The 2022 Times Higher Education World University Rankings sees the University retain pole position on the global stage.
The University of Oxford has topped the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings for the sixth successive year after its release on Thursday.
The result of the annual publication placed Oxford above the California Institute of Technology and Harvard University, both sharing second place. The following places are similarly dominated by American institutions, entirely comprising the top ten except for the University of Cambridge in sixth.
Times Higher Education magazine uses thirteen different performance indicators as criteria for the rankings, centred around three main areas: research, impact and teaching. As a reflection of a year dominated by the Covid-19 pandemic, many institutions saw a rise in citation scores, a calculation of global research influence.
Oxford finished first in the Research category, with Cambridge in second place, while Harvard received the highest score for Teaching. Macau University of Science and Technology topped the International Outlook bracket. For the first time, two Chinese institutions have broken into the top twenty, and its share of institutions in the top 200 is increasing, as American representation is falling.
In response to the release of this year’s rankings, the University’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Louise Richardson, said: “This past year has demonstrated to our publics, our governments, and even to ourselves just how much universities can contribute to society…Together our universities have made the strongest possible case for renewed public investment in research universities.”
Overall, the magazine ranked 1,662 universities, having analysed more than 108 million citations. The rigorous methodology of the research means that it has built up the trust of students, universities, governments and experts.
The Oxford University English faculty have announced today that they will be holding the 2022 finals in an open book format for most exams, with eight hour online papers like students were given this year. Only one set of papers, Course II Paper 6 Language papers, will be held in-person.
In an email to students, the English faculty acknowledged that “we could have chosen to aim to return to three-hour, closed book, in-person exams.” They cited the cancellation of Prelims and online collections as one of the central reasons behind their decision: “a fair mode of assessment needs to be in tune with the educational experience that you have had, including the opportunities that you have had to practice being assessed.”
The faculty went on to state that by committing to online assessment now, they will be prepared to examine students even if social distancing measures are re-imposed, giving students more time to prepare with certainty as to what their finals will be.
The faculty acknowledged, however, that “some of you will not be pleased by this decision, and we recognise that when you began your degree here, you expected to sit your final exams as three-hour in-person exams in the Exam Schools.”
However, some students were relieved at the announcement. Abigail, a finalist studying English at Magdalen College, told Cherwell: “I’m happy that the English Faculty have considered the impact of the pandemic across all years of our degree, rather than assuming we’d be prepared for standard conditions in summer. It’s great to have confirmation in such a timely matter and I really hope other departments are similarly understanding of their students’ concerns.”
Image: Oliver Mallinson Lewis/CC BY-SA 2.0 via flickr.com
The shockwaves from the rapid collapse of the Afghan government and the Taliban takeover since 15th August have been keenly felt across the University of Oxford. They have hit Oxford Afghan students, led to safety concerns for academics in Afghanistan from Oxford Colleges, and resulted in discussions about how the University and members of its community can help.
Summia Tora, an Afghan Oxford student currently pursuing a Master of Public Policy, spoke to Cherwell about her experiences of the past two weeks.
“I don’t think I’ve had a chance to process any of this yet,” Ms Tora expressed, referring to how she has been working day and night to get her father, uncle, and other families safely out of Afghanistan. “I’ve just been in crisis and problem-solving mode.”
Image: Summia Tora
As the crisis in Afghanistan was unfolding, with the Taliban takeover imminent, Ms Tora launched an emergency GoFundMe campaign to pool resources to get her father and uncle to safety. Through a whirlwind of efforts, both family members have now been safely evacuated and are awaiting resettlement. Now, she is directing her care and attention to other families trying to leave Afghanistan.
Ms Tora grew up in northwest Pakistan, where her family fled to in the 1990s to escape the Taliban. She was awarded a United World Colleges Scholarship to attend high school in the United States and later a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford University.
“The crisis that unfolded over the past two weeks in Afghanistan has only reinforced the need for the University to provide financial, emotional, and academic support to students who come from conflict zones and displaced backgrounds.” Tora underlined.
When asked about the number of families she is currently helping, Ms Tora opened an Excel Sheet of names and details, before giving a rough estimate of eight families comprising over forty people. “The list is growing,” she added. “There are lives at stake.”
When asked about how Oxford students can help, Ms Tora said: “I am creating a formal group that is long-term and sustainable where volunteers could pool resources, time, networks, and energy to directly help Afghan families.”
“Volunteers would dedicate two or three hours a week to help out with mundane but important tasks like researching or drafting documents for visa purposes,” Ms Tora explained, mentioning how the Taliban has recently announced that Afghans can leave after 31st August only if they have the proper visas.
