The leader of New College’s choir has won a Gramophone Grammy Award.

The prize is often referred to as “the Oscar for classical music.” It is the latest triumph of the summer for Edward Higginbottom, after he was also appointed as Britain’s first ever Choral Professor.

The 61-year-old became New College’s Director of Music at the age of 29. Under his leadership, the college Choir received the Gramophone Award for its recording of a piece by the 16th century composer Nicholas Ludford. He said of his appointment: ‘This shows choral music is a fully integrated part of the academic activity of the University.”

The Oxford English Dictionary, labelled as “the greatest humanistic project in the world,” has celebrated its 80th birthday.

At a meeting to mark the anniversary, participants praised the book, which currently lists 415,000 English words.

The first OED is credited to Dr Samuel Johnson who compiled it during the 18th century, but panelists argued that his work was actually quite sloppy by today’s standards. According to Simon Winchester, “Johnson seems to get ‘sex’ into as many definitions as possible….”

The owner of an Oxford fast food stall has been fined after a customer was served food containing pieces of broken glass.

Mohammed Ali was ordered to pay £3000 at Oxford Magistrates’ Court after his Falafel House in Gloucester Green was caught serving the substandard food.

The unfortunate customer, who cut his mouth trying to eat the dodgy produce, was also awarded £100 compensation. An environmental health investigation later found that food stored under a heavily chipped glass shelf was the cause of the problem.

Green and Templeton College have merged to create one postgraduate college.

The move comes after Oxford declared its strategy to increase its provision for postgraduate students. It is the first such joining of colleges in the modern history of the University.

The new college will be located at Green College’s Radcliffe Observatory site, and Templeton will relocate from its original site, three miles from the city centre. The merger was approved by the University’s Council.

Rows over university access have hit national television after EastEnders featured an Oxford admissions storyline.

Oxford University officials have already been in contact with the producers of the BBC One soap regarding the direction of the plot, in which teenagers Libby Fox and Tamwar Masood consider applying to Oxbridge.

The move followed revelations earlier this summer that Cambridge University had approached several television programs in a bid to try and challenge ancient perceptions about the institution.

Officials suggested storylines to the writers of EastEnders as well as its rivals Coronation Street and Emmerdale.

The makers of Top Gear were also asked if Jeremy Clarkson & Co. would be willing to recreate an infamous 1958 stunt in which engineering students winched an Austin Seven to the top of Cambridge’s Senate House.
A spokesman for Cambridge University explained that measures comprised an attempt to tackle myths about elitism at the university before its 800th anniversary in 2009.

However, a spokesperson for Oxford University added that the university did not and would not be following Cambridge’s active attempts to control the institution’s presence in popular culture.

“We do not have a policy of contacting scriptwriters to place stories about the university in television programs,” she said.

“We would, however, work closely with production teams if the university was part of any storyline.”

The spokesperson also addressed fears that the new adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s classic novel Brideshead Revisited would reignite age-old perceptions among prospective Oxford students of outdated customs and snobbery at the university.

She admitted that, “sometimes the beauty of Oxford can work against us.”
“We want to work against the ‘Brideshead’ image – people think it is all about impressive old buildings but there are actually very modern things going on here. Beauty and tradition can be enjoyed whatever your background.”
However, asked to comment on Cambridge’s approaches to television programmes, OUSU’s VP for academic and access affairs, Paul Dwyer, was sceptical as to whether more modern portrayals in the media would make much of a difference.

The VP for Access and Academic Affairs elaborated: “While a Doctor Who storyline based in Oxford might make compelling viewing, it is more likely to be schemes such as the Sutton Trust Summer schools and the Young Ambassadors programme that reach out and help widen participation.”

Oxford University’s Chancellor has fuelled the continuing debate over Oxbridge admissions by arguing for a complete removal of the cap on university tuition fees.

Speaking at the Headmasters’ and Headmistresses’ Conference annual meeting on 30th September, Lord Patten called the government’s fee capping “intolerable” given the paucity of UK university endowments.
He said that the government should not demand that universities, “make up for the deficiencies of secondary education,” claiming this was “a fool’s mission.”

Un-capped fees could leave graduates with up to £50,000 of debt.
Patten argued, “it is surely a mad world in which parents or grandparents are prepared to shell out tens of thousands of pounds to put their children through private schools to get them in to universities, and then object to them paying a tuition fee of more than £3,000 when they are there.”

However, the university has distanced itself from Patten’s comments in official statements, saying that he had made the remarks purely in a personal capacity.

‘Oxford hasn’t made any decisions’

A press spokesperson said, “Oxford University hasn’t made any decisions” on the issue of fee capping and that a working group to discuss tuition fees policy is in “very early stages.”

John Denham, the former Secretary of State for Universities, has responded, accusing Lord Patten, of having “outmoded views of the central issues.”
Speaking at the Aimhiger Awards, a scheme which tries to widen access to higher education, Denham insisted that most universities now accept that, “the current system does not yet capture all the talent that exists in young people across the country.”

Paul Dwyer, OUSU VP for access and academic affairs, said that OUSU policy was against any lifting of the cap but recognised the need for “a contribution from graduates in some form.”

Concerning the question of the university’s role in correcting inequality, he said that “education is an extremely important tool” for social equality but added that the burden of responsibility “should not lie solely with the university.”
He said that, although Oxford required funding to continue its work, the current cap on fees was “certainly not intolerable.”

