Thursday 5th March 2026
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Who Owns Net Zero? Climate Action in a Collegiate University

Anish Vedantham
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Who Owns Net Zero? Climate Action in a Collegiate University

Oxford University’s sustainability ambitions are increasingly visible. At the central level, strategic commitments articulate ambitious targets, governance mechanisms, and investment frameworks. In built form, newly completed University buildings such as the Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities and the Life and Mind Building are presented as low-carbon exemplars of Passivhaus design and biodiversity integration. Yet these institutional ambitions coexist with a plural collegiate system in which individual colleges retain autonomy over their estates, governance, and environmental policy. The resulting architecture of sustainability across Oxford is not a unified programme, but a patchwork of strategies, practices, and priorities. This raises a fundamental question: in an era defined by climate urgency, can a decentralised collegiate system deliver coherent environmental outcomes across an institution of global standing?

The University’s Central Strategy

In March 2021, Oxford University’s Council approved the Environmental Sustainability Strategy, which sets two core institutional targets: net zero carbon emissions and biodiversity net gain by 2035. The strategy’s scope extends well beyond estate engineering, encompassing research, teaching, resources, and investment. The Environmental Sustainability Subcommittee, a formal governance body, is tasked with integrating sustainability into institutional decision-making, and the University has established long-term financing through a major Sustainability Fund intended to support decarbonisation and systemic change.

These commitments are embodied in flagship capital projects. The Schwarzman Centre has been certified as Europe’s largest Passivhaus building and is presented as an exemplar of low-energy performance through high-performance insulation, controlled ventilation, and integrated renewable systems. Similar principles inform the Life and Mind Building, whose design documentation emphasises reduced energy demand and enhanced thermal efficiency relative to typical higher education construction. In central estates planning, then, environmental performance is not an afterthought but a design parameter.

At the same time, the University’s central carbon planning recognises that buildings are only part of the story. In its carbon management plans, it lays out detailed goals for electrifying heating and reducing residual emissions. These technical frameworks signal a level of corporate coherence and ambition that, in principle, could extend across the University’s broader estate.

Collegiate Autonomy and Varied Implementation

Oxford’s colleges, however, are not centrally managed. Each college is an autonomous charitable corporation responsible for its own buildings, finances, and internal governance. This autonomy extends to environmental policy: colleges may choose whether to adopt central targets, publish emissions data, or allocate governance resources toward sustained environmental planning.

Some colleges have developed structured approaches that align closely with the University’s strategic targets. Merton College has publicly adopted carbon net zero and biodiversity net gain by 2035, integrating those targets into its institutional framework. St Edmund Hall, too, has published multi-year sustainability objectives and governance arrangements intended to monitor and improve its environmental performance with a goal of being as close to carbon neutral by 2030. Other colleges have instituted sustainability working groups, educational events, and operational measures without formal targets or transparent reporting. Many other colleges, such as Christ Church, Corpus Christi, and Exeter however, have net zero targets after the University’s goal of 2035 or have failed to release targets at all. 

The Oxford Student Union’s sustainability demands, first articulated in 2022, set three expectations for colleges: adoption of net zero targets at least as stringent as the University’s, publication of an actionable strategy with annual emissions reporting, and formal governance structures with student involvement. The SU released a traffic light assessment grounded in these demands, which showed significant variation across the collegiate landscape, with only a minority of colleges meeting all three demands, and many showing minimal progress on any of them. This divide is supported by work done by the Climate League of Oxford and Cambridge (CLOC), which has published a ranking of Oxford colleges on their sustainability efforts. CLOC found that in 2023, only five colleges (St Antony’s, Kellogg, St John’s, Trinity, and St Hilda’s) received passing marks on their metric, while two colleges (Oriel and St. Hughes) received scores of zero. The resulting institutional patchwork contrasts starkly with the central University’s unified strategy.

Is this a problem of institutional design?

The institutional dynamics at Oxford reflect a core public policy dilemma: how to manage collective action in a decentralised system. The University’s central strategy provides a coherent blueprint and sets ambitious targets, yet lacks mechanisms to ensure uniform adoption across autonomous units. Colleges, meanwhile, face differentiated constraints, whether that’s heritage, finance, governance turnover, student politics, or institutional blockages that shape their capacity to act.

This can be conceptualised as a principal–agent problem. The central University (the principal) sets goals and governance structures, but colleges (the agents) exercise discretion in how they interpret, implement, or even ignore those goals. Without aligned incentives, binding standards, or transparent accountability systems, variability in environmental performance is predictable.

The absence of formal enforcement mechanisms – such as linked funding conditional on environmental reporting or central planning approval requirements for college estates – means that sustainability alignment across Oxford relies on voluntary coordination, peer networks, and institutional norms. While these can generate pockets of excellence, they also produce uneven outcomes that complicate claims of cohesive institutional progress.

Variation in the capacity of colleges 

Collegiate variation is perhaps most evident when viewed through the lens of student governance. At Oriel College, the JCR Environmental Officer occupies a role that is simultaneously advisory and promotional, yet constrained by both student preferences and administrative caution.According to Libby Rees, the Oriel JCR Environmental Officer, there is genuine high-level interest in sustainability within the college’s senior team, including the Provost. At the same time, proposals for visible interventions, like green walls or rooftop solar panels, have been subject to prolonged internal debate. Funding sources, precedent, and reputational risk all shape the calculus of institutional decision-making. In one illustrative case, concerns about alumni perceptions influenced proposed sustainability investments, highlighting the complex interaction between donor relations and environmental planning. Specifically, Rees discussed how donors may have been less willing to support environmental planning while Oriel is celebrating its 700 year anniversary in 2026. While only one case, it highlights issues concerning the framing and timing of sustainability issues at colleges. 

On routine matters such as recycling and composting, operational and organisational constraints matter. While there is glass recycling in the kitchens, the logistical implications for scouts and the local council’s contamination policies limit what can realistically be rolled out. As Libby explained: “The [Oxford City] council apparently doesn’t like when recycling isn’t clean, so they’ll throw away recycling if there’s [leftover] milk in the bottle or other contamination”. She continued: “Some scouts have the time where they’re environmentally conscious and they want to think about that and clean up the recycling, yet some of them don’t have the time”. These micro-operational frictions point to a broader institutional reality: sustainability interventions are negotiated within a lattice of labour practices, regulatory frameworks, and organisational norms.

Student-level governance similarly introduces variability. The JCR at Oriel has in the past rejected proposals such as vegetarian nights, not for ideological reasons per se, but as expressions of aggregate student preference. This means that environmental officers must navigate shifting student opinion, use informal polling, and manage expectations within a short tenure of often just nine months. The result is that even straightforward initiatives can become entangled in processes of negotiation, temporal impermanence, and institutional inertia.

