Wednesday 15th October 2025
Blog Page 231

‘Swinging the Lens’: In conversation with Adjoa Andoh

Teagan Riches
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‘Swinging the Lens’: In conversation with Adjoa Andoh

Adjoa Andoh, a ground-breaking actor and director, known most recently for her role as Lady Danbury on Netflix show Bridgerton is the 2022 – 2023 Cameron Mackintosh Professor of Contemporary Theatre at St Catherine’s college. She will be holding a series of ‘in conversations’ and workshops addressing key issues of diversity and inclusion while making work at Oxford, in her time as Professor.

‘Swinging the Lens’, the name of her production company, encapsulates all that she is aiming to do.

If we think of a lens as our perspective on the world, she’s asking whose stories are getting told, and acting to change that, so that new stories, new perspectives, new lenses on reality are given the space to be heard too.

I sat down with Adjoa following her second workshop and we talked about her aims, belonging, role models and I reflected on the transformative impact her work had had on me in such a small space of time.

We started with a moment in her inaugural lecture where she spoke about ‘class, race and poverty’ still being key determinants of opportunity in our society and the stories that are told of ‘people like them’. I resonated with what she said. When I took my seat at the beginning of her first workshop, I was at one of my lowest points. In the weeks leading up to the workshops I had had someone turn to me in a tutorial and ask, ‘what would a working-class person like you know about that?’; and sat in my university kitchen, someone told me that ‘people like you should be made to wear a special commonest of the common gown’. Just two examples of the multiple explicit and implicit moments built up over my two years here that told me, loud and clear, that I didn’t belong.

It felt like my 17-year-old self-had been proven right. I laughed when it was suggested I applied to Oxford, I looked at my head of sixth form and said, ‘a place like that doesn’t want people like me’, I hoped I would be wrong.

In a matter of minutes Adjoa changed all of that. She stood in front of us all and told us that we were welcome, we belonged and that our stories, perspectives, and ideas were all as valuable as each other’s. In the adverts for her workshops, it says she’s particularly interested in meeting students from ethnic minorities, low socioeconomic backgrounds, those with disabilities and those identifying as LGBTQ+; groups often marginalised or erased from the narrative, whose stories often aren’t told and if they are, not by the people who live them. For too many of these students, myself included, they feel excluded from many places, and access often comes as an afterthought. I’ve always felt a sense of frustration when people told me not to worry, ‘there’ll be people like you there’. Representation matters but even statements like these have an air of exclusivity, that you weren’t wanted or didn’t belong in the main, you had to stick to a little side group.

For Adjoa, she says, “I think we have to re-educate ourselves because I think there is a lot of pressure for people to fit into their particular box and not stray from it.”

I ask her why she is here doing the work she is doing. “I’m here for all of us who need space made for us.” She asks, who has the right to tell us we should be excluded from the spaces we feel excluded from, if we have the skills or curiosity to want to be in them? In her state of ‘outrage and childish it’s not fair’ she says she’s simply interested in being fair. Not “more superior or more entitled or more exclusive, I’m saying let’s be fair.”

As for the phrase ‘people like them,’ she sees it as a classic way of othering and disempowering and is interested in the opposite because she has been ‘people like them’. “Our existence is miraculous, and this othering is a waste of growth, a waste of joy” and any structure where this is the narrative, she will push back against. Pushing back is exactly what she is doing, by opening up the conversations but also by setting the example, creating an empowering, collective, creative space where everyone from all different backgrounds is welcome and is made to feel like they are heard and belong. Highlighted is what we have in common, and we celebrate that. We also learn, respect and value the stories and perspectives we share with each other that highlight our differences. We learn about the people who came before us and the importance of knowing that we have been part of the story before this point.

She tells us stories of the unsung, stories most of us have never heard before, but in knowing about them Adjoa says; “we can go forward standing on the shoulders of those who already came before us”. The examples she gives in her lecture are black footballers and the contributions they have made to British football; including Jack Leslie the first black player to be called up for England in 1925. She asks if we knew this story, maybe less fuss would be made about black footballers now, and maybe less hate would have been received by our young black penalty takers at the 2021 Euros?

In her short time here, she has created an empowering space for us all to share. I’d given up hope on ever feeling like I belonged in Oxford up until that point. However, now I had been given the space to belong, my question, now in my own state of outrage, why can’t this be mirrored elsewhere?

I ask her how we can apply what is created in that room to wider life?

“If we can use days like today, of being together, as a touchstone, to constantly remind yourself, when the noise that says you shouldn’t be here, you’re not valid, not worthy, is loud… remember the people I told you about, those unsung people whose achievements we don’t know about and just hold on to them.

“Remind yourself when you need it and re-encourage yourself that you belong.

“Hold your place, hold your nerve, hold your line because what you are doing is holding a space for joy for yourself. For the celebration of yourself.”

