A new report has recommended that Oxford radically changes its approach towards socially disadvantaged applicants.

For the last few years Oxford has been flagging applicants from non-traditional backgrounds and tracing their progress through the system. Of the 500 flagged candidates from 2010, 100 received offers. However 50 failed to meet the necessary grades and 15 rejected their place.

The report, which has been given OUSU’s support, suggests that these two problems could be tackled by bridging provisions and foundation provisions. The former is aimed at supporting potential applicants who are still at secondary school, through the use of mentors. The second proposed solution suggests Oxford could attempt to fix problems of poor education, socio-economic deprivation and the social care system by introducing a foundation course.

This course could be a short residential study period or a year-long more traditional foundation scheme. It would provide an entry route into undergraduate courses for students with potential to study at undergraduate level who might not meet grade requirements, bringing them up to the necessary level.

Hannah Cusworth, OUSU’s Access Officer, stated her support for the motion, commenting, “As well as being a moral imperative for Oxford to ensure that disadvantaged students have a fair chance of making their offer, it is key we don’t lose potential students from non-traditional backgrounds who could go on to be great students.”

JCR President of Univ, Daniel Tomlinson, added, “Bridging support is a really good idea. It’s a way of making candidates from non-traditional backgrounds feel that Oxford wants them.”

The report was created by a working group and received some support from Admissions Officers last Michaelmas, although some concerns about logistics were expressed. OUSU supported the motion at its meeting last week, and JCR Executives and other representatives will be consulted early this term.”

If the proposal is implemented, it could help the university meet its targets for including students from non-traditional backgrounds. This is a condition of the agreement with the Office for Fair Access which accepted Oxford University raising their fee level to £9,000. Around 150 more flagged students must become Oxford undergraduates by 2016

The Curators of the Bodleian Libraries are undergoing consultations with the History department over plans to close the History Faculty Library.

The proposal, if successful, would see the entire contents and services of the History Faculty Library moved from its current location on Broad Street to the main Bodleian site in time for the start of the next academic year.The new plan comes as previous moves to relocate the Library to the Radcliffe Observatory site have undergone “temporary suspension.”

The consultation process officially began on Monday when Curators of the University Libraries endorsed the proposal in principle. The motion is now being put to members of the History Faculty with staff being asked to submit their comments by Friday 27th and an “extraordinary meeting” of committee will then take place next week. The results of this process will be reviewed, and the final decision made by Curators in their 8th week meeting.

Cherwell’s source from within the consultation process expressed grievances that “the History Faculty hasn’t even informed students of the proposal, let alone discussed it with us. We’re told that the university values our opinions and believes in transparency, but that’s simply not the case here.”

She added, “This is why we felt we had to go to the press.”

The organisers have admitted that “the timing is stunningly tight” and added that although “the velocity of all this is regrettable, there is something to be said for a short and focussed discussion.”

In an official statement on behalf of the Bodleian libraries, Jonathan Wood told Cherwell, “The proposal reflects the strategic vision of the Bodleian Libraries to provide improved services through the integration and consolidation of a number of its satellite libraries, thereby reducing costs to Divisions and enabling improved services, such as longer hours of operation.”

He added, “the savings achieved by the relocation of the history collections to the Bodleian would free up resources for the purchase of additional books, journals, and databases and for the support of Sunday hours in both the Radcliffe Camera and Old Bodleian Library.”

The official report sent to members of the History Faculty claimed that the change would bring many benefits to both students and staff including “unity of place, more circulation, more hours and more money.” It explained that “moving into the Old Bodleian would mean a 75K per year reduction in space charges, some of which could be ploughed back directly into the HFL acquisitions budget.”

However, not everyone is happy with the idea. One History graduate student commented, “The proposal has serious flaws, not least that there will be no room for staff offices or researchers in the new library, and that disabled access is currently no better at the Radcliffe Camera than at the Old Indian Institute.”

She continued, “Far worse, however, is the way in which the consultation process has been carried out. The role of the Martin School is deeply concerning. They’ve offered to cover the costs if the History Faculty Library moves out before September 2012, which has sped up the process. Why is policy being dictated by the whims of donors rather than the needs of students?”

The Oxford Martin School, which describes itself as “an interdisciplinary research initiative addressing key global future challenges”, has expressed its desire to take over the Oxford Indian Institute and has offered a substantial financial inducement to facilitate the move providing this takes place before September 2012.

Conrad Leyser, Chair of the History Committee for Library Provision, and Isabel Holowaty, the Bodleian’s History Librarian issued a joint statement defending the proposal, saying, “One of the main benefits of the proposed move is that it would mean longer opening hours for the History Faculty Library, including hours at weekends. This is something History students have been wanting for years: now we have a chance of making it happen.”

