Fraser Campbell, a
former president of the Oxford Union, has become one of the few students who
attended a state school to be admitted as a Fellow of the prestigious All Souls
College.Campbell,
who graduated from Pembroke this year with a first in Law, was unanimously
elected by the existing Fellows of to hold a seven year Fellowship. He said, “I’m
delighted to have been elected a Fellow, as it gives me a great opportunity to
combine my legal training with continuing research in broader fields.”The
College Warden, Dr John Davis, said, “We are full of self-congratulation at
having elected Fraser Campbell to the Fellowship.” Despite reports in The Times
and The Mirror newspapers that Campbell had been
the first state-edu­cated pupil to be admitted, Davis told Cherwell that this was not
the case.All
Souls does, however, remain dominated by Fellows with public or private school
backgrounds. Davis
said, “We have seventy Fellows. Of these am pretty sure ten or a dozen or so
went to state schools immediately before coming to Oxford and then becoming
prize Fellows.” This would mean that about 16% of Fellows had a state school
background.Campbell’s
old school, St Ninian’s high school in Glasgow,
is a state comprehensive which rarely sends pupils to Oxbridge. Campbell’s former English
and guidance teacher, Camilla Sheridan, said that despite attendance of target
schools conferences, “some years no-one even applies to Oxbridge”. Last year
only one student applied, but failed to gain a place, and this year the only
applicant is Fraser’s younger sister. Sheridan described as an
“inspiration” to students, who are famil­iar with his success story, especially
after he was invited back to present prizes at the annual prizegiving ceremony.Campbell said: “too many
students from ordinary backgrounds convince themselves that they will face
discrimi­nation at Oxbridge and so don’t apply: in fact, when they apply they
do very well in the admissions process. If my appointment at (and previ­ously
my post at the union) shows that comprehensive school pupils can do well at Oxford, then glad, but
certainly don’t want to be seen as the exception that proves the rule.ARCHIVE: 6th week MT 2005

Serious equal
opportunities concerns have been raised over the announce­ment of a blanket ban
on wearing headgear at St Catz’s JCR bar.The
new rule was communicated to students in an e-mail sent out by Peter Eleveld,
the college’s domestic man­ager. In it he said, “have been asked to inform you
that there is now a JCR Bar policy that NO HeadGear will be worn whilst you are
being served at the Bar.” The reason he gives is, “As licensees we must be
absolutely certain that we are able to identify those that we actually serve.”Crucially,
students who have to wear ’headgear’ for religious reasons will be included in
the ban as well; they will have to ask permission to be exempted. It
is, however, unclear how the policy will be applied to guests to the bar from
outside the college if they have not had prior approval to purchase drinks. OUSU
VP (Welfare & Equal Op­portunities), Aidan Randle-Conde, said,
"refusing to offer services to students and staff who wish to wear a
headscarf or burqa is discriminatory and irresponsible. St Catherine’s col­lege
should seriously reconsider their policy of who they can and cannot serve in
their bar. whilst am not in a position to give legal advice, the College may
find itself in violation of the race relations amendment 2000 which states that
public authorities have a responsibility to ’promote equality of opportunity
and good relations between persons of different racial groups’.”Eleveld
defended the new policy stating, "believe the ban is necessary for the Jcr
bar because it is after all a busy bar, we do get lots of guests, and incidents
do occur from time to time.” Arzoo
Ahmed, VP (sisters) of Isoc said, “The security concerns of the College relating
to the bar are under­standable. However, the action that has been taken in the
form of a ban of headgear isn’t practical enough and should be given serious
thought. The implementation of an indiscriminate ban would be worrying as
students wearing headgear for religious reasons from outside the College would
be unable to get clearing beforehand and would therefore be refused service. I would
urge those involved to carefully consider the implications of such a
prohibition.”Rosalie
Hooke, St Catz Equal Opportunities rep, said, “the past week an e-mail
circulated to the JCR introduced a new rule concerning bar regulations. Major
concerns over the content and implementation of the new rule caused the JCR
committee to report the matter to the college authorities. An internal official
investi­gation has since been launched and we await the results of this.ARCHIVE: 6th week MT 2005