That joy is infectious and uplifting. What she tells me rings true. From that first workshop onwards, I have held on to that feeling and felt empowered, not only to stay and find that joy for myself, but also to share it – create that space for others as Adjoa has for us. Her work is all about stories, and here I want to tell this story of hope and joy, so it too can be used as a foundation for future work to be built upon.  We are already here with a space of mutual belonging in Oxford, we are part of the story already, hopefully in knowing that we can move forward standing on the shoulders of Adjoa and the work she has done.

“There are terrific stories of joy and beauty, togetherness, cooperation and elevation but they’re not the stories that lead.”

Creating such a welcoming space started with the smallest of gestures, disguised as a simple memory game, we started the session by going around every person, having them say their name, the group repeating it back to them and welcoming them. This is something that could have been rushed but instead, Adjoa stopped and made sure every single person’s name was being pronounced correctly. I asked her why it was important to her to start the session this way, “Names are something we carry with us everywhere and people bothering to pronounce your name correctly means they’re bothered to spend enough time with you to pay attention to the fact that it is important. That you are important. That honouring the name you carry is important.”

You could hear in the voices of many in attendance this was something people seldom paid attention to, after repeating their name once or twice some were ready to give in, but Adjoa encouraged them. She talks about how people often feel embarrassed about needing to ask you to repeat your name or not getting the pronunciation right the first time but that the point is, “that intention, the intention to pay attention.”

It was worth it, such a small gesture yet I watched as people’s faces lit up as they heard a room of people pay attention, make the effort and pronounce their name correctly. Names carry so much meaning about our identity, but for so many, it is something that goes overlooked. When our names are said incorrectly many of us laugh, for me often going ‘I don’t know who this Teigen person is’, but such a small thing can make us feel so unseen. For Adjoa, she says “I’m much happier to go ‘say your name three times and everyone says it back’, let’s honour and respect that person because we all deserve that. It’s really a tiny thing.”

Adjoa is interested in and gives us the space to explore and express the complexity and multiplicity of stories that make us who we are. For all of us, assumptions are made by the people around us, of the story that makes us, based solely on the way we look, the colour of our skin, and our accent. Each of us is beautifully complex and it’s when we take the time to ask and listen and tell the stories that aren’t given the platform to be told that we are enriched by the full force of life. We are all, she says “vibrating with living history”. At her lecture, a White English Victorian formal family portrait is projected behind her. Adjoa looks at the faces in the picture and smiles before telling us the portrait is of part of her family and talks us through her family tree. Whilst she laughs that nobody needed to see that, she included it because for her “when I look at my great grandfather Joseph Pickering and my nana Jessie and my great grandmother Jessie that is not what people would expect to be part of my family if they look at me.

People’s lives are interestingly complex, we need to think about that complexity.”

It is also, as Adjoa tells me, where we find our common ground with each other and that stories need to be told so we can “understand what’s really going on in the world and the ways we engage with each other”. At the workshop we play the game ‘anyone who’ where people run across the circle if something said applies to them such as ‘anyone who is wearing black shoes’. It highlights what we have in common, potentially unexpected commonalities. What we find in common, who we resonate with, and who our role models are, also interests her. “It’s about essence and spirit sometimes”, you don’t necessarily have to look like someone or sound like someone for you to resonate with them, to share something in common with them. She tells me “When I play Richard III, I do so because, as a little mixed-race girl from the Cotswolds in the 1960s I resonated with him, his sense of not being fully embraced. What had my life to do with Richard III? Nothing and everything. I love the freedom of that, let me get my influences where I get my influences.”

We are students from all different backgrounds, different ethnicities, sexualities, genders, social class backgrounds, and ages, we are all studying a range of subjects but in those workshops, we are a collective. It doesn’t matter if you have any experience in theatre, it’s all about stories, which are told, which aren’t, who’s telling them and why. We explore texts by Lolita Chakrabarti, Kobina Sekyi, Biyi Bandele and Shakespeare. We share our perspectives and ‘lenses’ through our own writing. Most important of all we are together in a collective joy, a celebration of ourselves and each other, one in which I hope we can expand to the rest of the university and beyond.

For anyone reading this, who is being made to feel like they don’t belong or is being made to feel ashamed of parts of their identity – the final question I asked Adjoa was her advice to you and why you should come to the next workshop.

“If people feel like they are being excluded or marginalised or made to feel less than they should, come to the workshop for encouragement that they are fabulous and they are welcome and they are wanted and actually the ‘less than’ appellation should be applied to the people who are making them feel that way.

You are at Oxford University by dint of your hard work, your application, your curiosity and the skills that you possess, and no one has the right to take that away from you. Any who attempts to, is unworthy and should not be paid attention to.

It is your right, it is your duty and make it your joy, to remain and flourish because this is an extraordinary institution, and it has many benefits, and you should not be shoved sideways away from those benefits because somebody else is confused by your presence.”