Rees also identifies coordination deficits across student bodies. While JCR presidents meet regularly, there appears to be no structured forum for environmental officers to exchange strategies, share best practices, or build cross-college momentum. A predecessor reportedly mentioned the existence of such a forum, yet today it is no longer visible. This absence mirrorsthe broader governance pattern: without formalised mechanisms for intercollegiate environmental coordination, progress remains segmented and contingent.

Wadham College presents a contrast, in which sustainability is more deeply embedded within institutional planning. According to its sustainability strategy, its estate spans seventeenth‑century listed buildings, twentieth‑century additions, and contemporary facilities, producing complex and uneven thermal performance. Rather than relying solely on major retrofit projects, the college has invested in detailed analysis of room‑level energy behaviour to inform prioritisation and sequencing of interventions.

Heritage constraints – often cited across Oxford as barriers to change – have instead shaped the form of intervention. As Frances Lloyd, Director of Sustainability at Wadham College, explains: “where there is a need to improve the thermal performance of our listed buildings and the works require listed building consent (LBC), we work closely with a heritage-skilled professional team and adopt a staged process involving early discussions with Conservation Officers before formally submitting for LBC”. An example is a reroofing project in one of the College’s oldest quads, where reclaimed stone slates were paired with hemp insulation and secondary glazing. Such interventions illustrate how environmental improvement and preservation can be negotiated rather than treated as mutually exclusive.

Governance structures further differentiate Wadham’s approach. Sustainability is integrated into the college’s medium‑term strategic planning and aligned with the University’s 2035 targets, while participation in sector‑wide networks enables the exchange of technical knowledge and operational practice. Targeted interventions – including boiler optimisation, thermal upgrades, renewable energy generation, LED replacement, and occupancy‑sensing energy management –have produced measurable reductions in energy use in recent years.

Yet even at Wadham, institutional actors are conscious that the largest component of the college’s environmental footprint lies in Scope 3 emissions: supply chains, travel, and other indirect sources. Frances explains that while water and waste CO2 have been calculated and reduction targets set, the complexity of measuring embedded emissions in procurement and travel remains a persistent challenge for both planning and governance. 

Though Wadham appears to excel in sustainability, its trajectory may reflect favourable institutional conditions rather than a universally replicable model. Financial capacity, governance continuity, and sustained strategic commitment shape the feasibility of such interventions. Within a collegiate system marked by uneven endowments and administrative priorities, the transferability of this approach remains uncertain. Wadham therefore illustrates not the resolution of Oxford’s coordination problem, but its asymmetry: meaningful progress is achievable where capacity, stability, and prioritisation align, yet such alignment cannot be centrally assumed.

Limits of Structural Critique

Institutional analysis alone does not capture the full landscape of sustainability activity. Even in the absence of formal net zero targets or divestment commitments, most colleges participate in some form of environmental engagement. Initiatives such as Green Impact awards, Fairtrade campaigns, and awareness programmes are often dismissed as symbolic. However, symbolic action can shape behaviour and social norms in ways that aggregate beyond institutional boundaries.

Engagement programmes aimed at influencing consumption, travel, and daily practice correspond to a significant share of national emissions tied to household and consumer activity. Cultural change within collegiate communities may therefore constitute a meaningful – if indirect – dimension of environmental governance. While such measures cannot substitute for structural decarbonisation, neither are they negligible within a broader ecology of climate action.Reconciling Collegiate Autonomy and Collective Responsibility

Oxford’s sustainability architecture combines a strong central strategy with a highly decentralised collegiate system. This institutional arrangement has produced both notable progress and pronounced variation. Central governance frameworks articulate clear long-term targets and provide financial and technical resources. Colleges, in turn, pursue sustainability through a combination of strategic planning, operational optimisation, student-led initiatives, and informal networks of collaboration.

The question facing the University is not whether it should abandon autonomy or central ambition, but how the two can be reconciled more effectively. Formalised mechanisms for intercollegiate coordination, transparent reporting standards, and aligned incentives could reduce fragmentation without eroding collegiate discretion. At the level of student governance, durable forums for cross-college exchange and capacity building could strengthen institutional memory and sustain progress across leadership turnovers.

Ultimately, the University’s challenge mirrors a broader organisational question in contemporary climate governance: how can complex institutions with distributed authority systems manage collective responsibilities that demand coherence and scale? The answer will shape not only Oxford’s environmental performance, but its institutional credibility as an epicentre of research, education, and global engagement in a climate-constrained world.

The (family) stories hiding in plain sight

Amy Lawson
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The (family) stories hiding in plain sight

Like many people, I used to zone out a bit when my parents started talking about family history. Being the youngest child – by quite a large gap, since there are eight years between me and my older brother – a lot of the memories which seemed to belong to the “family” as a collective happened before I was born. I would sit through conversations about “great grannies” and stare at grainy photographs of unknown people in unknown gardens, trying to piece together a sense of the past, a past which wasn’t actually that distant – we’re only talking three generations back – but one which felt like a foreign land all the same. As we delved further into the past, these figures became even more hazy. 

My parents would consult the grandparents, oracular-style, on whether certain cousins were once or twice removed, on what so-and-so did during the war, and so the puzzle became increasingly difficult to muddle through. All the while, I wondered about the true relevance of any of it. None of my ancestors were noble, or appeared all that interesting. It was highly unlikely that, like Josh Widdecombe on Who Do You Think You Are, we’d accidentally discover we were connected to a figure of royalty, making the seemingly endless sifting through old parish records and censuses worth it. 

Unsurprisingly, this was quite short-sighted of me,especially since I’ve always been interested in history. Admittedly, it was the kind that happened thousands of years ago, often involving gripping tales of aristocratic betrayal, missing tombs, and undeciphered languages – I wasn’t the only one to be taken in by that big shiny golden book about ancient Egypt in primary school. For such a long time, I was excited by the history that seemed to rewrite the rules of the world I was familiar with, one where ritual practice and superstition often dominated, of generals leading battle charges with plumed helmets and naval battles staged in amphitheatres. All those unsolved areas of history also seemed to beckon to me, promising a treasure trove of untold secrets and scandals around every corner. 

I haven’t stopped being interested in these things in the least. But something changed when I started thinking about what I wanted to study at university, and which areas of Classics appealed to me in particular. Studying ancient Epic poetry at A-Level – specifically the Iliad and the Aeneid – had awoken me to a world, not only of mythological cities and their destruction, of sea-monsters, witches and oracles, but one in which the stories of regular people were just as poignant. 

I’ll always distinctly remember coming across a particular passage in the Iliad: in a scene which comes about as close as the ancients can get to a high-speed car chase, Achilles chases Hector around the city walls of Troy, intent on single-hand combat to the death, in revenge for killing his beloved Patroclus. It’s an extremely tense episode, with everything seemingly hanging in the balance. Yet, suddenly the narrator stops. He describes the two springs that feed the Scamander river, and the stone washing-troughs which the Trojan women used to clean their clothes in times of peace.