They added, “The main message we want to send out to students is that they should get in touch with their Library representatives.”

Second year Univ historian, Joe Kelly, argued that students should have been consulted earlier and added, “I’m against the prospective move because I find the size and grandeur of the Rad Cam intimidating.”

The collections of other subjects currently situated at the main Bodleian site will also be affected with, for example, English and Theology reference material being moved from the Lower Camera to the main level of the Upper Camera while the History teaching collection may move downstairs.

St Anne’s finalist Robin McGhee expressed particular opposition to this aspect of the change, commenting, “The potential move of History books from their rightful place at the top of the RadCam is an act of outrageous contempt by the University for History and it should be ashamed of it.”

The spokesperson for the Bodleian libraries declared that they do not anticipate any members of staff being made redundant as a result of this proposal.

Exeter History Fellow Dr. Faramerz Dabhoiwala has written a book which he “hope[s] will improve people’s sex lives.’

The book in question, titled ‘The Origins of Sex: A History of the First Sexual Revolution’, focuses on how western attitudes towards sex have changed throughout history, asking “when did our culture change so strikingly? Where does our current outlook come from?”.

“It should make people realise”, Dr. Dabhoiwala told Cherwell, “that the ways we think and feel and behave nowadays are not natural, or hard-wired, or unchanging, but the product of a major historical revolution that began in the eighteenth century”.

Dr. Dabhoiwala sees this subject as particularly relevant to the 21st century. He believes that “the sexual freedoms we enjoy today, our conceptions of the private and the public, our presumptions about male and female sexuality, even our peculiar fascinations with sexual celebrity and the mass media — all these were created by the great social and intellectual changes of the Enlightenment”.

The book discusses how views have changed since 1700, when sex outside marriage was still illegal in every western society and how surges in pre- and extra-marital sex, as well as an increased privacy around sexual activity led to more sexual freedom.

Dabhoiwala said that “I can only claim that it will entertain, enlighten, and make its readers more self-aware about a central facet of their lives.”

However, if Germaine Greer’s tough critique is anything to go by, ‘The Origins of Sex’ tends to focus on how sex is presented in 17th and 18th century libertine literature, and that “[Dabhoiwala] nowhere tests his assumptions against actual human behaviour” – how the masses were reacting to sex.

“It is not enough to show that somebody somewhere was thinking thoughts that we might think of as amazingly progressive” Greer says, “without investigating whether those ideas were leavening public discourse or changing the attitudes of the multitude.”

The Origins of Sex: A History of the First Sexual Revolution (2012), which will be published in the UK by Penguin Press on 2nd February.

A politics graduate student gained access to the Social Science Library early on Sunday morning and smashed through the toughened glass of an inner door.

The St Anthony’s student had been given 24 hour access to the library by his department.

The police were called at 1.15am and the man was arrested inside the library. University security services also attended the scene.

One source told Cherwell that the politics student used both a chair and a ‘book drop’ box to smash his way through the glass. He was found to have suffered cuts from the incident. The remainder of the toughened glass required a hammer to be cleared from the frame the next day.

The student was arrested for criminal damage but released on bail later on Sunday. He has claimed that he does not remember causing the damage but has offered the university an apology and says he will pay the cost of the replacement.

If the university accepts the student’s offer to pay for the damage and the money is paid, Thames Valley Police will not bring criminal charges. The glass in the door was bespoke and had been manufactured in Naples. A similar panel broken in the past cost £3,000 to replace, although the cost of repairing the damage may vary from this figure, depending on how the door is mended.

Louise Clarke, librarian at the SSL, told Cherwell that student disruption was kept to a minimum. The glass was cleared on Sunday morning. Although some of the first students visiting the library had to enter through a fire escape, the main entrance was soon made accessible. The door was made secure by 12.30, just half an hour after the stated opening hours on Sundays.

Oxford student Alistair Smout commented, ‘I basically live in the SSL these days, so I noticed the very next day. I didn’t realise it was an act of vandalism though! I know the SSL has its detractors but I don’t think that’s really on.’ He added, ‘Having said that, if I’d been stuck there with its artificial lights and 60s architecture for 24 hours it’s highly possible I’d end up wanting to break stuff too.’

Demand for Oxford rooms has become so high that, for £450 per month, people were prepared to live in a garden shed.

A landlord tried to rent out the 8ft by 8ft shed, with no running water or electricity, as a “double room in a garden house” on the website Gumtree.