“This is your time, your opportunity – How wonderful you are.”

Image credit: St Catherine’s College

Striking the balance at university

Sofia Della Sala
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Striking the balance at university

As you get stuck into university, whether it be at undergrad or postgrad level, there will be hundreds of opportunities and events thrown at you. From society events, speakers that visit the university, career networking afternoons and then just your friends organising a weekend pub trip. All in all, you can pack your days with back-to-back plans or keep them empty.

But striking the balance is something I find incredibly difficult. Will I miss a great speaker? Will I not be in the loop? I sometimes find myself racing home to try to nap or just relax a bit in preparation for an evening event that I really should just skip. I sometimes struggle to say no.

When my friends meet up, even if I am tired or feel like I need a day at home, I will convince myself that it will be fine when I get there because I will be with everyone and having fun – I will forget that I am in dire need of some TLC.

I sometimes envy those who can just say: “Sorry, not tonight”, without feeling the need to give a detailed explanation about how they are so sorry but they can’t come for reasons x, y and z. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not someone who never turns down plans or puts themselves first. I love my sleep as much as the next person and even when I have plans, I try my best to not allow my sleep to get compromised. I have also backed out of plans— just maybe not as often as I should.

But it can be difficult when you want to do all these things. I am not packing my calendar full of events that I dread or dislike. I wish I could be in two places at once, but as fun as this term has been, I am also aware that it has been packed that little bit too full. I need to prioritise certain events and know to turn down others, even if I feel like I don’t need a night off at that moment in time, my future self will thank me for it.

I get easily swept up in things that sound exciting. When someone tells me they are a trapeze artist, my immediate thought is: “That is so cool, maybe I can try that”. Really there is no need for me to fling myself from ropes for the hell of it. As a fun activity to try out sure (it does sound amazing), but not another regular appointment on my weekly schedule. Just because someone else does it, or someone I know raves about something, it doesn’t mean I have to move mountains to include it in my day. I need to just acknowledge that it does sound great but that what I actually need is my pyjamas, a blanket, and Legally Blonde.

Being busy and having lots to do it great, but only when you are actually able to enjoy those plans and not just trudge through them thinking about the moment you get to collapse onto your bed. In the new year I am going to try and follow my own advice of saying no – the world won’t implode and your friends won’t hate you. Have a night off, it’s ok.

Image Credit: Leeloo Thefirst via Pexels.

Time’s Up: Oxford Student Union’s latest climate justice demands

Olivia Boyle
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Time’s Up: Oxford Student Union’s latest climate justice demands

The Oxford University Student Union has renewed its push for climate action with its latest set of sustainability demands to the University. These aim to tackle widespread collegiate inaction in addressing the climate crisis and give governing bodies until March 2023 to act.

The SU is calling for each college to adopt a target of net zero carbon and biodiversity gain by 2035 at the latest, and appropriately reorganise governance to allow for sufficient time devoted to the project. They must also form sustainability committees with suitable student representation and be publicly transparent by publishing comprehensive strategies and full annual progress reports.

In the past, college level commitment to climate action has been limited. As it stands, Mansfield and Hertford have publicly committed to a 2030 net zero target, with St Edmund Hall releasing a sustainability strategy earlier this year. Divestment from fossil fuels is similarly underwhelming with only 6 colleges cooperating directly with the central university and out of the rest, a minute number (Balliol, Somerville, Trinity and St Anne’s) have committed perfunctorily to fossil fuel divestment.

Anna-Tina Jashapara, VP Charities and Community recognised the responsibility of the colleges “as institutions with considerable power and resources”. Some colleges, of course, are less equipped to initiate an immediate change but Oxford SU make it clear that the college contributions fund will continue to offer support. 

The SU’s demands highlight that even wealthy institutions such as Oxford University, which has a £5.06bn endowment, still have a long way to go before reaching carbon neutrality and fossil fuel divestment. Mirroring the stark apathy of the Global North and the richest, most powerful nations both attending and abstaining from COP-27, colleges have been largely inactive for three years despite the University’s commitment to fossil fuel divestment in 2020. 

Following the general theme of inaction, COP-27 ended on 18th November. Nevertheless, the SU’s actions herald a renewal of commitment to public, clear-cut change making. Meanwhile, the demands are fully supported by the Decarbonise Oxford campaign, Oxford Climate Justice Campaign, and Oxford Climate Society, inciting student-led involvement and action. At present, it is largely students who are holding their colleges accountable for climate action. CLOC, for example, is the student-founded points-based system that grades individual colleges’ climate action and provides clear evidence of university-wide inaction.

The Oxford SU demands that responsibility is taken publicly by everyone; there are no colleges, staff members, faculties, departments or students who are exempt from the impact of climate change. So these are the people who must take action for climate justice. Action Director at OCS, Esme McMillan, reminds us that now is the time to ensure “our planet is liveable for all present and future generations.”

