Unfriend is the word of the year 2009 according to the the New Oxford American Dictionary.

This is the first internet-inspired term to receive the title. The Oxford University Press Blog defines the verb as “to remove someone as a friend on a social networking site such as Facebook.”

“It has both currency and potential longevity,” says Christine Lindberg, Senior Lexicographer for Oxford’s US dictionary program. “Unfriend has real lex-appeal.”

Other words considered for the title were hashtag, sexting, funemployed and deleb.

Will Granger, first year Modern Languages student at St Hugh’s commented, “I have never heard anyone use the word ‘unfriend’ in ordinary conversation.”

Stark disparities in college wealth have led to concerns over the unequal provision for students across the University.

Published accounts show that annual income for the last recorded financial year 2007/08, varied between nearly £19 million at the top end of the range and just over £1.5 million at the lower end. The are also wide disparities in college endowment size, which range from between just under £6 million to over £300 million.

Christ Church topped the college income table for 2007/08, raking in £18.835 million. Below came St John’s (£15.726 million), followed by New (£11.697 million) and Magdalen (£10.875 million).

Harris Manchester College had the lowest income last year, at £1.648 million. Above came Mansfield (£3.475 million), Corpus Christi (£5.511 million) and St Hilda’s (£5.642 million).

A significant section of college income also comes the hosting of conferences and functions. St Catz, for example, made £2.064 million in this way last year, while St Anne’s made £1.888 million. Martin Jackson, Domestic Bursar at St Anne’s, explains that “this is a significant income stream and covers the current level of subsidy for student food and accommodation.”

Differences in endowment size are even more pronounced than income inequalities. Endowments are defined in college accounts as comprising “funds which are regarded as for the long term and which fundamentally underpin and sustain the operation of the College at its desired level of activity.” St John’s has the largest, at £300,321,000. Harris Manchester, on the other hand, has the smallest endowment, at only £5.964 million.

Questions have been raised about the difference membership of a rich college can make to students’ experiences while at Oxford. While lectures and exams are organised at a University level, college autonomy means that luckier students can enjoy cheaper food and rent, superior facilities and more intensive teaching opportunities.

Jonny Medland, OUSU VP for Access and Academic Affairs commented, “The wealth of colleges can have a great impact on the student experience here. Richer colleges can offer greater subsidies for rent, provide better facilities and offer higher levels of student support. Students should look at a range of factors before deciding which college to apply to, including what sort of atmosphere colleges have, and how they cater for the interests of individual students.

“Inequality of wealth across colleges can be tackled in a variety of ways. This includes purely financial mechanisms – money is currently transferred to less wealthy colleges every year. But it’s just as important that minimum standards are introduced across the university. It’s crucial that students are treated equally regardless of which college they attend, and this means greater co-ordination across colleges as to what they offer their students.”

Ben Lyons, Co-Chair of Oxford University Labour Club also believes that the difference in wealth between colleges is an issue. “I’m not sure it’s entirely down to college wealth but also how they choose to spend their money,” he said. “Some colleges hoard money, others invest it in access, others in strong JCRs.

“It’s right to provide students with as much information as possible before they apply and the wealth of colleges should continue to be published. There can be a problem with income disparities between colleges; all colleges should be focusing their resources on access and allowing JCRs to provide effective services for students.”

Paddy Unwin, a second year Maths student at St John’s believes there are some advantages to being at a richer college. The fact that the college has a lot of money “is noticeable in that we can have accommodation provided for all three years, for example,” he said.

“This year I’m living in a house it’s still college owned which is good. We can also claim the cost of things like books and sports equipment back off the college, which is very useful.”

Will Nash, a second year Earth Sciences student at Worcester, rejects the idea that the college’s wealth has to make a difference. Worcester has the second smallest endowment, and is in the bottom half of the table of income in 2007/08, having taken in £7.104 million. “You would never think this college is poor,” said Nash. “I’m shocked to hear that its endowment is so small. We can live in college for the duration of our course, and it’s like the Burj Al Arab hotel here, but without the hot weather.

“It says a lot about the college management that they can do so well for students despite apparently not having as much money as many other colleges.”

Alex Cavell, a second year Chemistry student, agreed that wealth was a less than significant factor. Cavell is at St Anne’s, a college with one of the smallest endowments, at £24.615 million. “I don’t feel that St Anne’s is a poorer college, but at the same time I wouldn’t imagine it’s one of the wealthiest. The college is well-maintained and not reluctant to build/renovate (the coffee shop and Ruth Deech Building both built in last few years), but if they had vast wealth I’m sure the Gatehouse building would have been knocked down years ago!”