Ms Tora is actively seeking dedicated volunteers for her group, and she can be contacted at [email protected].
Colleges: supporting Afghan students and protecting academics in Afghanistan
A Sanctuary College is a college recognised as a place that fosters “a culture of welcome and safety” for those seeking sanctuary, including asylum-seekers, refugee families, and unaccompanied minors. The way such a culture manifests itself “varies greatly”, states the City of Sanctuary website.
Both Colleges have a refugee scholarship for persons with fragile immigration status. Under the current crisis, both are stressing the importance of support for academics in Afghanistan and working with British charity the Committee for At-Risk Academics (CARA) to “develop a coordinated collegiate response” on the level of “the University as a whole”.
Yalda Hakim speaking at the World Economic Forum. Image:World Economic Forum / Benedikt von Loebell / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 via flickr.com
Oriel College has announced that it will expand the number of places offered to women from Afghanistan with a scholarship from the Yalda Hakim Foundation. Ms Yakim, a prominent BBC journalist who was born in Kabul, has said she hopes the number of places will be expanded from one to five.
On 18th August, Somerville College Principal and Labour and Co-Operative Party politician Jan Royall spoke in the House of Lords emergency debate. Principal Royall requested that the Government accept more Afghan refugees, urged protection for women and girls who had been on cultural exchanges to the UK, called for academics to become eligible for the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy (ARAP), and recommended that Afghan students in the UK be granted refugee status.
Call for universities to house Afghan refugees
A Statement on the Afghanistan Crisis and Oxfordshire’s Response, signed by six County and City Councillors in addition to sixteen organisations supporting refugees, has called both Oxford universities “to help identify and make available possible accommodation and support” for Afghan refugees, as was done “effectively to house homeless people during Covid”.
The Oxford Mail has also published a similar suggestion made by representatives of charities that support refugees and asylum-seekers, including KAMA, Asylum Welcome and STAR Oxford. These charities have urged Oxford University and other universities across Oxfordshire to use their “massive” accommodation resources to help Afghan newcomers. The Mail also published responses from its readers, which include a significant portion of skeptical voices stressing, “Charity begins at home” and “think about our homeless first”.
Oxford’s local authorities and educational institutions have been taking steps to address these concerns. Last year, Oxfordshire’s county and district councils, supported by homelessness charities Crisis, St Mungo’s, Aspire, and the Oxford Homeless Movement, collaborated with Nuffield College, University College, and Oxford Brookes University to start providing long-term housing for people experiencing rough sleeping in Oxford. These efforts were based on the council’s housing-led approach to homelessness, the first of its kind in the country.
Student Groups: “What brings students together is their heart and brain for human rights”
Student organisations such as the Oxford Student Union have called for College and departmental support for current and future Afghan students at Oxford, and offered wellbeing support from the SU and the University Counselling Service.
Afghan refugees fleeing Kabul on a US C-17 Globemaster III. Image: Public Domain
A statement from the SU said: “Today is not the first difficult day for the people of Afghanistan but our Student Union recognizes [sic] that the ongoing events will leave the hearts of many heavy. As your elected representatives, we want to ensure all students feel supported by the SU and offer our solidarity with Oxford’s Afghan students and students who may be personally affected by recent events in Afghanistan.We recognise the trying and unjust situations this will put some of our students in and the SU is committed to making sure that affected students are given all the support and resources they need and the opportunities they deserve.We want to remind students that they are not alone, and someone is always here to listen and offer wellbeing support.”
The Oxford SU Women’s Campaign has also expressed its solidarity, provided links for donations to Afghan refugees and charities, and condemned the repression faced by “women*, children, religious minorities, journalists and members of the LGBTQ+ community”.
“Asylum rights should be at the heart of human rights,” appealed Farzi, “and student unions and students have always, always played a major role in terms of more public awareness, in terms of standing up for human rights, for refugees’ rights, and particularly for asylum rights.”
Farzi encouraged students interested in helping Afghan asylum seekers and refugees to get in touch with Asylum Welcome and similar organisations. He also highlighted the opportunity for students to serve as “a bridge between Afghan communities, refugee organisations and the public” and “depict what is happening” in Afghanistan and within Afghan communities.
“[Students and student groups] can participate in reflecting the society that we ought to be in terms of solidarity, support, and togetherness. Regardless of different opinions, what brings students together is their heart and brain for human rights.”
The Provost of Oriel College has announced that the number of Afghan women able to study at the College will increase after the Taliban took control of the country.
Oriel College partnered with the Yalda Hakim Foundation in March 2021 to offer a fully-funded scholarship “on the basis of academic potential and merit” for a woman from Afghanistan to study a one-year Master’s course in any subject. The first scholarship-holder is scheduled to matriculate in the 2022-23 academic year.