My teacher was keen for us to focus on this particular vignette, and I came to understand that it was the heart-wrenching sense of the microcosm within the macro that was so powerful. The idea that, beyond a war which had ravaged a city and its communities for ten years, there was still the memory of people as they are everyday. Although fictional, I imagined those women talking amongst themselves, exchanging niceties whilst they scrubbed their robes. I’m sure there are plenty of Greek students who could make much more of this passage, and what is being done with the language, but for seventeen-year-old me, this changed everything. 

The thing is, the stories that have the power to fascinate us the most are often the ones hiding in plain sight. I soon realised that, actually, it was the human aspect of literae humaniores (the fancy Latin name for ‘Classics’) which drew me in and, in a much more wholesome, sustaining way than battles or mythological creatures, kept me entertained. The humanity in history is one of the main (and many) reasons why I love my subject. 

Incidentally, it was around this time that my grandma’s memory started to decline, in a fairly rapid and alarming way. She had always been so diligent in researching the family history on my dad’s side, compiling complex maps of family trees and storing away letters and photographs of people she had never met. I didn’t appreciate it fully when I was younger, how this is a task which requires an incredible amount of patience and willpower (particularly when you have an eight-year-old screeching, for the umpteenth time, “but who was Grandpa Norman?” in the background). Now, when I’m sifting through reading after reading – most recently, trying to make sense of the web of mythological characters in the Metamorphoses, and how they relate to one another – I sometimes think of her, and her eagerness to pursue the past. 

On a recent visit to their house, I was shown a photograph I’d never seen before. Extremely faded, it showed a group of seven people in a garden: two men, three women, and two younger girls seated at their feet. On the back, written in an elegant, watermark-flecked script, were their names, all with the last name “Gascoyne”. Descendants of French Huguenots who had come to England fleeing persecution – specifically, to places like Spitalfields and Soho – the group, although somewhat uppity-seeming in their Edwardian clothing, were rather unassuming. Without the context of the lives they led – the two men were silk-weavers, I’m told, and had inherited their trade from their forefathers – it would be just another old photograph, just another list of unfamiliar names. But the stories which my grandma so carefully collated – even if she can’t remember them herself now, or even who we are – make these remnants of family history so special, even if, to the outsider, the photo is just another artefact. 

UKIP leader Nick Tenconi stages Cornmarket Street border control debate

Cherwell News
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UKIP leader Nick Tenconi stages Cornmarket Street border control debate

Nick Tenconi, leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP) and Chief Operating Officer of Turning Point UK, visited Oxford today to take part in a public street debate on Cornmarket Street titled ‘Britain needs border control. Prove me wrong’.

The event, organised by Turning Point UK’s Oxford branch, drew a crowd of students, shoppers, and passersby in the city centre. 

Tenconi, who has led UKIP since February last year, framed the visit as part of a broader campus strategy. Tenconi told Cherwell: “Turning Point UK will go to any city where there is suspected Marxist far-left indoctrination aimed at our university students, and will be there to provide them with a conservative outlet, debate platform, and support network by setting up Turning Point UK chapters to challenge Marxist indoctrination on our campuses.”

He described the debate as “absolutely fantastic” and thanked Oxford students for engaging. “It’s all about debate. It’s all about challenging the narrative”, he said. 

Turning Point UK is an offshoot of Turning Point USA, an organisation founded by right-wing activists Charlie Kirk and Bill Montgomery in 2012 which aims to promote right-wing politics in schools and universities. The format of the event in Oxford today invited members of the public to step forward and argue against Tenconi’s position that Britain needs stronger border control. 

One woman who did so was critical of the set-up of the event. She told Cherwell: “It was mostly just a personal attack and then he’d criticise me for doing some sort of bad behaviour and debate and then do it himself.” She went on to say that “this isn’t proper debate”, arguing that the event was being held to create clips for social media that would only display “the best bits to show how great he is”, and that there would be “no actual depiction of debate”. She stated that she had not heard of Tenconi before the event.

During his exchanges with members of the public, Tenconi criticised what he characterised as “open borders” sentiment in British politics, calling it “crazy” and arguing that the political mainstream had failed to respond to public concerns about migration. He claimed that undocumented immigrants “threaten” women’s safety and framed stricter border controls as essential to protecting the public. 

Tenconi further claimed that there had been two disruptions during the event. He described those involved as “far-left militias who dress in black bloc” and said police had arrived of their own accord.

When asked by Cherwell whether such disruptions were common, Tenconi replied: “Yes, yes, yes.” He added that counter-protesters often attempt to mobilise against his appearances. He characterised critics as “indoctrinated” and argued that illegal immigration amounted to “cultural suicide”, while also describing what he saw as a broader ideological shift towards what he called an “anti-masculine” and “anti-logical position”. 

UKIP faced scrutiny last month following an attempt to rebrand the party with a new emblem that critics said bore a resemblance to the Iron Cross, a symbol associated with the German military and later the Nazi regime. The party denied this, saying the symbol was intended to reflect Christian heritage. The symbol remains in use by the party.

Reporting by: Oskar Doepke, Mercedes Haas, Archie Johnston, and Ned Remington.

Course culling is a threat to us all

Ti-Jean Martin
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Course culling is a threat to us all

I almost did a degree in Music. I’ve been involved in music-making for as long as I can recall, drawn to its capacity to create beauty from complexity. Ultimately, I chose History for a similar reason: the satisfaction of drawing interpretation from abstract overlapping narratives. If I’d applied to Oxford Brookes, or the Universities of Kent, Wolverhampton, or Nottingham, however, studying Music wouldn’t have even been an option. 

All of these institutions have closed their Music courses in the last few years. This comes alongside course culls and staff redundancies in the arts, humanities, and languages across the country. It reflects a worrying trend in government policy and public discourse, targeting ‘Mickey Mouse’ degrees but ignoring their economic, social, and intellectual impact. These decisions are an injustice to the intrinsic value of education, across all disciplines, and risk tarnishing Britain’s reputation for academic and cultural excellence. 

Nottingham’s suspension of all Music and Modern Languages courses is the poster child for this trend. But it is not alone – Kingston University, for example, scrapped English, Philosophy, and International Relations last year. Financial uncertainty has driven these decisions, with universities facing deficits as high as £60 million after years of government cuts. This leaves them reliant on student and alumni funding, forcing the prioritisation of economic, rather than intrinsic, value. 

Economic value is often equated with the ‘usefulness’ of certain degrees, a term that has become synonymous with successive governments’ denigration of the arts and humanities. This rhetoric reduces a subject’s utility to its earning potential, which is seriously flawed. The difference between humanities and STEM graduates is marginal – the British Academy found that STEM graduates only earned £6,000 more annually after ten years of employment. A 2023 report found that eight of the ten fastest-growing sectors in the UK employ more humanities graduates than any other discipline, demonstrating the value of the transferable skills that humanities degrees develop.