Letting the “work do the talking” – Professor Samson Kambalu’s Fourth Plinth statue

Olivia Boyle
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One of Oxford’s own, Professor Samson Kambalu of Magdalen College, is the current laureate of Trafalgar Square’s Fourth Plinth. As something that embodies the diversity of British identity, his statue, Antelope, is a direct challenge to Oxford’s own statues. It highlights that the university is as static as its statues, stuck in a bygone era of so-called colonial glory. Now, Antelope represents an opportunity to develop, expand, and enrich Oxford’s global identity.  Instead, it is doggedly silent on the topic, only acknowledging Kambalu in a brief website news update. This embodies a more deep-rooted apathy to confronting the most difficult conversations. The whole university should be proudly knowing of the nationally significant work of Samson Kambalu. Instead, I’ve spent more time explaining who he is over the last few weeks than having vital discussions on what is more important: a fauxlanthropic Gormley with genitalia greeting the Broad Street masses or persistent challenges to the colonial past through building a lively, diverse array of sculptural identity.

Statues are complicated in Oxford. In 2020, debates were re-sparked by the Black Lives Matter protests that dominated High Street where Oriel’s Rhodes looms. Now, the conversation can celebrate Kambalu’s art but dialogue barely exists; are we still not at the point of replacing Rhodes with Kambalu’s socio-politically powerful figures?

When conversation occurs, it is bound by counter-productive left-right politics that stymies debate: The Times called Antelope a ‘disappointing history lesson’ whilst the Guardian calls it an ‘anticolonial hero statue’. Majestic and dauntless – unlike Rhodes’ bowed head – pan-Africanist John Chilembwe and European missionary John Chorley represent something that is far more educational and conversation-opening. The two papers’ diametrically opposing takes on the statue illustrate that we are still unable to celebrate diversity instead of idolising colonialists.

Kambalu has said that “Antelope on the Fourth Plinth was forever going to be a litmus test for how much I belong to British society as an African and a cosmopolitan. This commission fills me with excitement and joy.” This joy had been very, if briefly, present in Oxford; the Professor had an exhibition, New Liberia, in Modern Art Oxford where a maquette of Antelope was on display as well as in Magdalen’s Fractured Republic display.  For now though,, the trip to London must be made to see the statue. This raises questions of Kambalu’s relationship with Oxford – surely there should be a permanent version of Antelope in Oxford? I was interested to know how much dialogue the Professor had had with the university to scope what Antelope meant to an institution founded on colonial iconography. In an emailing discourse, Professor Kambalu made it clear that he must “let the work do the talking” and declined to disclose his level of communication with the university. Is Oxford still hooked on its “dodgy” history? Will there never be the “imperial showdown” (The Guardian review of Antelope) that Antelope calls for? 

We’re still waiting for university-wide discussion. In 2020, the Oxford Zimbabwe Arts Partnership proposed an anti-rhodes, anti-colonial statuesque celebration of diversity but the art project was swiftly shut down by the university. An OZAP Facebook post from June this year indicates that ‘Oxford & Rhodes: past, present & future project is still in progress’ but the university is still quiet.

On the whole, however, Antelope has been widely successful, provoking much healthy debate. Kambalu’s art invests in conversations on a better future but for now, Oxford remains stuck in its “dodgy” past.

Antelope is on display in Trafalgar Square until 2024 and a maquette of Antelope is on display in the Scottish Parliament.

Image: CC2:0//Stu Smith via Flickr.

Oxford’s Ebola vaccine recommended by WHO for use against Uganda outbreak

Jack Twyman
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Oxford’s Ebola vaccine recommended by WHO for use against Uganda outbreak

A new Ebola virus vaccine developed by the Oxford Vaccine Group is one of three vaccines recommended for a trial in Uganda to combat the ongoing outbreak of an Ebola variant that evades current vaccines.

Existing vaccines that effectively halt the more common Zaire strain of ebolavirus do not work with the Sudan strain behind Uganda’s outbreak. With support from researchers at the Jenner Institute, Professor of Vaccinology and Immunology at the Oxford Vaccine Group, Teresa Lambe OBE, has developed an experimental vaccine designed to generate an immune response against both the Zaire and Sudan strains of ebolavirus. The vaccine is due to arrive in Uganda this week.

According to Lambe, the outbreak in Uganda “highlights the ongoing and pressing need for rapid responses to prevent outbreaks escalating further”.

Since Uganda declared an Ebola disease outbreak caused by the Sudan ebolavirus on 22nd October, 163 infections and 77 deaths have been reported across nine regions. The urgency of this situation led the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the Ministry of Health in Uganda to co-sponsor a randomised ring vaccination trial of vaccines designed for the Sudan strain. This method was previously successful in Zaire ebolavirus outbreaks in Guinea and Sierra Leone. 