Yalda Hakim is a prominent journalist who was born in Afghanistan. Her family fled for Australia following the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. She recently received praise for her coverage for the BBC of the Taliban’s 2021 advance across Afghanistan, and the fall of Kabul. This included conducting an impromptu in-depth interview with Taliban spokesperson Suhail Shaheen, after he called her while she was on air covering the fall of Kabul.
She founded the Yalda Hakim Foundation to support the “educational and professional advancement of exceptionally talented young women in Afghanistan through scholarships, internships, and mentoring”. To be eligible for a scholarship, students must be Afghan nationals. Selection for scholarship-holders originally took place across Afghanistan. But in recognition of the changing security situation in the country, and the large number of Afghans living outside Afghanistan, the Foundation is extending its search to Afghan women in other countries.
The Telegraph reported that Ms Hakim is seeking to expand the number of places available under the scholarship from one to five.
Ms Hakim said: “We are absolutely committed to ensuring that the current brain drain, and the exodus that we’re seeing in the country doesn’t mean that these people are lost. They are the best and brightest of the last 20 years, and they are the quintessential 9/11 generation.
“These are people who have not lived under the Taliban. They’ve had a lack of security, because of bomb blasts and things like that in the capital and elsewhere. But they’ve had relative freedom; freedom to study, freedom to travel, and freedom to dream.”
The Provost of Oriel College, Lord Mendoza, of King’s Reach in the City of London, said: “I admire the vital work of the Yalda Hakim Foundation to advance women’s education in Afghanistan. Oriel is delighted to be able to partner with them for this important scholarship. At the time the scholarship was conceived, the situation for women and girls in Afghanistan was already beginning to deteriorate. Oriel wanted to play a part in helping to provide a safe environment for a talented female Afghan student to come to the best university in the world, and to benefit from the educational experiences here.
“Watching the situation currently unfolding in Afghanistan is heart-breaking. We hope the scholarship will go ahead as planned. We also hope to expand the programme in the future to provide more women the same opportunity. This is more important now than ever.”
Image: Yalda Hakim. Credit: World Economic Forum / Benedikt von Loebell / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 via flickr.com
It’s 2015. You’re leaning into the dizzying realm of the internet as it swells with dissonance, gossip, and a clamour of intrigue – it twinkles and itself becomes embodied.
On 27th October 2015, Twitter was held in a frenzy over a 148-tweet thread by Aziah “Zola” Wells that recounted her road trip to Florida with a girl named Jessica, Jessica’s lachrymose boyfriend, and a pimp named “X”. As if emerging from the archetypes of pulpy noir or a sleazy B-movie, Zola weaved together an odyssey, carved up into 140-character episodes, to an audience of thousands. It became synonymous with its own hashtag – #TheStory.
#TheStory splits down the middle; it hangs between discordant versions of the same narrative. Indeed, upon the viral exposure this story received, Jessica counteracted Zola’s saga with her own version. Soon after the infamous thread was published, Rolling Stone reached out and conducted an interview with Zola: “When [Zola] posted the story on Twitter, she was caught up in the moment, she explains, riffing on the reactions of her followers who were responding in real-time. She had posted and removed the story twice before and no one cared. To garner more interest this time, she made it darkly funny while preserving the gist of what happened. And she has no regrets.” This context envelops an already alluring premise into something enticingly mythic.
It’s 2020. A24 have just released Zola, Janicza Bravo’s bold adaptation of Zola’s twitterstorm. It opens with a whimsical air; two women, Zola (Taylour Paige) and Stefani (based on Jessica, played by Riley Keough) stand before a mirror applying lip gloss. If you’ve seen HBO’s Euphoria, this image is reminiscent of Maddy and Cassie sauntering around a carnival house of mirrors high on MDMA, stroking their egos.
Flashback to Zola and Stefani’s actual meeting: a diner. Zola is Stefani and X’s waitress, where she piques Stefani’s curiosity. “You wanna go somewhere with me?” These words hang in the air as delicious fruit. Zola is lured by the gesture.
The two women work at the same strip club as exotic dancers, quickly bonding. ‘Follow 4 follow,’ one of the women rejoices. They exchange their handles across multiple platforms – Twitter, Tumblr, Facebook – each represents a different annal of their identity. This exchange functions as its own intimate transaction.
Hari Nef was right to coin and apply the term “instamacy” to Bravo’s film. There exists a feminine, specifically feminine-digital, sensibility within a tale so fervently dictated by masculine violence. This feminisation is most obvious inside the strip club’s dressing room, paying homage to the glittering hyperreality of Verhoeven’s Showgirls. Bravo swaps Verhoeven’s camp surrealism with digital mystique, sabotage with selfies. It is as if the film itself, blending imagination and adaptation, materialised from inside a woman’s iPhone, from her camera roll, her apps, her texts—bound together to form one spectral persona.