Fixating on ‘usefulness’ also ignores the cultural and economic value of arts education. It sustains a vibrant set of creative industries, which contribute £59.4 billion to the economy each year. Britain’s cultural exports – The Beatles, Harry Potter, and James Bond, to name a few, are “disproportionately large for a country of relatively small size,” according to Arts Council England CEO Darren Henley. Ironically, a government calling for the prioritisation of “useful degrees” has frequently waxed lyrical about the importance of British film, music, and literature. 

Beyond this, both arts and humanities are central to shaping individuals. Many of us don’t know who we’d be today without the musical instrument we played, or the performing group we joined as a child. There is a freedom of expression and breadth of knowledge within them that produces the leaders, thinkers, and creatives of the world. To limit access to education in these areas is to close the door on the successors to these luminaries. Last year, the University of the West of England’s drama department was forced to close the undergraduate programme that produced Olivia Colman and Patrick Stewart. 

The arts and humanities are not the only victims of these course culls. Recently, Brookes closed its Mathematics department, and Bournemouth and Reading no longer offer Engineering, despite such courses seemingly coming under the government’s definition of “priority courses that support Labour’s industrial strategy… to renew Britain”. If subjects framed as economically ‘valuable’ are also being cut, it is not the worth of individual subjects that is causing this crisis. Instead, it is a system that forces universities to operate for profit rather than prioritising what people used to call learning for learning’s sake.

There is a serious risk of long-term inequality. If universities continue to be pushed into course culling, education experts fear a ‘postcode lottery’ will come to limit access to a full range of university degrees by location. Students in educational ‘cold spots,’ and those to whom higher education is less affordable, are already disadvantaged amidst the cost-of-living crisis, according to the BBC.

It is becoming impossible for ever-growing numbers of students to live away from home, pricing students out of course choices. Cuts and enforced ‘specialisation’ at newer, less well-funded universities risk entrenching both this and the problem of educational elitism. In ten years time, it could be only Oxbridge and its wealthiest Russell Group contemporaries offering a full range of subjects – there are only 24 of these, and they are not renowned for their affordability. 

Course culling is “unconscionable vandalism” of British university education. Such vandalism is not accidental, but the product of a marketised system that treats universities as businesses and ignores education’s inherent value. Unchecked, the combination of funding cuts and ‘usefulness’ rhetoric will harm students beyond the arts and humanities. In the long term, it will strangle Britain’s cultural and intellectual life, reduce the employability of graduates, and entrench educational inequality. 

Amidst the rise of artificial intelligence and the attacks on student protest movements across the Atlantic, human creativity and critical thinking are more vital than ever. The trend of culling the courses that foster these skills is therefore a threat to us all. We must defend the benefits of arts and humanities education, support the students and teachers taking action to resist cuts, and pressure the government to solve, not encourage, this crisis. 

A show with bite: ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ reviewed

Rebecca Harper
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A show with bite: ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ reviewed

I first caught wind that Madi Bouchta was directing Little Shop Of Horrors around this time last year. Cayden Ong had just sent out an OUDS-wide call seeking a director for his own dream show, Little Shop. A year later, Ong and Bouchta have mounted an incredibly successful run at the O’Reilly, soon to be followed by a turn at the Oxford Playhouse next term for Cross Keys Productions’ Our House. Bouchta is a director who knows how to get things done – Little Shop has been, in her words, “a year in the making”. 

In most regards, this commitment and love for the show comes across. The top of my list of praise is puppet designer Kat Surgay, whose plants caused the opening night audience to gasp and cheer in glee, myself included. The reveal of Charlotte Ward (an Audrey II puppeteer) during the curtain call triggered a standing ovation. The design was immensely well thought-out, and the puppeteers (Ward, alongside Grace Yu and Harriet Wilson) succeed in syncing their movements to Wally McCabe’s scenery-chewing Audrey II, who similarly brought the house down upon their appearance in the bows. Rightfully so, McCabe owned every element of vocal gymnastics the role required and more; their growled delivery of ‘Suppertime’ sent shivers down my spine. 

The eight-person cast succeeded in filling the space, both vocally and physically, thanks to Miranda Forbes’ energetic choreography. Will Jacobs’ Seymour was absolute perfection, from the anxious twitching of his band-aided hands to the ease with which he belted his moral dilemma during ‘Feed Me’. This is Jacobs’ OUDS debut but my God, if he isn’t in every show that I see from here out I will riot. He had impeccable chemistry with Eliza Hogermeer’s Audrey, who also never hit a wrong note. Hogermeer was angelic, bringing a lovely grounded nature to a character so often caricatured. You can tell that the directors have worked hard to lend some weight to Audrey, exemplified in ‘Somewhere That’s Green’, where Audrey fantasises about the white-picket life she will never lead, with the Urchins (Praise Adebusoye, Lauren Lisk, and Subomi Adeleye) acting as her husband and children.

Adebusoye, Lisk, and Adeleye as the urchins had an infectious energy. I got the sense as the show went on that they were genuinely having fun with each other on stage, which is always lovely to see. Their harmonies were incredibly tight and assured, and their taunting of Seymour during ‘The Meek Shall Inherit’ was a joy to witness. Additionally, the number’s quick-change multiroling seemed to fall naturally to Cameron Maiklem, who played three characters in rapid succession (and, indeed, about eight characters across the whole show) with confidence and motorboating madness. Tell Mrs Luce to give me a call. 

Maiklem’s rendition of one of my favourite numbers from the original musical, ‘Now (It’s Just The Gas)’ was unfortunately hampered by sound issues. Maiklem, as dentist Orin Scrivello D.D.S., wore a BDSM-style Bane mask, which unfortunately garbled his diction through no fault of his own. I am certain from Maiklem’s physicality that it was an amazing performance, but audience members I spoke to who were not already aware of the lyrics did not comprehend a thing. Whilst I understand the direction that the costume department went in by making the mask more menacing than the oft-used space helmet, one wonders if this incomprehensibility is the reason that the space helmet style has become a staple in the first place. I hope, mostly for Maiklem’s sake, that this is resolved on future nights: it was clear how much work he has done to perform an incredibly difficult song, and his work alongside the directors and music department deserves to be done justice. 

The show as a whole suffered more than a few sound mishaps. The mixing issues were more than frequent, and often meant that the cast were woefully unheard below the blare of the twelve-strong band. Hogermeer’s climactic end to ‘Suddenly Seymour’, for example, as well as the layers of vocals in ‘Downtown’, and much of the complex three-part harmony in the introductory titular song were completely lost. As such, it seemed to take the show a while to get on its feet. Even when the team seemed to find their stride by Act I’s ‘Ya Never Know’, the issue recurred upon the opening of Act II, where Hogermeer and Jacobs’ patter duet ‘Call Back In The Morning’ was drowned out by the sound effect of ringing phones. 