Director of Undergraduate Admissions at Oxford University, Mike Nicholson, sought to allay any fears that students might have about being disadvantaged by their college’s wealth. “All undergraduate students, irrespective of their college, are entitled to receive an Oxford Opportunity Bursary if they meet the criteria,” he said. “This should address candidates’ concerns about the level of financial support they can access.

He continued, “About a quarter of applicants make open applications and a similar proportion of applicants receive offers from colleges that they did not have as a first preference. This demonstrates that the focus for undergraduate applicants should be the choice of courses available to them and material produced by undergraduate admissions provides this focus, giving applicants information that enables informed decisions on course choices.

“Extensive information on colleges is available in the prospectus and on-line, and candidates are encouraged to think about this when they have identified that the course at Oxford is appropriate for their own interests and aspirations.”

Important University-wide changes to SCR-JCR relationships are to be implemented in the near future, which are likely to be shaped by the outrage over the ousting of the Queen’s College JCR President.

Oxford has announced a review of its appeals and complaint procedures linked to disciplinary matters focusing both on the nature of dissmals and also disparity between colleges’ use of fines and community service.

There was widespread opposition when Nathan Roberts was forced to resign his JCR presidency by Queen’s SCR after failing to achieve a 2:1 in his prelims. The authorities’ further refusal to allow him an appeal seemed to many as if student voices, including those of 30 JCR presidents, had been deemed irrelevant.
The review is expected to look into the case of Nathan Roberts as, after he was denied an appeal, he effectively beat the system by getting a teddy bear voted in as the next JCR President.

Officials insist the review was not prompted by the recent anger that surrounded his dismissal. However, the review will have to look at incidents such Roberts’ as examples of where the student body felt that the denial of an appeal was unjust.

There was concern early on in the process that the University had not learnt its lesson when it was revealed that one of the reviewing bodies, the Conference of Colleges, would not have any student representation. However, negotiations with OUSU have ensured a VP on both this and the University working group.

Jonny Medland, VP for Access and Academic Affairs, holds high hopes for the review. He commented, “These issues impact students every year and I’m looking forward to working to improve the procedures which already exist. The current systems can be unclear, needlessly complex and hugely variable across colleges and clearer guidance as to how students will be treated is long overdue.”

Both the University group and the Conference of Colleges hope to present initial recommendations by the end of the academic year.

It is hoped that the review will produce cross-college consistency in some areas of disciplinary policy, since at the moment there are wide variations. For example, whilst many colleges use fines as punishment for rule-breaking, some use community service.

This punishment is seen as fairer by several colleges, including Worcester, as fines do not affect students from different financial backgrounds in the same way, whereas community service has the same effect on everyone.

However, some colleges have found it difficult to implement community service as a form of discipline. Carolyne Larrington, Senior Dean at St John’s College stated, “In practice we don’t use community service as it is difficult to find tasks for offenders to do, though this has been a policy in the past…we have found that the supervision of community service is something we would not want to devolve onto the domestic or gardening staff. So we have returned to fines.”  

In what appears to be another response to the events at Queen’s, St Anne’s College this week debated a proposal to introduce contracts for JCR members, whereby they would have to agree to resign their position if they failed to achieve above a 2:2 in prelims.

After discussions between members of the JCR Committee and the SCR, there seems to have been a move to re-word the proposal so that there was less compulsion for JCR members to resign, and so that decisions would not be made on the results of prelims alone, but would take into account collections and tutors’ reports.

The Academic Affairs Committee met on Wednesday to discuss the proposal, and after some debate it was decided that the matter needed further consultation within the JCR.

It will be debated again in second week of Hilary Term. Richard Holland, the JCR Academic Rep stated, “Needless to say we don’t agree with the proposal in its present form but were are looking to work with College constructively to find an acceptable solution.” 

Dr Toby Ord, a post-doctoral research fellow in Ethics, has pledged to give away £1m to charity before he retires.

He is hoping that by living on a student budget for the rest of his life, the sum he donates from his future earnings will save thousands of years of life for those in the developing world.

Ord currently earns £33,000 a year, but has capped his spending at £20,000. He expects to earn £1.5 million by his retirement at 65, based on the average earnings of an Oxford don. Through his donations, which will be targetting poverty and disease in the developing world, Ord calculates he can save 500,000 years of healthy life for some of the world’s poorest people.

Ord launched a new society called Giving What We Can at Balliol on Saturday. Members of the society are to publicly vow to give at least 10% of their future earnings to charity. Ord has already persuaded Peter Singer and Thomas Pogge, the famous moral philosophers, to make the pledge.

