Oxford has made slow progress in boosting the number of state educated students it takes on despite large Government spending and campaigns by the University, figures show.

Performance figures for 2006-7 released by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), show that the proportion of state educated students at Oxford, Cambridge, and Bristol and several other universities actually decreased.

In 2006, Oxford had 53% state educated students, with Cambridge having 57.6%. The figures fall well below Government-set benchmarks of 76.7% and 77.4% respectively.

The disappointing figures come despite the Government spending large sums on schemes dedicated to widening university access to those from poorer backgrounds.

Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union, said: “Over the past decade, in England alone, nearly £3 billion has been spent on measures to widen social class participation in higher education.

“We welcome the priority that has been given to this area. But there has been little progress, despite a lot of hard work by universities to attract and retain a wider range of students.

“The bottom line is that the punitive cost of higher education is putting the very students who the Government wishes to attract off applying.”

Oxford also has many access schemes in place, and recently launched an ambitious funding campaign to ensure students from poorer backgrounds are not deterred from applying.

A spokeswoman for Oxford University told the BBC: “For our part, we are doing our utmost to encourage academic ambition from a young age by working with students from 11 up, and by working closely with parents and teachers.

“One element of the picture is making sure that those who do study at Oxford from all groups, especially under-represented groups, are well supported and reach their potential.

“One of the lowest drop-out rates in the country indicates that our efforts in this respect are bearing fruit.”

The period for which the HESA figures have been released coincides with the introduction of top-up fees of £3,000.

Higher Education Minister Bill Rammell emphasised overall figures for UK universities showed that the proportion of students from state schools had increased.

“It is particularly encouraging to see that the proportion of young entrants from the lower socio-economic groups and from state schools has continued to rise and is in fact at their highest ever levels,” he said.

For 2006-7, the proportion of state educated students at university increased from 87.9% to 88.3%.

Both Oxford and Cambridge stress they are doing all they can to widen access. In their defence, some dons have attacked the Government’s targets as unrealistic due to the way in which they are calculated.

They also cite inequalities at early stages of schooling and in teacher’s attitudes towards encouraging students to apply to prestigious universities.

The figures also show that overall nearly a quarter of undergraduates fail to complete their degree, despite the Government spending large amounts on improving retention. At Bolton University, the drop-out rate has reached almost half.

Oxford has one of the lowest drop-out rates in the country, at 1.2% for 2006-7.

LMH second year Charlie Holt has won the race for the title of President of the Oxford Union, following Friday’s election. He will commence his duties in Hilary Term 2009.

Leo-Marcus Wan was elected Librarian for Michaelmas 2008.

 The full results of the elections are as follows:

President, Hilary 2009

Charlie Holt: 767
Ed Waldegrave: 574

Librarian, Hilary 2009

Leo Marcus Wan: 665
Guagua Bo: 620
Spoilt, blank, void: 175

Secretary, Michaelmas 2008

Tom Hartley: 712
Simon Millar: 429
Spoilt, blank, void: 322

Treasurer, Hilary 2009

James Langham, unopposed

Standing Commitee, Michaelmas 2008

Nouri Verghese: 153

Ronald Collinson: 137

Ngu Atanga: 133

James Kingston: 114

Niall Gallagher: 113 

Runner up: Katy Minshall 

Secretary’s Committee, Michaelmas 2008
William Parry: 109

Judd Fischer: 88

Justine Potts: 85

Laura Winwood: 71

Sam Cullen: 68

Fenella Corrick: 68

Julius Hugelschofer: 67    

Han Yu: 64

Emily Gardner: 53

Runner up: JD Appleby 

Police issued fines to over 50 cyclists who jumped red traffic lights in central Oxford on Friday.

The operation, which took place at the junction of Broad Street and Parks Road, formed part of a road safety campaign.

Two plain clothes officers situated outside the junction between Broad Street and Parks Road radioed descriptions of cyclists who ignored red lights to uniform officers further down the road, who pulled them over.

The cyclists, the majority of whom are students, were issued £30 fines and given advice on road safety.

In Trinity Term last year, nearly 200 cyclists were fined in two operations at the same junction.

PC Stephen Higa said that police were not trying to victimise students.

“The main reason is safety. If a cycle were to go through a red light, the consequences are potentially catastrophic.”

However, the experience was too much to handle for some.

One female student, who was stopped for passing an amber light, broke down in tears after she was pulled over.

She was not fined as she did not pass a red light. Officers had only wanted to offer her safety advice.

A student who has just finished his course at Oxford Brookes was among those who received fines. He said that the police should “use more discretion”.

He continued, “A verbal warning would have been appreciated. I’ve got shit all money at the moment.”

PC Higa said that there were further operations planned this month on Queen Street and Cornmarket.

Cyclists were issued £30 fines as part of a police operation at the junction of Parks Road and Broad Street.  More soon.

The nominee for Oxford’s next Vice-Chancellor has been named as Professor Andrew Hamilton, the current Provost of Yale University.

Hamilton will become the 296th Vice-Chancellor when John Hood ends his five-year tenure in October 2009, if Congregation approves the decision made by the Nominating Committee.

He described the decision as “humbling” and “inspiring”.

Dons have suggested that there will be little opposition to the nomination and have largely welcomed the decision to back someone from an academic background – a departure from Hood’s nomination as a candidate with business credentials.

Hamilton is Benjamin Silliman Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry at Yale, in addition to his role as Provost. He has been recognised internationally for his academic achievements.