Similarly, the slow-burn opening of the show may have been due to the cast’s lack of comfort with the set. Amelia Morton’s three-storey scaff filled much of the O’Reilly’s floor, and consequently limited much of the space that was usable for the show’s blocking. It was certainly an impressive feat, with tendrils of Audrey II’s roots taking over the stairs and shelving by Act II, but it wasn’t a well integrated part of the production. Once again, this is more than likely the mark of opening night; after all, the cast has only had limited time to get used to singing on seven-metre high shaky flooring.

Much of the lighting, however, was incredibly fitting for the show. Sarah Webb’s design was both effective and incredibly fun; my highlight was the five consecutive green-white gunshot flashes towards the end of the show. I could almost feel the stress radiating off of Deputy Stage Manager Paddy Harmer when I met him after the show and asked him about these cues, but he need not worry – they were programmed, called, and operated perfectly.

Horror comedy musicals with horrifying endings are no stranger to the O’Reilly, and Little Shop has reinstated the genre with a bang. The reinterpretation of the final number, ‘Don’t Feed The Plants’, as the ensemble torturing and taunting Seymour was a direction I didn’t expect, but nevertheless thoroughly enjoyed, perhaps even more than the traditional use of that song as a clap-along closer. It was (forgive my pretentious theatre reviewer coming to the fore here) a fitting end to this Faustian tale. 

Walking back to Wadham with Assistant Director Thushita Maheshkumar Sugunaraj, I could hear the last dregs of the cast and crew chatting excitedly behind us, pub-ward bound, all wearing plant sprouts on their heads. The pride in their show was palpable – and warranted. Despite a few teething problems, Little Shop proved itself to be a show with bite. 

A body of one’s own: Medical mystery in the modern age

Beatrix Arnold
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A body of one’s own: Medical mystery in the modern age

Recently, I found myself marooned in that most demoralising of places, the NHS waiting list. I was soon falling down the rabbit hole of catastrophisation, after succumbing to the inevitable temptation of googling my symptoms (it wasn’t looking good). This isn’t a unique experience: I have been misled by the internet more times than I’d be willing to admit, whether by WebMD, bloggers, or even influencers. 

Our level of access to medical knowledge is unprecedented, and yet we have such little confidence in what to do with it. Magazines, TV shows, and social media are flooded with medical factoids, tips and tricks to cure this or improve that, all, of course, backed by the indisputable authority of unnamed ‘experts’. In an age of information surplus, when our medical resources are at their most developed, we have been plunged into yet more ignorance, and, as a result, have become paradoxically estranged from our own anatomy. Despite the abundance of resources, control feels ever more out of reach. This inundation of medical information is, in part, a hangover from the COVID pandemic, a period where individual health turned into public data, and our bodies were regarded as political property. It’s convenient to flatten the contours of collective suffering into clarity, so we accepted absolutes and read medical statistics like weather reports. In the search for transparency, we have come to treat our own bodies like detached entities, something to observe, find fault with, and upgrade accordingly. 

Social media has, in turn, inaugurated an age of obsessive self-monitoring. It is no longer enough to feel healthy: What about your amino acid levels? Have you tried biohacking, nootropics, proteinmaxxing? Yet the algorithm privileges narrative value over factual accuracy: private experiences are marketed as universal truths, bolstered by the unshakeable testimony of personal opinion. Everything is sensationalised, then distilled into a digestible, purchasable pill, a spoonful of sugar to help the misinformation go down. This is only exacerbated by pop culture. Shows like Grey’s Anatomy have, for years, conditioned us to expect narrative clarity from medical issues; mysteries are solved within the run-time of an episode, obfuscating the complexity of the human body. In the digital age, the very definition of health has become subject to internal tensions, both public spectacle and private mystery. 

Social media turns advice into prescription, information into imperatives, in a new catechism of wellness. Follow my ten-step cleansing programme, my intermittent fasting schedule, my physiotherapy routine, so you too can win at the game of health. Everything is relentlessly categorised as ‘clean’ or ‘toxic’, and ruthlessly moralised as ‘good’ or ‘bad’, transforming the indeterminate into commandments of lifestyle. This facade of moral certainty is fundamentally a marketing tool, a projected ideal of absolute truth that can only be achieved through consumption. We are composed not of any kind of corporeal reality, but of disparate parts imported from a facile Pinterest fantasy that smothers over the texture of life. In this environment, sanitising yourself becomes a sort of aesthetic project. 

Women’s health, in particular, has long been a site of epistemic confusion. The murkiness surrounding female reproduction that continues to colour public perception and even legislative policies is just another iteration of that perennial discomfort around the female body: the gendered nucleus of hysteria, the site of the ‘wandering womb’. Transparency around female anatomy still feels unachievable, when public discourse is couched in the language of avoidance. If ignorance is the default, we lose any metric to assess the truth value of any given claim: perhaps the pill will make me infertile, like that one woman on Instagram insisted, or maybe wearing a bra will give me breast cancer. 

In this context, everything, from cellulite to menopause, is continuously pathologised, and even demonised. Women’s health, lacking clear definition, is a taboo discussion, so that medical complaints are diminished and disregarded by those who represent themselves as authorities. This, of course, manifests itself most perniciously when it comes to reproductive rights, rooted in a kind of epistemic battle over who gets to dictate anatomical functions. Medical professionals, influencers, and politicians alike take it upon themselves to interpret, and regulate, women’s self-knowledge. The consultant who told me, at 13, to “stop this attention-seeking nonsense”; the ex-boyfriend who, at 17, hid my anti-depressants; and the male GP who, last year, delivered my life-altering test results in a curt 20-second phone call: such men assert an understanding of my body to which I myself could never lay claim. Voicing my own opinion feels like trespassing on restricted property.

I feel that I am ultimately subject to a body I do not understand, an unknowable and impersonal entity. I can’t say if I’ve ever truly experienced a sense of comfortable embodiment, or whether that even has any meaning. In the end, the only thing I can affirm with any certainty is that it is never a good idea to google your symptoms at 3am. 

Royal Mail upgrades Oxford postboxes to ‘postboxes of the future’

Lucy Pollock
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Royal Mail upgrades Oxford postboxes to ‘postboxes of the future’

Postboxes across Oxford – and across the UK – have been wrapped in black plastic as their doors have been removed to allow them to be retrofitted and upgraded to ‘postboxes of the future’. The change is the biggest redesign in the iconic red postbox’s 175-year history.

Following a successful pilot in Hertfordshire and Cambridgeshire in April 2025, Royal Mail plans to roll out 3,500 solar-powered postboxes. The new design features a scanner and a drawer for parcels, and allows customers to send and return labelled parcels as big as a shoebox through a postbox for the first time. The barcode scanner also allows for proof of postage and tracking. This is in addition to the regular letter slot.

A Royal Mail spokesperson told Cherwell: “Our postboxes of the future offer another convenient way for customers in Oxford to access Royal Mail’s services, alongside home delivery and collection, our Customer Service Points, Post Office branches, lockers and Royal Mail Shops. We’re pleased to see positive feedback from customers in areas where the postboxes have already been introduced, and we hope that local residents will find them just as useful and convenient.”

