Keble College has reversed its decision to refuse students onsite accommodation during the commemoration ball on June 27, 2020. The move comes after students put substantial pressure on the organisational committee to secure rooms in college, citing access and welfare concerns which would particularly affect low-income students.

In an email to college members, ball executive Sam Edwards said 200 rooms would be initially made available on November 7, but that this was “the maximum number which can be confirmed at this stage,” as the college is yet to finalise academic requirements for students staying on for work in 9^th week. 

Third-year student Hannah Al-Qaryooti, who was instrumental in proposing the motion and highlighting the accessibility concerns involved, said, “I am extremely happy that Keble have reversed their decision. It shows that they have listened to student concerns about accessibility.” 

Initial concerns revolved around the cost of rooms outside college, the cheapest of which was priced at £50 – thus making it difficult for low-income students to attend. As the majority of the accommodation was located at Oxford Brookes, students also expressed worry that drunk students might be forced to walk to the site alone in a vulnerable state. 

Rooms in college were originally priced at £43, but the ball committee has decided to subsidise the cost, reducing the price to £33. They will be allocated on a first-come-first-serve basis, although full bursary students will have their rooms automatically reserved.

The college has also committed to offering heavily subsidised tickets to Moritz-Heyman scholars, meaning that they will be able to attend the ball at a cost of £50, which Al-Qaryooti lauded as an “extraordinary commitment to accessibility from Keble and should be followed by other ball committees.”

Social Backgrounds Rep Adam Ferguson told Cherwell: “It is very encouraging to see that Keble is both aware of, and open to our suggestions as to how best support low-income students. Given a short amount of time and a tight schedule, the college acted remarkably quickly and have introduced an element of accessibility to the ball which will hopefully remain indefinitely into the future.”

Despite the success of student action, Al-Qaryooti expressed she was “disappointed that it took such pressure from the student body to actually make accessibility provisions and that such concerns from the student part of the committee were ignored when these decisions were initially made.” 

She added that future balls outside term time should include an access officer, due to fears that “with such a quick turnover of students, it can be quite difficult to create long-lasting change, as when students leave, the accountability does so with them and instead we go back to square one with the new cohort.”

The organisational committee is split into a student section and a college working party, the latter of which was initially responsible for the decision to refuse onsite accommodation to students “for various logistical and safety reasons,” according to Edwin Peel, the chair of the working party. 

Rowers from University College Boat Club will be rowing continuously for 24 hours to raise money for Oxfordshire Mind at the college on 16-17 November.

The rowers will power two rowing machines overnight to raise money for the charity, and part of the rowing marathon will take place on the college quad and will be open to the public.

Supporters will be able to cheer the club on in the quad from 11am- 5pm on the 16th and 9am-11am on November 17. The overnight section will be held in the college gym.

Kathryn Pickup from Oxfordshire Mind said: “We know that physical activity can make significant improvements to people’s mental health, so it’s great that the UCBC have chosen to raise awareness of this, as well as making mental wellbeing a priority for their own club. At Oxfordshire Mind, we firmly believe that everyone who experiences mental health difficulties should have somewhere to turn to for advice and support. By supporting us in this way, UCBC will ensure that we can continue to make that happen.”

The club chose to support Ox- fordshire Mind because it runs local workshops and provides support for those suffering with mental health conditions which are especially prevalent in young people. The event is also supporting the Rowing Together for Healthy Minds initiative, which was set up in specifically to raise awareness about mental health in the rowing community. Aiming to raise £2,000 forthe charity, the college has set up a JustGiving page.

Worcester JCR has recently voted overwhelmingly to reinstate the practice of standing as tutors approach the high table at formal hall, after the recently appointed Interim Provost and the college governing body banned the custom without JCR consultation. After passing the results of the referendum on to the college administration, with 130 out of 155 in favour of maintaining the practice, attendees can now choose to stand if they wish – this choice was already made by students at the formal on Tuesday of 1st Week, even prior to the JCR motion being put forth.