Bravo transcends the disturbing premise (the girls eventually end up embroiled in dangerous, unsolicited sex work) by making clear her film’s rich aesthetic potential. Perhaps there has yet to be a film so authentically referential to the digital age. One small example of Bravo’s representation of this is the use of subtitles. Though understated, subtitles appear to offer alternate meanings to what is said in live-action. Picture the head and speech bubble meme. Similarly, texts between the girls are read aloud with such obnoxious performativity it feels like face-to-face dialogue. Its theatricality departs from the purely expositional tropes of on-screen texting. Zola and Stefani vocalising their texts aloud so conversationally, as if they are in the same room, demonstrates Bravo’s awareness that texting no longer aims to strictly emulate speech, but speech emulates texting – how we live inside our keyboards, how we collectively occupy the same digital spaces. Bravo recognises that cinema is the most flexible medium to play with the limits of how we coexist in this semi-digital realm; she sees where precisely our on-screen personas meet each other and our inner selves.
There is something historically referential in how Bravo constructs her film. Much like silent era films contain title cards that situate audiences either in dialogue or plot, in Zola, Bravo frames specific sequences inside a lock screen, audibly punctuated by a recognisable shutter, to mark our time and place. These all-too-recognisable haptics orient our viewing experience along the course of action as it unfolds. That shutter sound is a familiar music, as is the whistle of a sent tweet that chimes at frantic intervals – as if an invisible figure is live-tweeting overhead.
Zola may well receive a mixture of reviews as it continues to circulate, though to judge Bravo’s film solely against the criteria of a dark comedy is to misunderstand its cinematic faculty. Melding literary mystique with a sugary, hyper-digital aesthetic, Bravo plays within a territory of cinema yet to be charted. Zola limns the digital age as an ever-personal trance.
Fact or fiction, the story of Zola and Jessica is passed along as tantalising gossip. This is not to suggest the events themselves were fabricated nor unharmful, but that the mythology that surrounds the girls has taken on a life of its own. It has been immortalised in our phones, as a speculative discourse between far-flung strangers.
We immerse ourselves in Zola as we immersed ourselves in its source material: both the Twitter thread and this adaptation are stories guided by perceptive, though perhaps unreliable, narration. Drifting in and out of a haze, somewhat numbed to the depravity, we pore over the details as detached, bewildered spectators. We scroll on; we leave the cinema; we wait for the next sensational tale.
The narrator of a poem can be elusive, unobtrusive, not really considered behind the material of what he is saying. He can be nonphysical – a voice in our head. Drop the same words into the visible, corporeal mouth of an actor, and the narrator is forcibly animated – pinned down. Ralph Fiennes’s new production, in which he is the only actor, T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets the only script, and a grey backdrop with some unremarkable furniture the only context, enacts this transition from voice-in-our-head to personhood, and it is up to the audience to consider who, when, and where this suddenly-embodied poetic voice is coming from. We know the origin of the words we’re hearing, but what on earth are we watching?
Our narrator’s tone of voice sways between the revelatory and the didactic, the divine and the desperate, so that our first job is to work out whether we are watching a man or a god. Through his interrogations of faith, the possibility of him being a god seems to fade, but maybe we could see him in the role of bard – of poet, used by gods as a megaphone. But in “the world of perpetual solitude” this narrator describes for himself, there is no room for him to be defined as relative to other beings – in fact throughout the production he is defined absolutely by his solitude. We watch Fiennes stand alone with his hand on the shoulder of an empty chair talking about “union” and “communion”, and we cannot doubt that we are watching a performance of separateness.
This production is profoundly interested in time – not only through Eliot’s wartime perspective and central exploration of the interface between past, present, and future, but also through the performance’s rhythmic technology. Fiennes’s command of Eliot’s metre is inseparable from the new elements of dance and song. If the narrator only sometimes feels human, then dance is how he very visually humanises himself – he seems at his most human, and importantly at his most clearly alone, when he is dancing a partnerless half-a-waltz, or a tenth or twelfth of a circular court dance.
In this vacuum of human relativity, perhaps even the narrator himself does not know who he is. He does, however, seem to know where he is in a way that the audience does not – he points to yew trees and inscriptions and rivers and mice where we see only the grey floor and the huge, grey, occasionally rotating concrete-esque slabs which form the background. He might exist, then, on a slightly different plane than that of his audience. When he recalls seeing “The eyes of a familiar compound ghost/Both intimate and unidentifiable”, we hear our experience of watching him echoed.
