday 23 June 2010.

An online petition has been launched to save Oxford’s only Sikh temple. As Cherwell reported last week, the temple has been told to close due to irregularities with planning permission and the fact that the building was not designated as a place of worship. However, there was opposition to this decision due to the fact that it would leave Sikhs in Oxford with no place to worship.

The petition, started by Oxford University Sikh Society, states “we kindly request Oxford’s Council allow 69 Cherwell Drive to be run as a Sikh place of worship.” Sikh Society aim to present the petition to Oxford City Council as part of their efforts to prevent the closure of the Gurdwara. 

To view the full petition see: http://www.gopetition.co.uk/online/33821.html

Oxford is still lagging behind other UK universities in the recruitment of students from ethnic minority backgrounds.

A Race for Opportunity report from 2007-8 shows that 16% of students from the UK studying for degrees were from a black, Asian or ethnic minority background. This is higher than the proportion of people from ethnic minority backgrounds in the general 18-24-year-old population, which is 14.2%.

At Russell Group universities overall, the proportion of students from an ethnic minority background was only 14.1%. However, at Oxford, the percentage of students from an ethnic minority background is only 11.1%. At Cambridge the percentage is even lower, at 10.5%.

OUSU Council voted on Wednesday to pass Stefan Baskerville’s proposals for reforms to the OUSU funding structure which will end college affiliation fees. In a motion to support the paper “Urgent Challenges for OUSU and the University,” the student body also chose to back the OUSU president’s plans to incorporate the Student Union and include every student as a member.

The motion received strong opposition from Rob Shearer, president of disaffiliated Linacre College MCR, whose main complaint was OUSU’s lack of consultation with students, and who asked the passing of the motion be delayed until more consultation had been held. He pointed out that only one student had attended OUSU’s consultation meeting held just 36 hours after the plans were announced. “I know that because it was me,” he added.

Shearer further argued that the reforms were missing the point. “The underlying problem is that the budget keeps going up.” Dan Lowe of St Edmund Hall, one of numerous members who spoke out in favour of the motion, argued that this was misguided: “funding is the problem.”

OUSU’s funding structure is clearly unreliable and insufficient; as the report itself notes, even a massive cut in spending on services and firing several sabattical officers would not help OUSU back out of its current deficit.

The Council gave the motion overwhelming support. In opposing the reforms, Shearer represented a small but very vocal minority present at the meeting.
OUSU will now take the funding model to the University Joint Committee. There are no guarantees the proposals will ever be put into place; a similar model to this was rejected by the University authorities in 2007 and OUSU will be asking Oxford for a considerable amount of money. Baskerville admitted “I imagine the University will have some conditions” on the block grant, and suggested these may include evidence that OUSU continues to seek to save money.

However, it is hoped that the stronger student support this time will put more pressure on the University not to reject the model. Furthermore, by making these proposals in Hilary term rather than, as with previous attempts at OUSU reform, in Trinity term, the University will hopefully be more willing to listen, having not yet finalised its budget allocations for the year ahead.

Baskerville emphasised the importance and urgency of the reforms. “The way we are currently funded mismatches what we do… This is in the best interests of students, the best interests of common rooms and definitely the best interests of central student representation.”

Yet it seems Baskerville is already facing problems with his plans. He announcemed during Council that it was very unlikely that OUSU would be moving to new premises, despite seeking new premises being part of the Urgent Challenges paper. Baskerville said the University was “not willing to put up the funding.” However, Baskerville assured Council that, after passing the Urgent Challenges motion, OUSU would continue to put pressure on the University to consider funding a change in premises. The current offices at Thomas Hull House are both expensive and have no wheelchair access.

Jonny Medland, Access and Academic Affairs for OUSU, sees the success of the proposals as an opportunity for OUSU to stop endless debating over funding and budget deficits and focus on working for students. “We’ve been talking about this for years,” he said. “We’ve got more important things to talk about.”

Controversy has arisen in Magdalen College this week following a motion passed at their General Meeting last Sunday awarding £40 to every student going on ‘Doxbridge’, the sporting tour of Dublin involving Oxford, Cambridge and Durham colleges, at a combined cost of £960.

Proposals are to be made at a JCR Committee meeting next week to alter the college’s constitution and allow motions which have been passed at General Meetings to be reconsidered in subsequent weeks.

This proposal has been seen by many as the result of the ‘Doxbridge’ motion, which passed by only four votes.

Over 80 signatures on a petition calling for this to be overturned have since been collected. Under the proposed rule change this will be enough for the result of the vote on the motion to be suspended and considered at a later date.

However, the petition has caused anger amongst many Magdalen students, some of whom are even threatening to resign from the JCR if the motion is overturned.

Matthew Chan, ex-JCR Vice-President of Magdalen, who organised the petition and opposed the original motion, received an abusive email signed by “The Doxbridge Massive”.