Ord set up the society with the hope he could turn an idea into a movement. “I was contacted by a few people who I didn’t know on the internet who thought it was a great idea and said they would like to do it too, asking ‘how do I join up?’ But there was nothing to join.”

Ord is excited about the publicity the launch has stirred up, “We’ve had 45 new people ask to sign up over the last couple of days so its growing quite a lot.” Despite being established less than a week ago, the society is already looking at figures like £40 million going to save lives. A lot of interest has been coming from Oxford, though since launching they’ve had people who want to sign up from Hong Kong, Germany, France, Mexico, the US, Australia and Canada.

Ord explained that the work behind his society was all about factors of 10. “NICE, who look at the NHS in the UK, will fund medicines of up to £30,000 per disability adjusted life year (DALY). And I think that’s a pretty good deal, getting a DALY for £30,000.” DALYs are a measurement used in public health; they take into account the fact that some medicines do not cure disease, but result in additional years of life suffering from poor health.

However, when Ord started researching it, he discovered he could save the same number of DALYs for far less money. “In other countries there are interventions which are 10 times as effective, that’s £3000, 10 times more effective than that is £300 and then £30, then £3…. So the idea would be to spend the same £30,000 but instead of saving one of these things you save about 10,000 of them.” Ord has now worked out that donating in the right way he can get down to £2 per DALY.

Ord’s society will use research from the World Health Organisation on aid effectiveness. Although he does not promise to find the best charity, he hopes to find ones which are particularly effective.Ord will be sending his money to the SCI charity (Schistosomiasis Control Intiative – tropical diseases ), Stop TB, and the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition.

“The idea is also to focus on giving really efficiently and effectively, thinking about these ideas of factors of 10 and how much more improvement you could make by going for the most effective interventions. So it had these two focuses: one is giving a lot more than most people think about and the other is giving more effectively. The benefit you get is actually the product of these two if you multiply them together, the amount of money times the efficiency, so by increasing both those dimensions you can improve the amount someone achieves by a factor of more than 1000.”

“At the moment we have a particular focus on health because it seems like it’s a really effective area and it’s an analysable area; with other areas there is a worry that not much is being achieved or perhaps the bad sides, aid dependents and so on, could be overwhelming the good sides.”

Yet the organisation will keep looking beyond health for ways to maximise the good they can do. “If we lobbied to try to remove the Common Agricultural Policy in the EU that would have, as far as I can tell, tremendously beneficial effects, but the question there would be how much you get for your dollar. If I were going to donate all of my future income to some group lobbying for that and they succeeded because of my money, I’m sure that would actually do even more good, but what’s the chance that they only succeed because of that sum of money?”

One example of how the money will be spent is on soil transmitted helminths, parastic worms which cause serious problems for people when they get in the body. Ord explained, “There are about 1.2 or 1.4 billion people who are infected with these things so it’s not very localised, but it’s very easy to treat and there are many regions where almost everyone has this which means that its much cheaper to treat such cases.”

The academic said his study of Ethics at Oxford his what made him start taking the numbers seriously. He argues, “If someone were hit by a car outside we’d all want to rush over and help as much as we could, even it it took up all of our day afterwards and so forth, but when you talk about saving 1,000 lives making various sacrifices over your life we tend not to really imagine that as 1,000 times more important. Part of this idea is really having an appropriate sense of scale of things.”

Ord does not see budgeting as a student for the rest of his life as a great sacrifice, though he admits that he might have to change his plans if he had a child. “Often we remark that the best years of our life are our student years and you get a lot of things which are really meaningful to you… wonderful exciting conversation, time with your girlfriend or boyfriend or wife in my case, and also reading beautiful books or listening to great music, occasionally going out to listen to some fantastic local band. There’s just so many things you can do that don’t take that much money, so you gravitate towards them as a student because you don’t really have that much money.”

“I’m just happy to keep doing these types of things so I think its going to affect me very little. All it will mean is I won’t get extras in my life like a big house up in North Oxford, but I’ll probably get some nice small modern apartment and live my life and be very happy with it.”

Senior academics have been calling for a rise in tuition fees to counter-act the academic “brain drain” in the wake of the government’s announcement of a Higher Education funding review.

The senior academics from a wide range of British universities claim that higher wages in countries such as the USA are causing many top academics to move abroad, leading to a lower standard of education in the UK. A study last year from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development found that Britain was suffering the worst “brain drain” of any developed country. The academics believe the only way of stemming the flow of the best and the brightest is to up fees in order to improve standards.