So, what are we watching? We are watching Fiennes the inspired bard, Fiennes the lonely and the desperate, Fiennes the “compound ghost”. Maybe the voice we hear is not quite so embodied as we first thought. Maybe the narrator gives us a clue to his whereabouts and his nature when he says:
“Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.”
Maybe he does not grow far beyond the poetic voice-in-our-head. In this intricate production, the ‘maybe’ feels like the whole point.
Hot Girl Summer. Three words I’ve had sporadically sprinkled around my Instagram, powdered atop my YouTube and scattered upon my Tiktok ‘For You Page’; and three words deployed greatly and prolifically by my one and only Emma Chamberlain, and thus consequently – of course – heavily dusted upon my subconscious.
In that standard way we all feel intrinsically superior to things we are not personally a part of or concepts we do not understand you can imagine my initial reaction to this new hot saying was to immediately disregard it as cringey and so colossally below me. But life guru Emma, who I thought was on my superior and worthier level, did me no favours by deciding to take the phrase in her coffee drive-thru stride and make it a force for me to reckon with. If I was going to carry on being her long-lost twin sister, I needed to commit and take the 4 and a half seconds to search it up and see what it entailed: an opportunity to justify revamping my closet and spending money I don’t have.
Naturally I immediately took to the idea quite fondly. But I did not stop there. Such is the inquisitive mind. I searched up the term in the Urban Dictionary Definition, which defined it as a “summer full of fun”. It was coined by pop star Megan thee Stallion, who explains that it is about “just being you, just having fun. It’s turning up, driving the boat and not giving a damn about what nobody’s saying. A summer where you are in charge of your own happiness. Chase the bag and we ain’t crying over no man PERIODt. It’s a hot girl summer. I need all the hot girls to get yalls head in the game! The summer isn’t over yet!”
Here’s the hitch though: “We ain’t crying over no man”. Have I passed the Hot Girl Summer deadline if I’ve already gotten over my ex and moved onto a one-year happy relationship? Last year I would’ve been perfect for the part: a puffy red face covered in various shades of black and mauve, smeared in matts of something that was once hair, and a stomach with the perfect amount of blubber – courtesy of comfort Lotus Biscoff spread – ready for chiselling and sculpting. But the time-honoured New Me concept is exciting to us all and is an opportunity that should not be exclusively open to the post breakup queens. I am also entitled to chiselling and hair washing. And I stand firm in this belief. Lizzo’s Good As Hell could very well be its soundtrack (but even without the ex-boyfriend story line). I envisage me and my BFF on the Amalfi Coast in our matching bikinis, with our matching Sex on the Beaches and matching pouts. But, alas, not everyone will be in Santorini (neither will I actually, or her, for that matter) and so who’s going to see me and my pouty BFF?
This leads to my next postulation: Is Hot Girl Summer only Hot Girl Summer if the world and its wife are there to bear witness? Can it only co-exist with Instagram and the such? Is there even any point in getting on the yacht with an endless supply of Champagne if ex-boyfriend Brian won’t see? (Very much yes, absolutely yes). But all jokes aside – as, again, the yacht and Champagne on tap is not exactly quite the precise picture of how my summer is personally going to pan out (unless one of my parents has a midlife crisis and mental breakdown all in one go, have a New Me epiphany of their own and then each win the lottery). Is it just a picture-posting illusion? I think yes and no. I think yes, there’s the urge to share the shiny tan and the cocktails but also no, as it does just feel good inside to make a change. Always. Be that in summer or in rainy autumn. Even if the change just entails two new blond strips at the side of your face, or a new cartilage piercing.
But I’ve noticed that as the phrase has progressed over time, becoming a part of our day-to-day lexicon, it has in some ways shifted to mean something slightly deeper. It’s a solidarity anthem to girls having fun on their own terms, redirecting focus away from boyfriends or exes and away from outdated “beach body ready” tropes and back towards themselves. As much as I love the Hot Girl Summer of yachts, pouts and matching bikinis, I also think that I could do with some change in other aspects of myself. Maybe I could stop going on and on (the banes of both my friends’ and parents’ existences) about how I will write a graphic novel, I will read that book on my bedside table that’s been gradually accumulating so many layers of dust you’d think has magically developed its sequel on top of it, and just do it. Or at least start it, whatever it is. There’s only so much time my blonde front strips can keep my little easily bored brain entertained, and perhaps it’ll take something slightly longer lasting to fulfil the glow up. (Matching butterfly tattoo with BFF you say? Yes. I know. That’s already very much at the top of my list).