Since Worcester is one of the few colleges that retains most formal hall traditions, including gowns, formal dress code and Latin grace there is a strong feeling within the student body that Worcester’s reputation for traditional formals or, as the original JCR motion put it, “the element of theatre,” should be maintained.

A Worcester fresher, who asked not to be named, dismissed the argument that traditional formal hall might hinder attempts to make the college more inclusive of people of diverse backgrounds, calling it an “overreaction.”

Echoing this, JCR President Ellen Flower summarised the feeling of the student body – “people really like some of Worcester’s traditions and feel strongly about the prospect of them changing.” She added that “it’s interesting that the JCR members appear more conservative than members of the Governing Body”; indeed, the original proposer of the motion, Damon Falck, claimed it was an attempt “to get things back to how they used to be.”

However, it is important to note that the apparent conservatism of Worcester students only goes so far; the aforementioned fresher also argued that saying grace has more connotations of elitism than standing for tutors, citing the use of Latin and the fact that “it shows respect only for one specific religion.” In this way, Worcester students do not appear to be opposed to attempts to make college life more inclusive, but feel that this particular attempt has been misdirected.

Controversy over the role of tradition in formal hall and discord between college administration and the student body are hardly unique to Worcester; in the first week of Hilary term last year, the St Catherine’s JCR voted for a motion for students to make a ‘personal decision [of] whether to stand or sit, silent or not, when the tutors walk into the Hall.’ This motion, the very opposite of Worcester’s effort to preserve tradition, passed with 24 votes for, 21 votes against and 2 abstentions, a very low turnout among just under 500 undergraduates.

Indeed, despite the motion students still stand for their tutors at hall and it is unclear whether the Governing Body will implement the vote. The proposition argued that undoing the tradition would make hall more popular and was not only practical but more inclusive; it should also be noted that St Catherine’s is seen as one of Oxford’s more progressive colleges, and unlike Worcester does not have a tradition of saying grace, and has a casual dress code. ll. However, there were concerns that the motion could damage relations between the JCR and the faculty and, like at Worcester, some students argued that standing showed respect for the work of those seated at high table. The proposer of the motion at St Catherine’s declined to comment.

Though few other colleges aside from Worcester and St Catherine’s have had JCR motions addressing this specific issue, and in some the concerns surrounding traditions at formal hall are met with apathy – a fresher at Queen’s claimed that “no one [in the student body] has raised it as an issue to debate, it’s not given too much thought” – there have been strong reactions from individual students calling for the tradition of standing for tutors to be abolished.

Zaman, a fresher at Corpus Christi, thinks it wrong that “someone should command such a show of respect merely because of the official position they hold,” and cited racism, transphobia and climate change denial on the part of tutors as reasons why some students might be uncomfortable standing for them. An Oriel student who requested to remain anonymous raised the issue of the accessibility of formal hall to disabled students, which is not often acknowledged in related JCR motions. “As a disabled person who sometimes finds it hard to stand,” the student wrote, “I would feel embarrassed if I weren’t able [to stand for tutors] at formal while everyone else does,’” though she did also acknowledge the “warmth and empathy” she felt from her college towards her disability.

Last week, Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller gave the annual Romanes Lecture on ‘The Profession of Intelligence’ in the Sheldonian Theatre.

Baroness Manningham-Buller was the Director General of MI5 from 2002 to 2007, having had a career in the MI5 for over 30 years.

She is now Chair of the Wellcome Trust and has been a crossbench peer at the House of Lords since 2008. She read English at Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford before joining the Security Service.

The talk was about the nature of intelligence, its value and limitations, and how it is practised. In discussing the role of people working in intelligence, she focused on team- work and diversity. She emphasised intelligence officers should have a variety of experiences and be “comfortable with ambiguity.” She also said discussion between depart- ments and countries is important – it is a “shared endeavour between colleagues.” As well as explaining the nature of the profession of intelligence, she discussed its relation to current affairs.