The WHO asked the existing COVID-19 Vaccine Prioritisation Working Group to extend its COVID-19 remit to rapidly evaluate the suitability of candidate Ebola vaccines for inclusion in the planned trial in Uganda using similar considerations on safety, likely efficacy and logistic issues relating to availability and implementation.

Consequently, the WHO Vaccine Prioritisation Working Group recommended on 16th November that the Oxford biEBOV vaccine be included in a planned ring vaccination trial in Uganda. Two other vaccines from the Sabin Vaccine Institute USA and International Aids Vaccine Initiative were also recommended for inclusion.

Oxford’s ebola vaccine was developed using methods proven successful in the development of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine. Both share a common vector of the ChAdOx1 virus, a weakened version of a common cold virus (adenovirus) that has been genetically modified so that it is impossible for it to replicate in humans. 

The Working Group noted that the Oxford vaccine’s use of the ChAdOx1 platform in the COVID-19 pandemic was tested in the field with over two billion doses. However, they ranked the Oxford vaccine last out of the three as there is limited clinical trial experience with the ChAdOx1 platform encoding an ebolavirus insert. 

Sandy Douglas, Associate Professor at the Jenner Institute and lead on manufacturing scaleup for the Oxford vaccine, was keen to highlight that “[o]ne of the key advantages of this [Oxford ebolavirus vaccine] is that it should be possible to produce it at [sic] very large scale”. He noted how the Serum Institute of India was able to use Oxford’s adenovirus manufacturing techniques to make more than one billion doses of the Oxford adenovirus-based COVID-19 vaccine.

Disease outbreaks are unpredictable, and according to Dr Charle Weller, head of infectious disease prevention at Wellcome, the WHO may use only one vaccine in the field to ensure enough data is collected to assess one candidate fully, or decide to use all three in case one fails. The vaccine trial is also dependent on good relations with the local community, but recent accounts from frontline workers have raised concerns about misinformation and local conspiracy theories that claim the Ebola outbreak is fake.

Forget the Blues – It’s time for Oranges!

Freya Buckley
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Forget the Blues – It’s time for Oranges!

I would like to preface this article with a note that this is in no way a means of making light of fifth week blues, but rather an attempt to put a positive spin on some tricky times.

Dear readers, last week I decided it was time to forget the fifth week blues and attempt something new instead – the sixth week oranges! By the time you are reading this, weeks five and six will have come and gone, but my methods of cheering myself up will still stand! As a busy term comes towards a close, I think we could all use some delightful self-care.

Yes, I have insufferably decided to Polly-Anna my way through sixth week in an attempt to offset the fifth week blues.

However, before we get to my teeth-ache inducing optimism let’s first have an actual consideration of the fifth week blues:

I had the revelation the other day that being sad makes me feel bad. Now, I know what you’re thinking, ‘um duh, Freya (and good rhyme!)’. What I mean to say is that although being sad is obviously not a good feeling, it’s a feeling that I get angry at myself for feeling. It feels distracting, a waste of my time, quite frankly irritating. This term has had some sad moments for me that I will not divulge, and they have taught me the lesson that sometimes you just are sad, and that is okay. Let yourself be sad. Sit in the sadness, if only for five minutes, and realise that it is just an emotion, just a feeling. Don’t try and push through or ignore the sadness because it will inevitably creep up on you and suddenly you will be sat in bed sobbing at First Dates while your unwritten essay lurks, a haunting blue W at the bottom of your screen, and there will be mouldy coffee cups around you, and you’ll sob louder as you shake bourbon biscuit crumbs from your bra.

Of course no one wants to feel sad forever. So, here’s how to have the week six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven …. (you get the gist) oranges.

Step One: (and this one is really going to surprise you all!)

Have a boogie. It would seem silly, given my assertions last week, to not immediately suggest to you all that you have a dance this week. But I honestly do think there is nothing like having a dance for making you feel better. It’s such a reminder that, when you really think about it, life is so silly. Look, I have arms and legs and I can wiggle them in funny little positions to music! Silly, but brilliant. 

Step Two:

Buy a coffee, or a tea, or a hot chocolate, or make a really fancy drink at home and put it in an equally fancy mug. Take it to your desk and occasionally sip it while typing really furiously, even just typing random letters. Now don’t you feel sophisticated and on top of things? This is how people in work, in business, high-flyers (probably) feel.

Step Three:

Potato waffles. Potato waffles are, to quote an advert from the 80s, “waffely versatile”. They can be made in the toaster, the oven, you could probably fry them, I reckon you could even do that thing where you cook things in a dishwasher (I mean I wouldn’t recommend it). They’re good for breakfast, for a little afternoon snack, after a night out, with beans. Our freezer is full of them. 