Andrew Oswald, Professor of Economics at Warwick University, argued the tuition fee cap should be removed altogether, allowing universities to charge their own fees. He said ministers would have to be much stronger to stop a “systematic move” of top scholars from the UK.

Dr Anna Vignoles, senior lecturer at the Institute for Education, part of the University of London, agreed, “The United States operates on a completely different system. Tuition fees are higher and academic pay is higher. We need to increase tuition fees.”

The academics’ arguments will frustrate those campaigning against a hike in fees, including Oxford’s Student Union and other student activists who swung into action after the announcement last week.

Stefan Baskerville, OUSU president, who advocates a graduate tax pointed out, “Increased funding is not the same as increased fees: there are other ways to get more money into higher education that don’t involve burdening students with debt. No evidence has been presented that increased funding has to take the form of higher fees.”

He added, “Funding is one of a range of factors that influence where academics choose to work.”

Richard Holland, St Anne’s JCR rep for academic affairs, also opposed the academics. “I would prefer to see the extra money required to keep top academics in Britain raised through Government support and a greater emphasis on the University seeking the financial support of Alumni and other private donors rather than current students. Raising tuition fees by large amounts or leaving them uncapped will only deter those highly intelligent candidates who simply can’t afford to come to University – as in the situation amongst many American Institutions.”

Many students are concerned of the effect a fee rise would have on access. Oliver Richards, St Anne’s 2nd year said, “I can’t understand how universities can justify considering this as a policy. they repeatedly espouse the opinion that they need more state school and lower income students, yet they propose raising tuition fees to a level that would leave many students with debts of over £30,000 on graduation and those studying medicine with around £70,000.”

Last week, delegates from OUSU, including president Stefan Baskerville, lobbied Westminster as part of their campaign to raise awareness of the government’s review of the Higher Education funding. This campaign is a part of the wider NUS “funding for our future” campaign.

Commenting on the campaign Baskerville said, “Last week was great. There was loads of energy at Westminster as students lobbied their MPs. After meetings with students from Oxford, both of Oxford’s local MPs committed to voting against increased fees in the next parliament. At the same time, more than thirty students spent several hours in Oxford talking to students about the issue and handing out flyers, and the response to them was very positive.”

However, he appreciates that this is merely the beginning, and that there is a long way to go. “We need to increase the profile of alternatives to fees such as a graduate tax, which would see graduates paying back into higher education according to what they earn. Clearly higher education needs to be funded adequately to maintain standards, and the question is how to achieve that. We think fees are not the way forward – there are fairer and more sustainable alternatives available.”

A group of students and citizens spent last Saturday night sleeping outside the St Clement’s churchyard to raise awareness about homelessness in Oxford.

Andrew Smith of Gatehouse, one of the homelessness charities organising the event, said, “One of the great things about the sleep-out is that it is several of the different agencies working with homeless people that come together”. He pointed out that they already had “about 100 people and its only half past eleven”.

The event has been running for over a decade, and they have raised an estimated £200,000 altogether for the homeless in Oxford.

Smith commented, “Oxford has the worst homeless problem outside London for a city of its size.” He pointed out that while the practical things students could do such as buying the big issue were important, the everyday attitude we have towards the homeless makes a difference. “In a day-to-day way, the thing is really not to pass on by and ignore people…the main thing is to acknowledge that they are there, and talk to them, listen to them, and find out what their situation is.”

Oxford students were present among the sleepers, with contingents from University College, Keble, St. Anne’s and St. John’s huddling together in the chilly churchyard.

Marc Kusicka, a John’s student helping to organise the event, said that the evening was “a great opportunity to raise awareness of the issue of homelessness in oxford…hopefully it will raise a lot of money which is really needed for the shelters to provide more food, because food things aren’t funded by the council.”

Claire Wright, a University College student argued, “The problem is much more complex than people will admit…often homeless people have the ability to generate a reasonable amount of money for themselves, but they need people to come alongside them and help them make really good decisions about how they are going to use that money.”

She added, “It’s not just about giving loads of people money, but creating the right structures for support.”

Kusicka and Wright volunteer through OHCV, the section of OxHub which facilitates the establishment of local volunteering projects. Kusicka estimates that there are currently between 20/30 students involved with the project, who volunteer at soup kitchens, and help out at The Gap with classes and activities.

Steve Johnson, who has been sleeping rough since 1996, emphasised the importance of these projects. “The Gatehouse and the soup buns are the most important things going for homeless people because they can get fed there, they can get a pair of clean clothes there, they can get a shower there, and these are the most important things to a homeless person.”