Nicholas Bamforth, a member of the University’s Council, said, “It is good to have a distinguished academic nominated for this post.”

A senior member of the University also approved the choice to opt for such a prominent academic. “I very much welcome the fact that Professor Hamilton is a distinguished academic as well as a successful University administrator,” he said.

However another professor has criticised the decision to ignore Oxford’s own candidates and again appoint a V-C from outside the University. He said, “He is clearly a man of ability in terms of academic stature, which is very different to Hood, but he has no connection with Oxford and this is quite clearly undesirable.”

He also claimed that the Nominating Committee, which is chaired by the Oxford Chancellor Lord Patten, was “determined to exclude” candidates from the University’s own academic body and to appoint an “outsider”. He claimed this marked a “continued and gratuitous support for Hood.”

He added that the nomination had been used for the ends of “internal politics”, with the consequence of ignoring candidates from within the University.

Despite this criticism the academic admitted that Congregation was unlikely to seriously challenge Hamilton’s appointment and that any likely opposition would be “small”.

Dons are now looking to the challenges Hamilton would face during his tenure and have suggested a number of key tasks he must tackle in order to lead the University to its future.

A senior academic said the new V-C would need to smooth over rifts between dons that have recently occurred. “His main task will be to heal the divisions on ‘Hoodism’ and ‘anti-Hoodism’ that has risen in the last few years,” he said.

Another member of the University expressed hope that Hamilton could adapt to the Oxford system and go ahead with reforms to the University.

“He comes here from North America where, unlike Oxford, the senior academic officers of universities are appointed rather than elected by their colleagues.

But he will surely have done his research by the time he arrives, and have understood that the most successful Vice-Chancellors have recognised that Oxford is much more like a partnership than like a business corporation, and have conducted themselves as ”primus inter pares” (first among equals) rather than Chief Executives.

“I hope he takes an open-minded look at Oxford and works with his colleagues to make the reforms that are urgently needed to increase the quality and value-for-money of the services provided by the administration,” he said.

Hamilton has been Provost of Yale since 2004 in which time he has lead a number of developments, including the acquisition of a new a 136-acre research campus.

Professor Hamilton announced the nomination in an email to colleagues at Yale on Tuesday. “I am enormously honoured and excited at the prospect of helping steward one of the great centres of scholarship in the world,” he wrote.

Hamilton is held in particularly high regard at Yale where both students and academics say he will be greatly missed.

The President of Yale, Richard Levin, said, “Andy Hamilton has led major initiatives to strengthen Yale in science, engineering, and medicine while at the same time enthusiastically supporting investments in the humanities, social sciences, and the arts. He is a first-rate scholar, who is respected by his faculty colleagues as a wise academic leader.”

A comment on the website of Yale’s student newspaper, Yale Daily News, described Hamilton as “A great guy and a fantastic provost” and added, “Yale will certainly miss him.”

The Chancellor of Oxford University, Lord Patten of Barnes, who chaired the Nominating Committee, said, “Andrew Hamilton’s remarkable combination of proven academic leadership and outstanding scholarly achievement makes him an exceptional choice to help guide us into the second decade of the twenty-first century.”

He added, “This is a particularly exciting time for Oxford and in Professor Hamilton we have someone with the experience and talent to help us take advantage of these opportunities.”

The current Vice-Chancellor, Dr John Hood, said, “I am delighted that Professor Hamilton has been nominated as the next Vice-Chancellor of Oxford, from Autumn 2009. I look forward very much to assisting him in any way I can to prepare for his new role.

“For my own part, I shall remain fully committed over the next sixteen months to the University it is my privilege to serve,” he added.

The Bod is to hold a ‘book amnesty’ next week to recover books inadvertently removed from reading rooms.

Students will be able to return books that they have taken from the Bodleian’s non-issuing libraries without incurring a penalty.

The amnesty will happen prior to the installation of new book detection systems at the entrance to the Upper Camera and Lower Camera reading rooms.

Most other libraries in Oxford have electronic tags that cause alarms to go off at the entrance if a person has taken a book out with them.

Vanessa Corrick, the Deputy Head of Reader Services for the Bodleian Library said, “An approximate figure for the number of open shelf books which go missing is 90 in the calendar year 2007.

“It is difficult to be precise about this figure since quite a few books are found when we do an annual check of the open shelf books during the Long Vacation i.e. they have been incorrectly shelved, or have even fallen down behind other books.”

She added, “This is a fairly small figure, although of course we don’t even like one book to go missing.”

English student Julie Jackson commented, “I have never taken any books, I usually photocopy the articles I need, but I can see why people would be tempted to take them.

The security is poor, especially in the Rad Cam, and when people have deadlines to meet all it would take is someone to run out of money on their photocopy card and because it is easy people take the books they need.

“The security is good for only letting in students, you have to show your Bod card but for taking out books, the person on the door asks you to open your bag and can’t possibly recognise every Bodleian book.”

Jackson said, “I know people who have taken books and have just said to the security that they were from another library.”

Corrick also emphasised that students who do return the books will not be recorded or penalised in anyway; “[…] we are not taking notes of who returns material. We would be grateful to have books returned whatever their state as our conservation staff may be able to carry out repairs.”

For those who are struggling to tell whether a book in their possession is from the Bodleian libraries, Corrick said, “There should be a stamp with ‘Bodleian’ on it on books, most likely on the reverse of the title page.”