Step Four: 

Realise how silly everything is at this uni. Like so, so silly. We have tutorials in small rooms with world-leading academics, we sit in libraries that are centuries old that have portraits on the walls of old beardy men who are probably significant, but I couldn’t actually tell you why. We wear gowns and do our exams while wearing school uniform even though we’re in our twenties. I genuinely think something that helped me through Prelims was looking at the beauty of the exam halls and around at all the people in gowns and white shirts. Although for a moment it made my imposter syndrome tell me that they were much cleverer than me, which prompted blatant fear, I suddenly realised… bloody hell! Look at all this! And they’re letting me just do it, write things that academics who wrote the theories on them will read, sit in this room – I might as well enjoy it then. And guess what – I did!

Step Five:

Look for a red kite and by look for a red kite I mean literally just look up. Oxford is full of red kites, the kite-tailed birds of prey. They are everywhere, they are huge and they are cool. I get excited every single time I see one. When everything feels a bit much, look up and see if you can spot a bird of prey flying over the Bod.

Step Six: (input from the public)

I have consulted the masses (my mates) and thus I would now like to offer you some thoughts from others, on how to get yourself through stressful times (Oxford)

  • Given my last column this one is pretty close to my heart: a good playlist. This is crucial as it helps you with step one of this list. If you are in the market for a good collection, you could always peruse my last article and its accompanying playlist…
  • Good snacks or a meal with friends, including eating lots of chocolate – food featured heavily, and for good reason. With Oxmas approaching I recommend you all run to Tesco and buy the lebkuchen (check spelling), which tastes of Christmas and happiness – leave some for me!
  • A walk around Port Meadow, or, for those of us further away, any park – in short, a walk. Endorphins, exercise, pretending you are a model, stomping in large boots, springing in light shoes, stroking animals (ponies, cats, cows, dogs: note, location dependent) – these are all things that you could do or gain from a walk that make it a beneficial step in being orange not blue. Momentary divulsion – orange vs blue is a colour wheel-based separation, orange is a happy colour!
  • Watching telly and having an early night. Log off from the gruelling world of academics and plug in to television.

These are just some of my and my friends’ tried and tested methods for little moments of happiness. Of course, you don’t need me, a random writer in a student newspaper, to explain doing fun activities to you. But through writing this I remembered what makes me happy, and then I did some of them, and it felt truly good. I realised essays can be hard, but they can also be fun, and they can also be difficult, but then I can have a dance afterwards. Life may be blue sometimes, but I’m going to look for bursts of orange, and I think you should too.

Image Credit: Rogério Martins via Pexels.

Matthew Dick wins Union Presidency as FULFIL slate sweeps officerships

Cherwell News
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Matthew Dick wins Union Presidency as FULFIL slate sweeps officerships

Matthew Dick of the FULFIL slate has been elected President of the Oxford Union for TT 2022, winning 481 first preferences to Daniel Dipper’s 425. Dick was the Secretary of the Union in Michaelmas 2022.

The three other officerships were won by the following candidates:

Librarian:  HANNAH EDWARDS (FULFIL) with 469 votes

Treasurer:  ROSIE JACOBS (FULFIL) with 459 votes

Secretary: TOM ELLIOT (FULFIL) with 461 votes

The results were a victory for the FULFIL slate, which was running against the IMAGINE slate.

Those elected to Standing Committee, in descending order, are: 

CONRAD FRØYLAND MOE  (IMAGINE)

LEWIS FISHER (FULFIL)

SEB WATKINS (FULFIL)

AMY GILBRIDE (FULFIL)

ANMOL KEJRIWAL (LIGHT)

NADIA BEKHTI (IMAGINE)

Those elected to Secretary’s Committee, in descending order, are:

Julia Maranhao-Wong, Leo Buckley, Ebrahim Osman Mowafy, Adi Raj, Finley Armstrong, Chloe Davis, Cindy Yu, Aliyyah Gbadamosi, Ibrahim Usmani

Uni staff say enough! Strikes hit Oxford for three days

Maggie Wilcox and Rebecca Powell
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Uni staff say enough! Strikes hit Oxford for three days

Oxford University staff will be joining 70,000 other University and College Union (UCU) members taking industrial action on the 24th, 25th and 30th November.  The national wave of strikes is in response to working conditions, insufficient pay to meet living standards and precarious employment.

All of these issues have been brought to the national forefront by the cost of living crisis, but in Oxford affordability has been a concern for many years. Employees of Oxford University, especially early career researchers and postgraduate students, have been feeling the pinch of trying to make a living in one of the UK’s most expensive cities. David Chivall, a lab manager in the School of Archeology and Vice President of the Oxford UCU branch, has been working in Oxford for seven years. During this time, he has had to move houses eight times due to the inaccessibility of housing prices for someone on an Oxford research salary. 

There is often a perception that the early stages in an academic or research career will be financially precarious as an aspiring professor undertakes years of study and entry-level positions. However, job and economic instability have become a fact of life for many researchers, even those with years of experience. Casualisation, or the shift to short term, fixed contract employment, is at the root of many of these problems facing university employees. According to an anonymous testimonial from a UCU report on precarious academic work in Oxford published in February 2022, there is a myth that “bright PhD students getting their foot on the career ladder” need to take casualised teaching contracts. In reality, many researchers continue to take such contracts for years and are never provided “secure and dignified contracts”. Furthermore, teaching contracts can take away from a young academic’s time to develop their own work and scholarship.