The change is in response to Royal Mail struggling against competition from other companies, and follows the company facing fines after failing to meet letter- delivery targets. Ofcom rules state that 93% of first-class mail must be delivered within one working day, yet between March 2024 and March 2025, Royal Mail said that just 76.3% of first-class deliveries arrived within this window. It also follows Royal Mail’s decision to no longer deliver second-class letters on Saturdays, and to deliver on every other weekday in order to cut costs. 

The turnaround for upgrades can be several weeks as each box is individually measured, the existing door is taken off and the new door must be transported from the Royal Mail engineering centre in Gloucester. The boxes are wrapped to protect them from the weather or vandalism during the upgrade. 

Royal Mail has faced criticism in recent years due to price hikes: since 2022, the cost of a first-class stamp has risen from 85p to £1.70. Despite pushing up prices, Royal Mail made a loss of £384 million in the year 2023-4. These new postboxes are a clear attempt from Royal Mail to keep up with competitors. 

Jack Clarkson, Managing Director of Out of Home and Commercial Excellence at Royal Mail, said: “We are all sending and returning more parcels than ever before. This trend will only continue as online shopping shows no signs of slowing, particularly with the boom of second-hand marketplaces.  There are 115,000 postboxes in the UK located within half a mile of 98% of addresses, making them by far the most convenient network of parcel drop-off points in the UK. Our message is clear, if you have a Royal Mail label on your parcel, and it fits, put it in a postbox and we’ll do the rest.”

Kooky and self-assured: ‘Brew Hill’ in review

Abigail Lakeland
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Kooky and self-assured: ‘Brew Hill’ in review

“Have you ever watched two ships crash into each other in Antwerp harbour?” asks Pieter, in the opening lines of Kilian King’s new play Brew Hill. Pecadillo Productions’ latest show is (quite rightly) aiming for the Edinburgh Fringe, but I imagine that’s only the start of where this story could go; the kooky, self-assured tragicomedy has immediate cult classic potential.

Brew Hill tells two stories. Pieter (Hugh Linklater) is modelled on Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1525-1569), an influential Dutch painter during the Renaissance. His monologues – which narrate the story of his son and protege Yoris – punctuate the present-day story of two recent-ish art graduates, Gordon (Jem Hunter) and Nat (Trixie Smith). Nat reports a strange dream about a Pieter Bruegel painting, despite having never encountered the artist’s work. Once she’s researched Bruegel, Nat decides she wants to start a brewery (‘Brew Hill’, as in ‘Brue-gel’), a place she feels will reflect the community she sees in Bruegel’s paintings. Meanwhile, Gordon compulsively checks Skyscanner for flights to Berlin. 

Gordon and Nat’s friend from university, Kirsty (Hannah Wiseman), prompted the biggest laughs in the show. An upright, wool-coat wearing professional, Kirsty was a perfect foil for Gordon and Nat. Her polite reactions to their daily routines, their home, and their dreams were genuinely hilarious. Kirsty provides access to the outside world, bringing her “cool” new friend Peter (Hugh Linklater, in his second role) over. Peter’s reappearance tears at the fabric of the play’s reality when he begins to monologue about balloons in the exact same way as Nat in the previous scene.

Brew Hill has an all star cast. Linklater is unflinching as Pieter, monologuing seamlessly through anger, pain, and tenderness. Wiseman is incredibly endearing as Nat, depicting her dependence on Gordon beautifully. Hunter as Gordon is inspired. Adorned in a white vest and living off the chocolate balls found in the corner of a Müller yoghurt, Hunter’s sun-glassed, deadpan vocal fry delivered some fantastic lines. Wiseman, who played Kirsty, is a delight to watch. Hunter and Smith together form the powerful comedic core of the play.

Gordon and Nat’s relationship is one of evident love and mutual support, but it is also fractured. Gordon can be cruel and dismissive. His poor mental health puts pressure on Nat to complete daily tasks; she’s perpetually washing up. Meanwhile, Nat is a recovering alcoholic (but it’s okay, she can start a brewery, since she doesn’t like beer?). It’s implied that she’s forced Gordon into the role of physical and emotional caretaker many times.

At first, the two timelines – Pieter versus Gordon and Nat – appeared inchoate. Who made the wacky decision to embroil a late medieval painter? Pieter felt like an anachronism, fighting for relevance even in the dialogue itself: “Of all the people to have a parasocial relationship with, you chose Pieter Bruegel? I mean, what’s wrong with Justin Bieber?” But the audience’s patience is rewarded when, as the story unfolds, the two narratives reveal satisfying resonances. King tells a watertight dual story with a clearly defined set of thematic parallels: (not) following dreams and how “the final act of love is letting go.” Or, in Peter’s words: “The balloon is you and the sky is Berlin.”

Beyond the well-executed dual plot, potent motifs formed another network of ideas. References to balloons abound, particularly the helium-filled kind that children treasure, then immediately release. Clark signals scene changes with bassy rave music, which has the amusing effect of making Pieter look as though he’s catwalking on and off stage.

Méryl Vourch’s set is naturalistic, providing two zones. A small stool is reserved for Pieter towards the front of the crowd. The majority of the stage is used to create Gordon and Nat’s home, which most of the time reflects what can only be described as a depression hovel (in Kirsty’s words, “I love it in here. Isn’t it so shabby chic?”). 

Bruegel’s paintings, which often depict scenes of labour, are described as “poverty porn” by Gordon, and provide the play the opportunity to muse on capitalism and community. Amongst the seemingly never-ending online discourse about third spaces and ‘being a good villager’, it was immensely refreshing to see the utopian, romanticised ideal of community, especially as it would have existed under feudalism, critiqued.

Behind this, images of Bruegel’s paintings are projected onto a sheet. At one point, Nat pegs printed pictures of Bruegel’s paintings – ‘The Gloomy Day’ and ‘Landscape with the Fall of Icarus’ – to the sheet, in a supernatural, metatheatrical move. When Kirsty visits her, Nat explains how brilliant she finds Bruegel’s work, growing increasingly impassioned. Kirsty responds with a polite but vacuous “mmmm”, sending the audience into hysterics.

Brew Hill is a triumph. King has assembled a talented cast and crew to deliver a punchy depiction of the enabling and suffocating effect of love. Eccentric, well-made, and packed with EDM, the show leaves you planning to book that flight you’ve always dreamed about.

Bridging the gap? Oxford’s fight against wealth inequality

Leo Jones
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Bridging the gap? Oxford’s fight against wealth inequality

The life of a student is rarely one of luxury. Pot Noodles for dinner, Vinted bids in place of new clothes, and the widely-prized Tesco Clubcard have become small but vital saving graces as the cost of living in the UK continues to soar. While today’s economic strain is a national reality cutting across generations and incomes, in Oxford it operates on a different scale altogether. Routinely named the second most expensive city in the UK (the first being London), spiralling rents and rising prices magnify financial pressures for students already balancing limited incomes with an unforgiving housing market and ever-demanding workload. 