Anne Deighton, Emeritus Professor of European Interna- tional Politics, noted in a tweet how Manningham-Buller commented on the government’s delay in releasing a report on Russian covert actions and alleged electoral interference compiled by the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee.

“Eliza Manningham-Buller appeared to make a reference to this untoward delay in releasing the report. So what does it say that frightens the govt?”

Deighton told Cherwell: “I thought it was apt, and respectful of her audience that she flagged this issue up, which is about access to information on an important strategic matter which a cross party committee of MPs had spent time compiling. It must make every citizen very curious to know what the report says about the activities of the Russians in our political system.”

No. 10 has since refused to release the 50-page report until after the general election on 12th December, leading to speculation that the government is hiding the extent of Russian interference.

Manningham-Buller’s previous lectures have attracted attention due to her clear opinions on how political decisions impact the UK’s security. In a speech in 2016 at Chatham House, an international affairs think tank, she criticised the choice to leave the European Union because of danger to the country’s security. The Guardian reported how she criticised claims that the UK would be safer outside the EU as “nonsensical and spurious” she suggested that “to leave would present real risks to our security and safety”.

Previous years’ Romanes Lectures have also garnered attention because of prominent figures’ perspectives on current affairs. Hillary Clinton said in the 2017 lecture ‘Making the Case for Democracy’ that young people were “let down by Brexit” and asked whether more should have been done “to turn the tide”. Other Romanes lecturers have included Gordon Brown in 2009 and 2006, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, in 2004, and Tony Blair in 1999. The first Romanes lecture wasgiven in 1892 by William Gladstone and has since been the public lecture of the University. A distinguished public figure from the arts, science, or literature is invited by the Vice-Chancellor each year.

Oxford Women in Computer Science (OxWoCS), a society at the University which “aims to promote and support women in science,” announced on October 31st that it will begin a series of collaborative workshops with the help of public blockchain platform Zilliqa. OxWoCS is already sponsored by companies including Google and Facebook.

Spaces at the workshop series will be limited to approximately 20 students per session. The first one, having taken place on the 31st, introduced students to blockchain, Bitcoin, and basic information about the industry and workshop series. The next three sessions will take place on November 7th, 14th, and 21st, and will introduce students to cod- ing a simple smart contract and business use-cases for a public blockchain, culminating in a demo day where qualifying entries will be evaluated for prizes. Those who excel in these workshops may be considered for Zilliqa’s Ecosystem Grant Program, which allows students to receive both funding and mentorship for their ideas. The sessions are hosted in the Department of Computer Science, and interested students can register through a Google Form linked in their Facebook event.

Zilliqa, a public blockchain platform based in Singapore, describes itself as “a high-through- put blockchain platform that achieves over 2,828 transactions per second in its testnet by the implementation of sharding.” Its developer marketing head Saiba Kataruka told Decrypt: “Diversity continues to be an endemic prob- lem in the wider tech industry, and blockchain is no different. We are excited to be embarking on this collaboration with OxWoCS to champion the involvement of more women in this rapidly evolving space.”

The blockchain industry has long suffered from a massive gender gap, with men taking up 85% of blockchain startup memberships. Data group LongHash, while researching a report on inclusivity in blockchain, found only one startup with more than one female executive. Fewer than five percent of GitHub cryptocontributors are women. The nascent industry has been compared to a “New England country club” in media for its shocking gender disparity, and this challenge is the one the workshop series aims to address.

Paula Fiddi, founder of OxWoCS, told Decrypt that “At OxWoCS, our goal is to ensure that female scientists are presented with equal opportunities to engage with various areas of the tech industry. From established fields of research to nascent disciplines ripe for exploration, it’s important that women are adequately represented in order to champion diversity both in action and in practice.”