Oxford
daredevil David Kirke is planning to fly a giant inflat­able winged horse from
the base of Mount Olympus in Greece,
across the Mediterranean, to Tripoli,
Libya.The
fifty-nine year old hopes to recreate the mythical flight of Pegasus on a forty
foot high white stallion, with a wingspan of 80ft, following his successful
attempt in 1986 to ‘hop’ across the English Channel in the pouch of an inflat­able
kangaroo.Kirke
founded the Oxford University Dangerous Sports Club in the late seventies,
along with Chris Baker and Ed Hulton. The Club first came to public attention
when Kirke became the first person in the world to do a bungee jump, on 1 April
1979, from the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol. His maiden jump earned him arrest
for ‘disturbing the peace’ and a £100 fine.Kirke
described his latest endeav­our as an “engineering nightmare”. Asked whether he
had an ETA or a rough idea of when Pegasus would be ready, he laughed and
replied, “No ETA. ETAs are a luxury.” He explained that “even a simple thing
like bungee jumping took a great deal of Maths beforehand.”“It
will be a real engineering challenge to build, but no one has ever done it
throughout history. There are hundreds of thousands of images of Pegasus, but
no one has actually seen one fly through the air. In theory it should not turn
over because the wind should hit all the surfaces at the same time. That’s the
theory.”When
completed, Pegasus will be entirely inflatable, made of a specially-designed
fabric, combin­ing strength and lightness. Helium gas will be used for
inflation, rather than hydrogen burners, and the horse will gain height by
offloading ballast and descend by releasing helium. Kirke plans to pilot his
equine companion from a position somewhere near its head, but he will be very
much dependent on the trade winds blowing down through Africa
for direction.The
veteran daredevil and pioneer of ‘extreme sports’ said, “There will be plenty
of nights leading up to it sipping horlicks and biting finger­nails but worries
are just something you have to sort out before you go because otherwise it
spoils the fun when you do.”The
attempt could cost up to £100,000. However, Kirke is encouraged by the fact
that a large number of companies around the world use the Pegasus name and
image, and he believes that this will increase the likelihood of secur­ing
sufficient sponsorship for the projectARCHIVE: 6th week MT 2005

A former Balliol student who was
arrested and detained in custody for a night after calling a police horse “gay”
is now to face court. Sam Brown, who graduated with an English
degree from Oxford this year, is to appear
before a City Magistrate’s Court in London
next month after he failed to pay his fixed penalty notice of £80. He has been charged with “threatening,
abusive or insulting words or behaviour or disorderly behaviour within the
hearing or sight of a person likely to be caused harassment or distress” under
the Public Order Act. On the night of the incident
Brown and his friends left the Cellar bar and came across two mounted
policemen. Brown asked one of the policemen, “How do you feel about your horse
being gay?” and was arrested after repeated comments about the sexuality of the
police officer’s horse. Brown’s offer of an apology had
been rejected. He told Cherwell that he didn’t
pay his fine because at the time he had just graduated, “I had no money, had
just finished my Finals and I was skint. It wasn’t all about principle or about
the police being stupid: basically I didn’t think I should be fined.” He received his summons around
two weeks ago when he returned to Oxford
to visit friends and found that it had been left in the pigeon hole of a first
year at Balliol, also called Sam Brown. “I didn’t know it was coming, I thought
they might have dropped the charges.” Brown described the situation as “pedantic
and ridiculous” and said that the police were “relying on the point that could
have offended any passers-by at 2am on a Sunday morning. We pretty much had the
street to ourselves.” Brown said that he plans to plead not guilty. Brown said, “feel very strongly
about it, don’t want a criminal record.” said he said that he has obtained
legal advice from a barrister who feels he has a “solid” case. Daniel Konrad-Cooper,
former JCR President at Balliol who was with Brown at the time of the incident,
said, “It’s pretty ridiculous. It’ll be interesting to see how it bears up. I didn’t
think it warranted him being arrested, didn’t think it warranted six police
officers and I didn’t think it warranted a night in the cells.” The current JCR of Balliol, Triona
Giblin, agreed, “I think it’s a bit of a shame that something so obviously a
joke which was not meant to be offensive was taken out of all proportion.”ARCHIVE: 6th week MT 2005