So, I’m not really sure what to make of this Hot Girl Summer. I think you make of it what you will. What I know for sure is it belongs to every girl and to every season. Another thing I know for sure is that me holding a wet muddy pole whilst being yelled at by my drunken friends as I nearly capsize into duck-faeces-infested waters (almost decapitating one of said drunkards) and then nearly being decapitated/impaled by a branch myself (all contingent on which angle I choose to fall at – the fall at this point inevitable) is not the first thing that springs to mind when I hear Hot Girl Summer. But what’s being an Oxford student without at least one punt, hot or not.
I was scrolling through the Love Island hashtag yesterday when I saw a tweet stating that you couldn’t be a feminist and watch Love Island. Amidst the rest of the Love Island tweets, which mainly focussed on creating memes based on the latest episode, it was this tweet that halted me in my tracks. I like to consider myself as a passionate feminist; after all, I’ve read as much Simone de Beauvoir, Angela Davis, and Audre Lorde as every other self-proclaimed feminist English Literature student probably has. Yet I still revel in the yearly Love Island frenzy, which sweeps me up in all its contrived production of “reality”. Is there any way for me to reconcile my feminist morals with the drama of Love Island? Can you be a feminist and watch Love Island?
One of the main issues for me, and many others, is the sheer lack of diversity on Love Island. The importance of diversity and intersectionality cannot be underscored in any discussion of feminism, and Love Island’s approach to this issue leaves something lacking. Jake, the first man to walk into the villa in the very first episode of this year’s series, described his type as ‘blonde’ with ‘blue eyes’ and ‘little white toes’. This preference, whilst already revealing too much about Jake’s love of feet, also ruled out three of the five girls in the initial line-up, with only Faye and Liberty fitting into the blonde, and white, category. The three remaining girls, Sharon, Shannon, and Kaz, were therefore all dismissed by Jake’s “preference”. This follows a trend within the show, in which Women of Colour, and specifically black women, find themselves side-lined by the show’s men, with Essex-based influencer Kaz Kamwi repeatedly finding the odds stacked against her. The impact of this sort of colourism is discussed further by Nessa Humayun in this article, which focusses on the harmful consequences of the show’s treatment of black women. Whilst the casting directors have certainly introduced a greater diversity of men and women, the tendency is certainly towards people with lighter-skin, with an almost alarming lack of East and South Asian male representation being pointed out by journalist Diyora Shadijanova in a now deleted tweet from 26th July, which asked “Where are the East and South Asian men???”
But the issues don’t stop there. Even more alarmingly, the show has little body diversity, and almost no LGBTQ+ representation, with the focus being on heteronormative couplings and nothing else. The show’s makers have even suggested, in this Guardian article, that LGBTQ+ contestants would introduce “logistical difficulties” for the show, something which seems to conceive of LGBTQ+ people as a complication. If anything, I agree with Yomi Adegoke’s view, that it is high time for a “gay Love Island”; surely it would make it more exciting than anything else? Other dating shows like First Dates have already made a start on introducing more LGBTQ+ representation, so why can’t Love Islandfollow suit?
Another disappointment comes with the lack of body diversity on the show. In order to gain a brief overview of people’s attitudes towards this season specifically, I conducted a short Twitter poll, which received around 149 votes. Over 94% of people felt that Love Island did not show a diverse range of body types. In comparison, when I asked about racial diversity on the show, just over 81% felt that the show was not racially diverse enough. It’s obvious to me from this that others share my attitudes towards the glaring lack of body diversity on the show – it simply isn’t good enough.
Little effort has been made by the casting team to find contestants who don’t all have the same body types; in 2019, Anna Vakili was hailed as “plus-size” representation, and whilst she certainly was taller and curvier than the average Love Island contestant, she still had the flat stomach and small waist that every other woman on the show does. This attempt at plus-size representation not only fell flat, isolating truly plus-size and non-straight-size women who typically have little to no representation in the mainstream media, but it also painted an unrealistic picture of what “plus-size” is, depicting it merely as something that fitted to the male gaze of the show.
This is not, of course, the fault of any of the contestants, but is symptomatic of a broader problem with representation in our society. As in Love Island, it is a Eurocentric beauty standard which receives the most airtime in the media, and so the fact that the casting team have pandered to this is merely indicative of a wider issue. Whilst touted as a reality show, it’s also, ultimately, a game show, with entertainment at the forefront. For the producers, having representation of different sexualities, races, and body types is not their biggest concern, but making a show that will make people watch and which will make them money is. Viewing Love Island as just a game, disconnected from any reality, is perhaps the most useful way of navigating the problems with the show. By viewing it as just a product of a society which favours representation of certain bodies over others, you can view it as just what it is, a money-making enterprise for all involved. I do believe that Love Island has a lot of issues, but these are merely a microcosm of the issues in our wider society. As a feminist, I believe that I can sit back and enjoy Love Island for what it is (rubbish, but easy-to-watch television), and then carry on being a feminist for the other twenty-three hours of my day.