Unsurprisingly, students have not welcomed the suggested rise in fees. A Magdalen fourth year labelled Patten’s suggestion “massively, massively unfair.” She also accused the chancellor of being “more interested in money than students.”

Patten used his speech to rebuff government attacks on Oxbridge elitism, saying, “we are an easy cheap shot for left-wing politicians on a quiet weekend.”

He added, “It is odd that Oxford and Cambridge take a regular drubbing. They are after all among the few world-class institutions we have in this country.”
Patten’s remarks are the latest highlight of an admissions row that has raged all summer.

Postcode controversy adds to debate

Oxford University attracted attention from the national press during August when the university announced that admissions tutors would screen future applicants’ postcodes as a way of determining what students were applying from disadvantaged social backgrounds.

In response to controversy over the plan, a university spokesperson said that the move was not about “massaging our figures” but “finding the brightest students with the greatest potential to succeed at Oxford.” She insisted that academic excellence would not be compromised.

Tutors will also look at the collective results achieved by the applicant’s school, whether the student has spent time in care, or attended a program for disadvantaged pupils.

Any sufficiently able student who is flagged up in at least three of the criteria will be interviewed.

Oxford insisted, however, that the screening would play “no part in deciding who will receive an offer, or what that offer is.”

Following the announcement of postcode screening, Oxford’s Director of Admissions, Mike Nicholson, attempted to silence claims that the university failed to attract enough students from disadvantaged backgrounds by saying that the majority of candidates eligible for Oxbridge places already apply.
Nicholson said that, of the 28,000 students achieving 3 A’s at A Level, 11,000 already applied to Oxford, and a similar number to Cambridge. The remainder, he suggested, often wished to study subjects such as dentistry, which neither university offers.

Nicholson was responding to a recent Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI) report which advised that a national bursary scheme be set up to help poorer students.

The report concedes that such an arrangement would “would benefit some universities and disadvantage others” but argues that the current system penalizes, “those very universities that recruit the most students from poor backgrounds.”

The Oxford University Students’ Union has been strongly criticised following a decision to ban a company from the Fresher’s Fair because it is not in their own commercial interests.

Beyond Oxbridge is an independent careers website providing job vacancies, internships and careers advice for Oxbridge students and graduates. However, OSSL, OUSU’s business arm, also have a similar website, called Oxbridge Careers.

OUSU claim that the two are in direct competition and have therefore banned them from the fresher’s fair – despite having initially granted them a stall.
Members of the Beyond Oxbridge team have expressed outraged at the decision, saying that it has left a “bad taste” in their mouths.

They also criticised OUSU for being “hopeless” and for “picking fights to try and demonstrate their own importance.”

One law student from Merton added, “I think it’s OUSU just trying to throw its weight around to try and get a bit more recognition.”

Beyond Oxbridge was initially granted a stall by Jake Leeper, organiser of the Freshers’ fair, but the offer was later overturned by Ed Batty, the advertising co-ordinator for the fair.

An OUSU representative told Beyond Oxbridge managers that because their company ran in direct competition with Oxbridge Careers, they would not be allowed to sign up new students at the Freshers’ Fair.

The representative stressed that this was not intended to single out Beyond Oxbridge, but was in line with OUSU’s firm anti-competition policy.
Jessica Bland, part of the Beyond Oxbridge team expressed her anger at OUSU’s actions, suggesting that theirs was a venture that the Students’ Union should be supporting.

Bland also questioned OUSU’s claim that the sites are even in direct competition, citing a lack of content on Oxbridge Careers.
“They haven’t filled the site with anything,” she said. “They may do very soon, but right now it’s not populated, it’s not providing the service they said it would do.

“And if they’re not providing the service then why exclude another graduate-run website that is providing it?

“OUSU tried to shut us off immediately, there wasn’t a negotiation, they just said ‘no you can’t have any contact with students’, even if we were willing to pay to have a commercial stall like every other commercial company.

“We thought this was something that needed to be there because it wasn’t there. To suddenly have part of the university turn against us left a bad taste in my mouth in my last few weeks at uni.”

OUSU President Lewis Iwu admitted that the decision had been taken in line with their “anti-competition policy,” which is in place to ensure what is commercially best for the organisation.
He stressed however that this was not only reason the booking was overturned.
“We have a strong anti-competition policy because we also provide a service through the careers handbook and the website,” he said.

“We don’t allow people providing a similar product to what we’re providing to provide that at the Freshers’ Fair.

“We’ve had discussions in the OSSL board, and the board as a whole felt that there was a conflict between the aims of OSSL and Beyond Oxbridge.”

Iwu also claimed that another reason for Beyond Oxbridge’s exclusion was “to ensure that there are no conflicting messages presented at the fair.”
He said that the overturning of Leeper’s decision was a routine review of the bookings for the Fair that was conducted throughout the summer.

He denied that OUSU was officiously stamping on student enterprise, saying: “across OUSU we recognize the importance of student enterprise but that doesn’t mean that sometimes we don’t have to take a holistic approach and it might mean enforcing our anti-competition policy.”

However, Iwu has been criticised from within OUSU. An OUSU College rep who wished to remain anonymous said, “the Freshers Fair should be about helping new students to get involved in university activities, not an exclusive promotion exercise for OUSU-sponsored enterprises.”