Even those that fully concentrate on their research are still overwhelmingly employed on fixed-term contracts. Dr. Hilary Wynne, a postdoctoral researcher in linguistics, has a full-time fixed contract position with the university and has experiences difficulties receiving her wages. In her first three months on contract, she wasn’t paid. In her new role with a higher paygrade, she has yet to see a change of her status on the university payroll. She is not “particularly optimistic” that she will see her agreed raise next payday. 

Despite these issues, Dr. Wynne enjoys working in Oxford and describes her experience as “enlightening, exciting, rewarding”. Since the signing of the Concordat for Researchers in 2008 and updated in 2019, things have improved for postdocs and fixed term researchers. However, Dr. Wynne and the UCU say that the university needs to do more to address the widespread use of insecure contracts and insufficient pay. Dr Wynne reiterates how it is difficult for researchers to “pay household bills and rent in Oxford, let alone ever dream of buying a house or starting a family.”

The University has taken steps to help researchers afford Oxford, particularly since inflation has increased. They have acknowledged  “the impact of the rising costs of living on the student community and recognise that it is a source of worry for many students and are continuing our efforts to ensure our financial support addresses this”. In this light, they have compiled information to help students and staff manage their finances. 

As well, in June 2022, the University gave staff a £1,000 “thank you” payment for their dedication throughout the pandemic and as an acknowledgement of the growing cost of living. The UCU welcomed this action, but urged the university to go farther and increase staff pay in a sector which has seen a 25% decline in pay relative to RPI since 2009. In the same time period, the higher education sector has seen its profits rise by 15%.

The three days of industrial action will commence with a rally on Broad Street and, throughout, non-college buildings will be picketed. For this period, academics, tutors, librarians and researchers employed by the university will also refuse to compensate for work lost due to strike action and cover for absent colleagues. Consequently, 2.5 million students nation-wide are expected to be adversely affected by the disruption. In Oxford, the university have announced that while they  understand staff concerns, they “also have a duty to ensure that our education and research activities continue as far as possible” and have put contingency plans in place. 

Prof Nikita Sud, a Professor of Politics and Development, stressed in a message to her students that she did “not want strike action to affect students”. She went on to emphasize how much she enjoyed teaching and most aspects of her job. However, she firmly believes in the UCU action “want[s] to make clear to management that [employee] labour is not dispensable and needs to be adequately compensated and recognised”.

If the university does not bring improved offers to the table that satisfy union demands, the UCU have proposed escalated action in the New Year alongside a potential marking and assessment boycott. Prof Sud emphasizes: “The onus is very much on university managements to negotiate with the University and College Union (UCU) to reach a resolution. The dispute won’t resolve itself, or disappear.”

Why I’m not watching the World Cup

Antonia Sundrup
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Why I’m not watching the World Cup

As I am writing this, the first match of the world cup has just started. If you maintain any contact at all with the outside world during term time, you will have heard the reasons why many are not watching that or any other matches this tournament the cruel treatment of migrant workers (including the shocking estimated death counts), the lack of rights and protection granted to the LGBTQ+ community and the allegations that representatives of Qatar bribed FIFA to host the event.

Even though I have never played football myself, nor followed it in detail throughout the year, I have always loved the World Cup (as well as the European championships). Many of my happy childhood memories are of staying up past my usual bedtime, watching games with a changing group of friends – I even remember the 2006 world cup, despite not even being 4 years old at the time. Throughout the years, I have been ignorant of, or chosen to ignore, many of the darker sides of the sport, the world cup and FIFA: the gap in pay and attention between men and women, the fact that men’s football still has not succeeded in creating a safe space for gay players to come out and the impact that the World Cup in 2014 had on Brazil’s infrastructure. When the World Cup was held in Russia in 2018, a country with a government which, although it had not yet started a full-blown war at the time, had already illegally annexed Crime, I still watched it. Since I have been alive, the World Cup has never been an unproblematic event and maybe I should have drawn the line earlier. 

But I am drawing the line now. And as much as I understand wanting to look for justifications to continue watching the matches and supporting the players, I think everyone should be drawing that line. If your answer to this is that football is just a game and should not be about politics, then I say that is exactly the point. Football is a game and should not be a means for autocratic governments to gain influence and attention. It should not be played if the price for it is the death of thousands of workers. The tournament should not require homosexual players and fans to put their safety at risk to travel to it. Football is simply not important enough for such sacrifices to be made.