Although tenants would have been permitted to use the kitchen, bathroom and washing machine in the main semi-detached house, Homeowner Greg Farkas was forced to withdraw the advert after realising it fell foul of planning laws.

Mr Farkas, 34, told the Daily Mail he had more than 20 inquiries before he withdrew the advert in an area where the average house price is £230,000. He said, “I had no idea about the planning laws when I advertised the garden house.

“I only had the advert up for two days but I must have got over 20 inquiries from people interested in renting it out. Some were students currently living in Oxford but many were professional people with full-time jobs who just can’t afford to live in their current properties.

‘If you put insulation in it I think it should be fine. If people want to live in that shed that’s their choice.’

Oxford City Council said he would have to apply for planning permission for a new dwelling before he could rent the shed out to tenants.

Councillor Joe McManners said, ‘I think this demonstrates how dire Oxford’s housing crisis is, that people are charging a large amount of money for what essentially looks like a shed. ‘It is indicative of the shortage of housing to be rented at affordable rates. But it is not acceptable in the 21st century for people to be living in sheds.’

Currently, there are 6,338 people in Oxford on the waiting list for council housing. While the council has about 8,000 properties, each year less than 600 become available for rent.

Daniel Stone, OUSU Vice President for Chairties and Community, told Cherwell, “Oxford is an attractive location for commuters, families, young professionals and students. Market forces dictate that this level of demand met with a limited supply of housing will naturally lead to a rise in prices.

“It is the responsibility of Colleges and the University to provide affordable, good quality accommodation and to publicise the support available to students who might find themselves in financial difficulty.”

One Lincoln undergraduate, Leanora Volpe commented, “It’s ridiculous that we pay more than a lot of other students for their university halls, and considering our terms are shorter and we’re not allowed to work during term time it seems really steep.

“Having nothing left over from the loan to live on makes it hard to cope, especially towards the end of term.”

However, Simon Tyrrell, associate director of Finders Keepers in Cowley Road, felt that the case was not a common one, acknowledging the situation as “indicative of greed rather than the state of the housing market. If they were trying to rent it for £150 a month it would be different.” English student Cassie Davies agreed, saying, “It just seems absurd that he’d try to rent out a shed for that much, when for £20 more a month I can be living in a spacious en-suite room in college in the heart of Oxford.”

First-year Ellie Rendle opposed the council’s move to put a stop to the tenancy, commenting, “I was shocked and horrified by the council’s decision. It’s blatant discrimination against those massive lads like me who find the shed lifestyle liberating.”

In an effort to curb crime, St Hugh’s have recently introduced a system which ‘zones off’ some buildings, only allowing those who live in them to enter them and to access the facilities there, and has been a subject of “considerable debate” in the JCR.

Bursar, Nick French, played down objections to the project, saying “The zoning of fobs is just a term used by the software package we use and it enables us to manage the system more effectively. Students are given access to all common areas and areas that are used by the JCR or MCR respectively (for instance the computer rooms, laundry facilities and tutor rooms) as well as the area in which they live.”

Though the changes were called “considerable” by Sara Polakova, the JCR President, in an email to the JCR, she later claimed that “so far” the changes were “of minor character and not particularly restricting” when contacted by Cherwell. She did suggest that more changes were likely to come, as only four staircases of one building are currently zoned off, yet the JCR was informed that plans are to zone off every floor or staircase in two particular buildings.

French identified the college’s motivation as “not only to increase security and therefore giving students peace of mind but also it is a much more efficient way to manage the system.” Ms Polakova agreed, saying the change was due “to an increase of crime in North Oxford”, property such as laptops going missing in the previous term, and advice by insurance companies and the police to tighten security.”

There was further disagreement between the information the JCR was given and what the Bursar and JCR President have told Cherwell. Nick French asserted the change “has not cost the college any money at all”, but one Presidential email to the JCR claimed it “costs A LOT”. Although the JCR was not consulted beforehand, she asserts that she respects the decision of college authorities, especially due to the scale of the changes. Earlier emails called the new situation “not ideal”.

Thomas Cureton, a 2nd year History and Politics student, commented: “At first this was apparently proposed as an improvement of security following several laptop thefts last year. However, it may indeed be the case that this is the result of complaints about people using kitchens in certain buildings as they are of a much better size and quality.

Effectively, despite the fact everyone pays a flat rate of rent, the college disallows the use of the best facilities to everyone – preferring to restrict their use to those who live within that accommodation area.”

Polokova said that although she saw both “advantages and disadvantages” of the new system, she and her Vice-President, Andy Wilson are looking into proposing a “slight alteration to the system, where both college’s security and people’s freedom of access would be preserved”.