The one thing I will miss about my lockdown year at Oxford is the online lectures. To be honest, I hope my faculty keeps them up, even though they have definitely been a mixed blessing. The fact they were online and recorded meant I felt no pressure to go to them when they were being streamed live, but instead was able to watch them in my own time. Most of them were pre-recorded, which also gave me the opportunity to watch many of them in advance. But did I actually go to many of them? No. I completely lacked the motivation to do that. This is where the negatives come in – as there was no prescribed time and place to go and watch lectures, I became very relaxed in watching them very early on. I watched one in my first week, and then none until my collections, and then again none until just before my Prelims. I did better than most people I knew when it came to this. This small example is a perfect analogy for how this year has been very mixed.
This plethora of ups and downs began even before we got to Oxford, as is well known by any Freshers who did not take a gap year. March 2020 saw our A-levels cancelled, meaning we did not have to revise and sit exams. That, I cannot lie, was a blessing, but also bought with it a whole host of worries about how our grades were going to be determined, the algorithm and all the drama which accompanied it. I struggled with the unknowing and the worry – I actually started to get grey patches in my hair. As you can imagine, going grey at 18 through stress is not the best experience, but luckily in the end for me at least it all turned out okay.
Despite the undeniable impact on our academic experience, the main thing that I think most Freshers will agree on as the biggest effect of Covid is the sense of loss of opportunity: The opportunity to have a chance to fully explore and come to know Oxford throughout the year, the opportunity to find friends and people both within and outside of college. A handful of people in older years have said to me they made most of their closest friends in their second year, and I really hope this is true. Do not get me wrong, I have made friends and socialising has happened – much to College’s dismay – but it has been difficult.
The past year, to me at least, has felt like being in a permanent state of FOMO. The fear of missing out has been a constant spectre standing behind me. The thing that has hit me the hardest is the constant concern over what could have been better if it had been a normal year: would I have made different and better friends? Would I have found a group? Second, third and fourth years had all already met people and formed their groups, making socialising within restrictions much easier. We had to start blind, with a few of us knowing people from interviews and such but having had very little interaction beyond that. This doubt over whether things would have been better in other circumstances is not an anxiety that can be easily remedied.
So, this is where I have found my first year toughest. Term starting in October also had an impact, seeing my mates who went to different universities around the country enjoying themselves when pubs were not curfewed at ten in the evening. Then, by the time the Oxford term had started, rules had gotten stricter, meaning the normal ways of making friends in Fresher’s week dwindled by the second. Again, that feeling of FOMO and missed opportunity kicked in again. Despite not being in Oxford for Hilary term, I cannot claim to have had a bad year – in fact I had quite a good year. I have made friends, I have met lots of people, especially over Trinity, and only had two weeks of isolation in Michaelmas. Despite all this, despite the fact I have not failed in integrating with people and forming friends and socialising, I still feel that sense of regret and sorrow at things not having been what they could have been. There is very little I can do about it now and it is no good to linger on the past in a remorseful manner. It is best to move on, but I do not quite know when that spectre of FOMO will leave my shadow – I can only guess going back in October with hopefully a normal year might help, but that remains to be seen.
A Cherwell investigationhas found that the University received 3,675 mitigating circumstances applications for the 2020/2021 academic year. However, the University refused to provide information on the outcomes of these applications.
Under Part 13 of the University’s Examination Regulations, candidates whose performance was significantly affected by “acute illness or some other urgent cause” may submit a notice to examiners. For the academic year 2020/2021, students could also submit a notice if they believed their academic performance had been “seriously affected by Covid-19”.
The number of applications received this year is a significant increase on the previous years’ numbers with 2,282 applications received in 2019/20 and 1,297 in 2018/19.
Elizabeth Bircham, a PPE finalist, was involved in a traffic accident in her second year which resulted in her missing out on months of teaching. She submitted a mitigating circumstances notice for four papers none of which were taken into account. She said she was “troubled” by the outcome of her application as there was “clear evidence of significant medical trauma” supported by a strong statement from her college.
She told Cherwell that while going through treatment, she considered rusticating but was advised by her tutors that applying for mitigating circumstances would compensate for the fewer hours teaching she received: “It is very clear from the outcomes of students’ applications that applying for mitigating circumstances is absolutely not an alternative to rustication and should not be presented as such.”
Another PPE student who submitted notices, became estranged from their family in Hilary Term. “There were real and serious difficulties with issues at home, so I had to become estranged for safety, mental health and other reasons,” they told Cherwell.