The city of Oxford hosts the highest proportion of students in England and Wales. Nonetheless, not only are basic necessities increasingly expensive, but so are the most stereotypical student activities: from a night out to a simple coffee between lectures. What was once considered a rite of passage within student life is now, for many, a calculated expense, forcing students to weigh up social participation against financial survival in a city that so often feels priced beyond them.

In response to these pressures – and in an attempt to address financial inequality  among students from vastly diverse socioeconomic backgrounds – Oxford offers a range of financial support mechanisms, from bursaries and hardship funds to college-specific grants. These schemes aim to cushion students against the city’s escalating costs – yet questions remain over how accessible, sufficient, and well-publicised this funding truly is, and whether it can effectively narrow the gap between rising prices and the needs of disadvantaged students.

Support often begins at a small, everyday level, from subsidised meals in hall to student-run second-hand sales.  It also extends to more unique forms of assistance, including university-wide scholarships and alumni-funded endowments. Regardless of size, these support mechanisms collectively make a tangible difference to students navigating the city’s high cost of living. 

The price of lunch is an everyday example of this. Starting anywhere from £3.50 to £5, subsidised hall meals (offering soups, salads, and hot main courses) provide a crucial alternative to the inflated cost of groceries in the city. In Oxford, even basic staples come at a premium: a dozen eggs is estimated to cost £3.94, compared to average prices of £2.54 in Colchester, £3.55 in Brighton, and £2.60 in Leicester. Against this backdrop, college dining offers students much appreciated financial relief, softening the impact of Oxford’s high living costs with the option of a warm, well-balanced meal at a low cost. 

However, not only is this often only available within the limited structure of term-time provision, but food is just one of the many pervasive costs in the UK’s “most unaffordable city”. On a wider scale, the financial disparities within Oxford’s diverse student body has led to negative public perceptions of the University. Depicted in popular culture from Emerald Fennel’s Saltburn (2023) right back to Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited (1945), Oxford’s wealth gap has long been tied to its stereotype as a bastion of privilege. In recent years, however, the University has made visible attempts to challenge this narrative.

Diversity in Oxford has certainly improved since the era of Johnson and Cameron’s Bullingdon Club, which prompted the University to launch a number of schemes aimed at ensuring all students can feel at home against a backdrop of generational wealth, famous parents, and inherited networks. Yet while these initiatives signal progress, they also raise questions about how far structural inequalities can be addressed within an institution still shaped by historic privilege.

The Crankstart Scholarship exemplifies this. Outlined as providing “a programme of enhanced support to UK residents from lower-income households who are studying for their first undergraduate degree”, the scheme was launched in 2012 after “a generous donation from Sir Michael Moritz, a Christ Church alumnus, and his wife Ms Harriet Heyman”. Since then, Crankstart has undoubtedly been impactful, described by the University as “currently supporting 17% of Oxford University’s full-time UK undergraduate students” with “an annual bursary of between £6150 and £5300” and access to a range of internship opportunities. 

This amount, equivalent to almost 65% of a UK student’s annual tuition fees, is a huge step in the right direction for closing Oxford’s gaping wealth disparities. However, it does not come without its caveats. 

Firstly, some recipients at The Queen’s College have expressed discontent at the linguistic ramifications of the scholarship’s name. ‘Crankstart’, a term associated with sudden or unearned advantage, has been criticised for reinforcing the very narratives of dependency and deficit that widening participation schemes seek to dismantle. The same applies to college-bursary options, like at St Cross College, where donations for a ‘Student Hardship Fund’ are being actively encouraged. 

For some recipients, these labels risk publicly marking students out as beneficiaries of charity rather than merit, creating an uncomfortable visibility within an institution already acutely aware of class distinction. This is a common trope throughout much of Oxford’s support for disadvantaged students, with notable parallels to the impacts of placing individuals on mandatory programmes, like Opportunity Oxford. 

Such unease reflects a broader tension within access initiatives at Oxford: while financial support may alleviate material pressures, the cultural framing of such schemes can inadvertently entrench stigma. Oxford’s names for these schemes also contrasts with the more general framing of support grants at many other universities which place less of an emphasis on charity – such as the University of Sussex’s ‘Sussex Bursary’ and Cardiff University’s ‘Cardiff University Bursary’, both for students with a household income of less than £35,000.

Chloe Pomfret, President of Class Act, described the consequences of this to Cherwell: not only can “it be embarrassing to ask for financial support, particularly when you are raised in a family where talking about finances and asking for help can be a huge taboo”, but many “can feel like they’re not ‘deserving’ of this financial support, because the way these funds are named make you worry others need support more”. 

Pomfret expressed appreciation for Oxford’s overall generosity, describing “for the first time in my life, finances weren’t my primary concern as it funded my rent and food”. However, she also pointed out the importance of support for “students who appear financially able to support themselves on paper, but in reality, are ineligible for Crankstart and other generous bursaries”.

Indeed, the eligibility criteria for many schemes tend to rely on broad socioeconomic indicators that cannot fully capture the complexity of disadvantage. Students whose circumstances fall outside prescribed thresholds – such as those from families with fluctuating incomes, precarious employment, or non-traditional forms of hardship – may find themselves excluded despite facing comparable financial and cultural barriers. This reliance on generalisation risks reducing lived experience to administrative categories, thereby undermining the very inclusivity these initiatives seek to promote.

For example, the Crankstart Scholarship is offered to students whose household income is £32,500 or less, versus other Oxford bursaries’ criteria which rises to £50,000. However, this framework assumes that “household income” is a transparent, and meaningful measure of a student’s lived financial reality. In practice, many students may be financially independent from their families or receive inconsistent support, rendering household income an imprecise indicator of need. 

Moreover, the model fails to account for the sudden and often destabilising changes in circumstances that can happen at any point during a university career, such as parental job loss, illness, bereavement, or shifts in caring responsibilities. By relying on static thresholds assessed at the point of entry, the scheme risks overlooking students whose financial vulnerability emerges or intensifies after admission, thereby limiting its capacity to respond to the dynamic nature of student hardship.

These limitations are further illuminated at the college level, where financial support mechanisms are often narrower in scope and more symbolically charged. scholarships grounded in fixed eligibility criteria and externally funded charitable structures can struggle to respond to evolving student needs. Concerns around opaque funding sources, limited transparency, and external political influence have shifted attention away from students’ lived experiences and towards the broader symbolism such support carries within such a hotly contested institutional environment. As a result, financial aid does not only risk becoming insufficiently flexible, but also entangled in political and symbolic debates that restrict its capacity to address the dynamic realities of student vulnerability in Oxford.

To escape this politicisation, one should perhaps look beyond the city. Across the country, charities exist to support individual students with their higher education endeavours. On a local level, many of these organisations function to assist families, schools, and community-run projects, while also giving out grants and one-off payments to students applying for top universities. 