He added, “We go there, and we’ve got a lot of respect for the volunteers – it’s a family.”

Members of the RAF were also in attendance, with 11 representatives from Brize Norton among the sleepers. SAC Diana Walls, Air Movement Squadron explained, “We started reading up on it, and realised that 6% of rough sleepers in the Oxfordshire area are ex-military…so we thought we would jump on it, get amongst them, show our support.

“It’s quite sad to see fellow members of the air force, so we would like to be here to show our support for them.”

Wallis was not worried about the cold, pointing out that “we’ve been in rougher conditions than this.”

Several Oxford Brookes students at the event set up a “base camp” in the churchyard. One student commented, “They say it’s a tale of two cities – as students we run around having fun, going to the library, and then there’s this total other world, and if you don’t look, you don’t see it.”

Keziah, a gap year student added, “It’s an eye-opener, because I’ve been cold before, but I’ve always had the opportunity to go home and get warm…it puts it in perspective, in a very toe-numbing kind of way.”

An Oxford academic has been chosen to lead a controversial religious advisory panel to the government.

Francis Davis, of Blackfriars Hall, will lead the panel of religious experts in acting as key policy advisers. Davis is a prominent force in the Catholic Church in Great Britain.
The panel is being launched this week alongside a number of other interfaith initiatives designed to increase social cohesion. Communities Secretary, John Denham, who announced the plans, claimed that Christians and Muslims in particular could contribute meaningful insights into many areas of policy making, such as the economy, parenting and climate change, and could help to advise the government on “how to inform the rest of society about these issues.”

The decision to give faith a role in shaping government policy has sparked criticism from many groups, both from secular and religious communities. Many in Oxford were surprised by the decision to include a University academic who is also outspoken in his religious views.

Janette Mill, of the Oxford Atheist Society (OxAth), said that she did not feel that a panel composed entirely of religious representatives such as Davis would sufficiently consider the secular perspective: “Part of the duty of a politician is to lay aside their personal views to represent the people they have been elected by. In previous years, the ‘wisdom’ that some religious leaders have brought on issues such as homosexuality and parenting has, at least in some cases, been divisive and intolerant. 

“I am still not sure why the views of religious leaders are deemed somehow more valid or ‘wise’ than the views of elected individuals, whatever their faith or lack of it.  I do not feel that a panel entirely composed of religious leaders is going to reflect non-religious views, especially on the issues above. It is important to ascertain the views of religious groups on policy, but obtaining only religious viewpoints is not inclusive and cannot be called representative of the general population as long as secular and atheist voices are ignored.”

The co-Chair of Oxford University Labour Club, Ben Lyons, commented, “Millions of British people follow religions and faith can inspire individuals to positive action. But I do not think that this means that Mr Davis is better placed to advise on economic policy than a trained economist or on tackling climate change than an environmental activist. We should be consulting religious leaders on issues of religion, but I think when they are influencing broader political debate it gives them an undue influence.”

Emily Baxter, President-Elect of the Oxford Liberal Democrat Society, agreed, adding, “Many people in modern Britain are agnostic or atheist. It is therefore hard to see how the members of this panel will be able to represent the views of their own religion, let alone the population as a whole. It is wrong to give so much influence to panel that is unelected, unaccountable and unrepresentative.

“It is not the place of the state to promote religion or indeed any way of life. The government’s decisions should not be based on any particular group’s beliefs about right and wrong; that is a matter of individual conscience. Faith is a personal matter, let’s keep it that way.”

Denham explained the move saying, “Anyone wanting to build a more progressive society would ignore the powerful role of faith at their peril.” He added that the government had been wrong not to listen to the advice of religious groups in the past, and criticised those calling for religion to be kept separate from national politics and public life, stating “I don’t like the strand of secularism that says that faith is inherently a bad thing to have and should be kept out of public life.”

He added, “We should continually seek ways of encouraging and enhancing the contribution faith communities make on the central issues of our time. Faith is a strong and powerful source of honesty, solidarity, generosity – the very values which are essential to politics, to our economy and our society.”

Cherish Shirley, of the Oxford Christian Union agreed, and congratulated Mr Davis on his appointment. She said, “It is nice to see a leader from a University synonymous with Atheism in such a major public role.

“Religious citizens live under God’s law but also under the law of the country; it only makes sense for the two to intertwine. I believe that religious leaders can help shed light on the reasons why our country has the values it does. I do not know how this notion that politics and religion should be kept separate and that religious wisdom is not valuable came about, but it seems a ridiculous notion to have in a Christian country.”