Students from St Hilda’s College
have this week reacted angrily after Cherwell’s Passé Notes last week contained irreverent comments
about the College.The article, written by Simon Akam,
Cherwell Features Editor, described the
college as perennially placed “in the Vauxhall conference of the Oxford academic league”
due to the fact that “they just haven’t got any boys to get Firsts for them.”The article also stated that “few
of the beasts grazing the banks of the Cherwell are particularly leggy or
graceful, unless they happen to be an errant deer from Magdalen.” Akam’s
comments have provoked a barrage of letters to the Cherwell editors. In a joint letter Sophie
Brighouse and Sophie Griffiths, both students at St Hilda’s, described the
article as “superficial, sexist and utterly pointless.”They added: “would like to
suggest that an Oxford
University college is
perhaps more than an institution in which to find the ‘particularly leggy’. I would
even go so far as to claim that lumping people together by sexuality may not be
the most mature or politically correct thing to do.”Alice Ramsay, another student at
said: “Last year, in Literature alone, seven people from got a First in their
Finals. So, it seems that students at St Hilda’s don’t need ‘boys to get Firsts
for them’ after all.” Georgie Edwards and Tamsin Chislett, Entz Reps, added “Obviously,
we generally wish to avoid being hypocritical about expressing stereotypes, but
the author may wish to ask LMH what it feels like to be at the bottom of the
Norrington Table, because frankly, we Hildabeasts wouldn’t know.”Akam also informed his readers
that “contrary to popular belief, and the pictures in the alternative prospectus
of drunken girl-on-girl twister action, not all students are lesbians. With
such a foreign legion present many of them are bi…lingual.”To this, Edwards and Chislett
retorted: “is it our fault that we enjoy the occasional naked pillow fight?! If
we didn’t feel that such activities were met with the current level of
negativity within the University, we’d invite more of you to join in.”Simon Akam said “is unfortunate that
the students of are perhaps not taking the column in the manner in which it was
intended. I, however, have absolutely no desire to get involved in further
discussions.”Cherwell editors, Luke Alexander and
George Davies, defended their decision to print last week’s Notes, saying in a
joint statement: “Clearly the piece itself was just a bit of banter. All
colleges suffer some form of stereotyping, for example Jesus as ‘sheepshaggers’,
St Hugh’s for its close proximity to Birmingham, but apparently some take these
things more seriously than others. We hope that at some point in the future,
the good women of St Hilda’s will find it in their hearts to forgive us.”ARCHIVE: 6th week MT 2005

The Oxford City NHS Primary Care Trust
(PCT) is looking to create a unified health centre in Oxford
by 2012 to replace GP practices around Oxford.The PCT is a health trust that
works on cases outside hospitals. It is currently in talks with the local
community to decide upon the best site for a local health centre. The OUSU Vice
President (Welfare and Equal Opportunities), Aidan Randle-Conde, has been
requested to find out where students wish to have the central health centre
located. Aidan has sent an email to all JCR
Presidents and college Welfare Officers asking them to discuss the PCT plans at
their next JCR meetings. He wrote, “The plans are to move local GP practices
from across Oxford (Jericho, Beaumont Street etc) to a central site on
the Radcliffe Infirmary site.” There are currently four plans
under consideration: to move all facilities to a) the Radcliffe Infirmary (RI)
site; b) to the RI site and the Wellington Square site; c) to the site and the Tidmarsh
Lane site; or d) to renovate existing facilities. The PCT hopes to use feedback
from the local community, including students, whom they feel should be integral
to their decision making process, to decide between one of these four options. Melanie Proudfoot, Communications
Manager for the PCT, said, “Many current GP practices are in old buildings
which need to be replaced.” The PCT is “planning to put them onto the Radcliffe
Infirmary site or onto another site so that we can develop their facilities and
allow other facilities to expand.” This will also prevent students
and patients from having to “travel around different locations,” and will
provide “many different health services in one complex.” She added that
therapies, such as psychotherapy, currently provided in Churchill or Headington,
and X-rays provided by the John Radcliffe, would be on one site and so save
people an extra journey. The closer health care facilities
will be welcomed by many Oxford
students who currently have to travel long distances to get to their GP. Laura Callaghan-Pace,
a second year at St Hilda’s, said that the Oxford health care system was “horrendous”
after she spent much of last term trying to cope with illness. “I had to trek
all the way to the Radcliffe Infirmary and then up Banbury Road to see my GP, and then to Headington.”
Laura thinks it would be “beneficial and very useful to have everything on the
same site”. However, Adam Kelly, Welfare Representative
of St Anne’s College said, “believe students are quite happy with the current
system as our local health centre is a one minute walk away from the College.”The JCR President of St Peter’s College
Omar Shekwini, said he was pleased that the health care trust was consulting
students “if this is a genuine means of determining what students think.” Oxford students will have
to wait to see whether their opinions do affect the PCT’s decision.ARCHIVE: 6th week MT 2005