One-such organisation is The Magdalen and Lasher Charity, which operates in Hastings. Founded in the thirteenth century but now concerned with “the prevention and relief of poverty…among persons living in or near the Borough of Hastings”, the Charity also supports low-income students attending high-ranking universities like Oxford and Cambridge. Residents of Hastings who attend these institutions may be awarded a sum of up to £250 per academic year during the course of their degree, making a meaningful difference to those struggling with the expenses of studying in an expensive city. 

However, in order to access this support, students have to make a formal application, which does somewhat reduce accessibility. Like many Oxford grants, charities like Magdalen and Lasher are often underpublicized, reliant on referral from social services and schools to reach beneficiaries. In addition, the requirement to be “in need, hardship, or distress” can be somewhat ambiguous, and may discourage many prospective applicants who do not feel they fit this description. But each of these charities does have money to give; although time-consuming and often hard to locate, they are certainly a significant funding alternative that makes a huge difference to student lives.

The same can be said inside Oxford, as once again a lack of publicity leads to available funds not being utilised. Lincoln College’s Student Financial Support Grant is an example of this, described by one second-year student as “very much an under-utilised pot of money”, adding: “College has the money, but could do a lot more in terms of advertising it.” They told Cherwell that the grant paid for a new laptop after a two-week processing period, noting that “the up-to two week wait can be a little bit difficult for students needing urgent funds, but otherwise Lincoln is very generous”. 

Cases like this underline a recurring issue across Oxford: financial support may exist in theory, but without visibility, speed, and clarity, it risks arriving too late or not at all. For students navigating sudden hardship – like a broken laptop, an unexpected rent increase, or a loss of family income – timing can be extremely decisive, particularly given Oxford’s restrictions on paid employment during term time, which limit students’ ability to respond to financial shocks through part-time work.

One attempt to address this gap is the Reuben Scholarship, a university-wide scheme designed to support students from households with lower incomes throughout their degree. Unlike many college-specific funds or externally affiliated awards, the Reuben Scholarship is centrally administered and framed explicitly as sustained financial support rather than short-term crisis intervention. It is also processed by department rather than requiring applicants to apply directly through Reuben College, a key distinction from many other funding options at Oxford, whether centralised or college-based. 

This centralisation is significant because it mitigates the inequities created by the college-by-college funding model, under which levels of financial support vary widely depending on a college’s historical wealth and endowment.The Reuben Scholarship therefore represents a partial corrective to structural inequalities embedded within the collegiate system, although it does not eliminate the broader issue of unevenly distributed financial security across colleges.

While certainly levelling the playing field, still the familiar tensions remain. There is little publicity of the Reuben Scholarship, and like many access initiatives, eligibility is still tied to income-based thresholds that struggle to capture the full complexity of students’ lived realities. While its scale and centralisation mark a shift towards a more coherent university response slightly different to Crankstart and college funding, it nevertheless operates within the same structural constraints that shape Oxford’s broader approach to student support.

Taken together, Oxford’s many bursaries, scholarships, hardship funds, and charitable grants reveal a system rooted in good intentions but fragmented in execution. Financial assistance is often generous, yet inconsistently publicised. This, alongside frequently slow or inflexible implementation, makes funding options impactful, but symbolically loaded in ways that can reproduce stigma rather than dismantle it. 

As the national cost of living continues to rise and student hardship becomes ever more dynamic, the challenge for Oxford is not simply to provide support, but to ensure it is visible, adaptable, and tuned into the realities of student life not just at the point of entry, but throughout their time at the University.

Hague awards eight recipients with honorary degrees at special ceremony

Alice Rubli
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Hague awards eight recipients with honorary degrees at special ceremony

Eight honorary degrees were conferred by William Hague, Chancellor of Oxford, today at a Special Honorary Degree Ceremony. Among the recipients were presenter of the ‘The Rest is History’ podcast Dr Dominic Sandbrook; writer and conservationist Isabella Tree; and award-winning journalist Christina Lamb.

The other honorands were lawyer and former Principal of St Hugh’s College, Lady Elish Angiolini; former US Secretary of State John Kerry; President of Magdalen College Dinah Rose; Vice-Chancellor of the University Professor Irene Tracey; and political scientist and broadcaster Professor Sir John Curtice.

Image credit: Polina Kim for Cherwell.

Following the ceremony, which took place in the Sheldonian Theatre, the honorands processed under the Bridge of Sighs and along New College Lane.  

Speaking one year on from the start of his Chancellorship, Hague said in a press release: “I am delighted to honour eight exceptional individuals today, whose achievements and dedication to their respective fields has been a personal inspiration to me.”

Having announced nine honorands last year, eight of the degrees were awarded today, with one to be conferred at the next Encaenia, a ceremony which takes place every year in the ninth week of Trinity Term. Today’s event, which follows a similar format to Encaenia, is a Special Honorary Degree Ceremony which marks the start of Hague’s Chancellorship and allows him to nominate “distinguished individuals” to receive honorary degrees.

Image credit: Polina Kim for Cherwell.

Dominic Sandbrook has authored several books, as well as written and produced documentary series, and presents ‘The Rest is History’ podcast with fellow historian Tom Holland. He told Cherwell about his fond memories of Oxford and his tutors “who inspired my love of history and literature, and I’ve been very fortunate that through my books and podcasts, I’ve been able to share my passions with readers and listeners all over the world”.

Professor Sir John Curtice told Cherwell of his gratitude for having an environment “in which I was able to lay the foundations for the career I have had the privilege to pursue as an academic student of and commentator on public opinion and politics”. Curtice’s honorary degree reflects the achievements of his work as a political scientist, having become known for his interpretation of polls and survey data.

Image credit: Polina Kim for Cherwell.

He told Cherwell: “Today’s recognition of my work via the award of an honorary degree is well beyond the hopes and aspirations I had during that formative time in the dreaming spires – and consequently is much treasured.”

Christina Lamb is Chief Foreign Correspondent for The Sunday Times and a Cherwell alumna. She told Cherwell about the thrill of “being awarded an Oxford honorary doctor of letters [sic]”. She said: “It’s the most wonderful privilege and I haven’t really stopped smiling. To me it’s recognition of all those many people round the world who have bravely told their stories at a time when sometimes it can seem no one is listening.”

Image credit: Polina Kim for Cherwell.

Dinah Rose walked alongside Isabella Tree during the procession. She told Cherwell she was “utterly delighted to have been nominated for an honorary doctorate by the Chancellor. It is a great privilege to represent Lord Hague’s own college, Magdalen, in this way”. Rose is particularly interested in areas of law including human rights and civil liberties, and has appeared before several courts and major jurisdictions over the years. 

The honorands followed behind the Chancellor and processed along Queen’s Lane and High Street to arrive at Magdalen College for a formal, celebratory lunch.

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