Supported by letters from their Counsellor and tutor explaining the “dire impact” of the situation on their studies, the first year student submitted notices for all papers as well as a separate statement for a disturbance relating to family issues during their Philosophy exam.
The student was told that the seriousness of the impact on their academic performance was tier 2, “moderate”, and that there was “insufficient evidence to adjust marks”. While the student appreciated that their grade could not be adjusted as their overall mark was close to a distinction, they told Cherwell they would have liked the University to “realise and address” the impact on their studies.
The mitigating circumstances of a recent graduate from the Department of Experimental Psychology who submitted notices due to “psychological and logistical difficulties”, were also not taken into account. They told Cherwell that living with an abusive parent during the summer of last year and facing several housing difficulties put them at a “severe disadvantage” for sitting exams postponed until MT20 as well as their final exams in Trinity of this year.
Cutting contact with their family and needing to find part time work to support themselves had a “detrimental impact” on their ability to concentrate on their academic studies. “I was already struggling in Hilary, but when I reached out to my main tutor for that term, he only told me that I would ‘have to do the reading at some point’ and gave me no aid or words of support, which discouraged me from seeking any further help from my tutors in general”, they said.
Since receiving their results, the student has tried to appeal the university’s decision and is considering filing a formal complaint. They explained that they are not concerned with the numerical mark but “the dismissive treatment of someone who was very clearly not in a position to take exams”.
“I am also frustrated at the lack of transparency on the process of considering mitigating circumstances notices, and have been disappointed at the lack of communication from my department”, they added.
A current finalist in the same department who sat exams at the end of their second year told Cherwell that “it feels so heartbreaking” for their circumstances not to be taken into account having been affected by depression and a learning disability in the months leading up to their exams.
Despite submitting a doctor’s note confirming how debilitating their depression and its side effects were alongside their statement, no action was taken. Weeks later, the Department retracted this, stating that while no action would be taken, the statement would be passed onto next year’s examiners.
Another final year student said the University’s failure to offer an adjustment was “a dismissal and invalidation of [their] experiences”.
They told Cherwell: “I had agonised over submitting the mitigating circumstances form, hating how I had to write down in excruciating detail a blow-by-blow account of my mental illness’ slow takeover of my life. I wrote down how I had become unable to sleep, had endless headaches, no motivation or energy, constant exhaustion, nausea and stress-induced heart palpitations while constantly battling very dark thoughts that I could find no escape from.
“Mid-way through my exam period, I relapsed into self-harm, and became suicidal. These were some of my lowest moments, and I forced myself to relive them by writing them down, pushing aside my discomfort in order to bare all to my examiners, only for them to turn around and reject them.”
Anvee Bhutani, Oxford SU President, told Cherwell: “I am very disappointed to see that so many students have had no adjustment made to their classifications this year, despite having submitted very thorough mitigating circumstances notices. I am continuing to fight for fair outcomes for students and hope for the mitigating circumstances policy to be substantially reworked in the coming year.”
A spokesperson for the Oxford SU Sabbatical Team said: “Oxford SU recognises that the last few years have been extraordinarily difficult for students. We believe that a fair mitigating circumstances procedure is essential to ensuring the right degree outcomes for students who have been significantly impacted by any circumstance outside of their control, this year and in years to come.
“We also acknowledge that submitting a mitigating circumstance notice can be an upsetting and vulnerable process. We would like to remind students that our advice service can support them in writing and collecting evidence for their statements ([email protected]) as well as in appealing the outcome of their submissions. Support can also be found through the University’s counselling service ([email protected]).
“Working to make the mitigating circumstances procedure fairer is a priority for our Sabbatical Officers, and students who have ideas about how the process could be improved should get in touch with our VP for Access and Academic Affairs ([email protected]) or VP for Graduates ([email protected]) as best reflects their situation.”
A spokesperson from the Department of Experimental Psychology told Cherwell: “We can assure our students that all mitigating circumstances submissions were considered very carefully by the Exam Board and adjustments made where possible.”
They added: “We are incredibly proud of our EP and PPL students’ achievements in the face of unprecedented challenges over the last 18 months. We are extremely grateful for our students’ constructive engagement with the changes we had to make in the way we teach and examine throughout the pandemic. We welcome discussions with both current and former students about how we can better support and communicate about these efforts and next steps.”
The University did not provide comment in relation to other departments.
Oxford nightline is open 8pm-8am, every night during term-time, for anyone struggling to cope and provide a safe place to talk where calls are completely confidential. You can call them on 01865 270 270, or chat at oxfordnightline.org. You can also contact Samaritans 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, by calling 116 123 or emailing [email protected].