The Duke of Edinburgh visited St Catherine’s college last Friday to of­ficially open the new buildings. On his tour, The Duke met groups of students and staff as well as alumni and those who had contributed to the construc­tion project.On his tour, the Duke arrived, accompanied by the Master of the College, at the bedroom planned for him to visit, which had been cleaned a painted for theoccasion. The door was found to be locked, forcing the com­pany to take a detour to a neighbouring room belonging to Faizal Patel.Patel told Cherwell “My room was messy and it smelt of smoke from a shi­sha session from the night before. The Duke asked me where I’m from and what I do. He was very friendly and laid back.” He continued, “He then looked at my shisha pipe and asked, ’I hope you’re not involved in this sort of activity, are you?’ I think he thought it was some sort of bong so replied, ’Na, don’t worry, it’s not for weed: it’s shisha, an Arab flavoured smoking tradition.’ One of the Duke’s entourage said, ’Oh yes, I believe they call it hubbly-bubbly?’ to which I answered in the affirmative.“The Duke, then said to the Master, ’So, you allow students to do this sort of
thing?’ and the Master responded with, ’I guess we’ll have to take his word he
uses it for what he says he does.’” Patel said of his encounter with royalty, “The Duke was pretty cool. It was a pretty funny situation. My biggest regret is that didn’t offer him a toke of the shisha!”Professor Roger Ainsworth, Master of Catz said, "it was a great pleasure to have our visitor His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh come to open our new buildings." JCR president, David Craddock, said “The Duke was on good form, and seemed to be thor­oughly enjoying himself. He was quick, witty and direct, and appreciated those who responded in the same fashion.ARCHIVE: 6th week MT 2005

A Senior Tribunal has overruled the “students for
students” refer­endum, proposed by Charlie Steel two weeks ago, which was due
to be put to the student vote at the same time as Thursday’s OUSU election. The
referendum asked for the OUSU constitution to be amended to prevent OUSU from
having policies “on issues which do not directly affect Oxford students”. The
OUSU president, Emma Nor­ris, stated that OUSU “officers have been subject to…
late night phone calls, threats of legal action against individuals, slander
and childish public insults” as part of the contro­versy surrounding the
referendum. As
a result, the tribunal (com­posed of senior members of the University)
pronounced on Mon­day that it is preventing the ref­erendum from going ahead. 500
signatures of University stu­dents needed to be presented to OUSU before 12pm a
fortnight be­fore the elections to ratify the motion. OUSU dismissed the
petition, which had 511 signatories, because it was handed in one hour and
forty min­utes after the deadline. A junior tri­bunal later overruled the
decision of the Returning Officer, and the details of the referendum were
published, along with adverts for the Yes and No campaigns, in last week’s
OxStu. Controversy
followed as there were claims that the wording of the referendum, which can be
altered at the discretion of the president and Returning Officer, changed its
substance. Charlie steel, the referendum’s organiser and a member of OUSU’s
part-time exec, said, “it was outrageous. It completely reversed the point of
the referendum in the first place.” Steel
submitted an amendment to OUSU council last Friday, but it was “shot down”. The
Yes campaign team, including and those who submitted the motion, then decided
that because the referendum had been so “perverted”, they would actively
campaign against its being passed. The
OUSU Returning Officer, Daryl Leeworthy, then took the case to Senior Tribunal which
up­held the original complaint that the motion had been submitted af­ter the
deadline and cancelled the referendum. The Senior Tribunal ruled on Monday that
“the Return­ing Officer was right to apply to the referendum the noon
deadline”. Norris
told Cherwell, “am bring­ing a motion to OUSU Council in 7th Week asking
for the referen­dum to be held next term. It is a discussion which ought to be
had.” She believes that the referendum will “help the Student Union en­gage in
discussion about its aims”. She
added, “The way certain indi­viduals have behaved throughout the election
period has been deplorable. Gossip forums and papers have been rife with
misleading information.“I’m
not interested in fighting and name-calling: running cam­paigns and services
that matter to students is achieved through discussion and commitment, not
self-important showdowns.” Steel
said he was not consider­ing appealing the decision of the Senior Tribunal although
he was “disappointed” by it. He claims that the handling of the issue was not
“fair” or “democratic” and that he was “hindered at every possible corner in
tabling this referendum.” He further told Cherwell that the event “shows
how much OUSU resists change and won’t even let change be discussed.” He described
OUSU as projecting a “very insu­lar” image, battling for “its own agenda.” But
he concluded that sup­port among students for the refer­endum was strong
(having obtained 511 signatures in support) and that the “war will be won” next
term.ARCHIVE: 6th week MT 2005