Students from Magdalen’s football and netball teams plan to travel on the ‘Doxbridge’ tour, which costs £219 per person and takes place over the Easter vacation. It markets itself as a ‘Sportsparty’ and concerns have been raised over whether the JCR’s money would in fact be spent on sport at all.

The motion passed by the extremely narrow margin of 33 votes to 29. Many complained that the meeting was ‘mobbed’ by those going on Doxbridge and their friends, who left as soon as the motion had passed.

Beth Goodwin and Hannah Thompson, who put forward the motion, argued that the funding would encourage participation in sport and “help with team bonding”. They had already approached the college for funding and been turned down.

Chan said, “This whole motion is a peculiarly macabre joke and deserves to be treated like one. I am kind of baffled that it passed at all, and will be doing everything I can to make sure that it doesn’t second time around, including indulging in a spot of the old constitutional pernicketitude.”

He argues that the email notifying members of the time and agenda of the General Meeting was not sent out until a few hours before it was due to take place, twenty-two hours and fifty-five minutes after the deadline specified in the JCR constitution.

He told Cherwell, “This motion represents a gross abuse of the circumstance that if you get enough people with a vested interest (in this case, £40 each) to come and vote for you at a GM, you can push through measures that privilege the few at the direct expense of the many.

“Some of the people going are not by any stretch of the imagination regulars on the respective teams. There is no way that the JCR should be paying for this, regardless of whether it can or not. And it probably can’t; not without damaging our spending on more worthwhile things.”

Chan’s actions have proven extremely divisive in Magdalen. Arnold Reigns, a 3rd Year English student, said “I support what Chan’s doing; rules should not be so strictly enforced or they become fundamentalist. ”

On the other hand, George Dix, a 4th Year Maths student said, “I’ve done a lot of stupid things in my life, including drunkenly pulling my dad, but none of them as stupid as what Chan is doing now.”

JCR President Tom Meakin told Cherwell, “In Fifth Week the JCR Committee will present a motion to amend the Constitution so as to allow motions to be re-heard if a proportion of the JCR wishes. This ‘cooling-off’ period will ensure that controversial decisions – be they costly, technical or otherwise – are taken only after wide consultation and are thus representative of the majority.

“It’s important to point out that whilst the Doxbridge motion was contentious, this move is sensible regardless. Whilst it might slow some areas of decision-making down, any increase in participation is a good thing.”

Oxford students are supporting a national campaign to grant asylum seekers lower University fees. The students intend to lobby the University to allow asylum seekers to pay home fee rates for their tuition.

Asylum seekers and some refugees are currently classed as overseas students and must pay fees of up to £20,000 per year.  Moreover, asylum seekers are unable to take out student loans, cannot apply for grants and most bursaries, and are not permitted to work.

A motion was passed at OUSU Council pledging its support. It argues “the current funding system, both nationally and within Oxford University, is unfairly punitive towards asylum seekers.”

It was proposed by Michael Walker, a representative of the Oxford branch of Student Action for Refugees (STAR), the group leading the campaign.
Speaking to Cherwell, Walker commented, “Considering Oxford’s current public effort to widen access to the University, we hope it will recognise the importance of the ‘equal access campaign’ in working to achieve this end.”

Jonny Medland, OUSU VP Access and Academic Affairs, commented, “Getting into Oxford is hard enough for students from privileged backgrounds – any asylum seeker who has got an Oxford offer should be given all the support that they need to make sure that they can come here.”

Manchester, London  Metropolitan, Liverpool, Manchester  Metropolitan, Middlesex and Edge Hill Universities have all reduced the fees they charge asylum seekers to the level of home students, and Walker hopes Oxford can soon be added to that list.

“STAR’s campaign in Oxford is part of a national movement that has already achieved success around the UK, including at Manchester University, where fees for undergraduates seeking asylum have been lowered to the ‘home rate’. We strongly believe that Oxford has a responsibility to add its weight to a campaign to persuade the government to change its punitive funding policy.

“Furthermore, until government policy has changed, we urge Oxford to follow the lead of other universities in offering those seeking asylum an education at home fee rates, thus helping to reduce the injustice caused by a funding regime that effectively excludes those seeking asylum from higher education. STAR looks forward to working with the University to achieve a positive outcome on this issue.”

Wadham and Somerville JCRs had declared their support for Walker’s motion. However, in an online survey at St Edmund Hall, the overwhelming majority voted against the motion. Students expressed concern that the University funding is limited and this may eat into it. However, Walker pointed out that the number of students this would realistically affect would be minor, and that this was more “a matter of principle.”

As well as campaigning on this issue, Oxford STAR is involved with other projects. According to Ellie Bates, a member of the group, the Oxford branch “has been established for many years and the current membership are really active with 50 people attending events.” 

The University had offered no comment on the issue at the time of going to press.