Of course the problems with migrant working conditions and LGBTQ+ rights in Qatar do not start and end with the World Cup and most of us have ignored them for years. Indeed many other countries do terrible things too. However, the sad reality is that we will inevitably be acquiescent to many injustices in the world because we have limited time and mental energy to fight them. What everyone can do is refuse to actively play into the cards of those oppressors. Russia hosting the 2018 World Cup may well have been a mistake too but the issues were not as directly connected to the tournament. Again, this is about the safety of the players, the fans and those working to make the event happen. By watching I would support a tournament which is not simply happening in an unjust country but which is causing grave injustices itself. 

Obviously the many of those involved, namely the players, are largely innocent in all of this. I understand that this is their job and that the decision not to go to Qatar is a much harder one for them to make than for a fan. I do not fault them for playing, especially those who have spoken out against Qatari officials’ stance on LGBTQ+ rights and are finding small ways to protest. But while it is reassuring to know that many players and national football associations are not simply accepting the direction these tournaments are going in, it does not change my decision about not watching it. If nothing else, this is about the safety of those involved. In a ‘danger index’ compiled by Asher & Lyric Fergusson, Qatar came in at rank 190 of 203 when assessing the safety of queer people. While they are no openly queer players at the World Cup, LGBTQ+ people, whether they be players, fans or otherwise involved, are travelling to Qatar during the tournament.  Unfortunately, to support them is to support them being put at risk. 

One of the more uncomfortable questions one has to ask about boycotting is whether a less ‘problematic’ World Cup would necessarily mean hosting it in a western country. Are we imposing western values on a sport which clearly should not be a monopoly of the west? This may be true more generally, but I don’t think this is a case of imposing values.   asking a government not to impose their subjective moral values. This is not about the culture in Qatar, it is about legal protection of fundamental rights. Of course diversifying football and the nations who host the tournaments is a goal worth supporting, but that cannot stop us from imposing minimum standards of safety for everyone involved.  It has to provoke a conversation about giving hosting rights to nations who do not have the required infrastructure and no use for that infrastructure once it is built. This seems to be one of the main lessons from this year’s tournament: diversity in hosting nations is important, but it does not justify every and any sacrifice. And it does matter whether you watch it or not. Obviously, boycotting won’t bring any workers back to life or make the Qatari government change its human rights laws. A large proportion of FIFA’s revenue comes from selling broadcasting and marketing rights, it lives off of the support and interest of fans. It is important to show that that support is not unconditional and that the football community will not just continue to put money in FIFA’s pockets regardless of what they do with it. Watching the World Cup and thereby supporting those who are paying broadcasting rights to FIFA is sending the wrong message.

Image: CC2:0//Daniel via Flickr.

MRI study involving Oxford researchers finds brain differences in children with language learning difficulties

Canqi Li
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A child is quiet. He has difficulty reading and writing. He struggles to choose the proper words to express himself. He talks like someone way younger than him. He cannot understand or recall what the people around him were saying. Moreover, he fidgets a lot and always misbehaves during lessons. His teachers are concerned about him and suggest that he should see a clinical psychologist. The clinical psychologist might diagnose him for ADHD, generalized anxiety disorder, or dyslexia. However, in reality, he might have developmental language disorder. 

Developmental language disorder, abbreviated as DLD, is a disorder of communication that affects how one understands, learns, and uses language. A UK population study conducted by Norbury et al. in 2016 showed that the prevalence rate of DLD is around 7.58% in primary school children, suggesting that there are two children with DLD in every classroom. Current knowledge suggests that DLD is a lifelong condition with genetic roots. Although it is a relatively common condition, DLD is often overlooked, because individuals with DLD do not show physical signs or severely impaired language abilities. Despite being a hidden condition, individuals with DLD may suffer from long-term consequences in mental health, academic performance, and employment.

To understand the neural basis of DLD to a greater extent, a research team led by Royal Holloway University reader and former Oxford postdoctoral researcher Dr. Saloni Krishnan and Oxford professor of cognitive neuroscience Kate Watkins conducted a quantitative MRI study involving 56 children with typical development and 33 children with DLD. The results of the study showed that children with DLD have reduced striatal myelin in brain areas associated with speaking, listening, and habitual and sequential learning. 

Motivation behind the project

Watkins became interested in studying brain differences in individuals with language disorders when she was working with a “very large family that had a gene mutation that caused them to have speech and language problems” as a PhD student. Watkins told Cherwell that her motivation for this study was initiated by Krishnan. She stated: “(Krishnan) came to me a long time ago, saying she really wanted us to look at children with developmental language disorder or DLD using brain imaging. And then we tried many times, because it’s really expensive to do this work, to get funding. We got funding from the (Medical Research Council) for this study.”

Watkins added that she and Krishnan were really lucky to have had “some amazing research assistants” who worked on this project with them. 

Having started off as a speech and language therapist, Krishnan told Cherwell that this was a project that was  “very, very close to my heart”. “I used to work with children with language disorders,” Krishnan stated. “There’s a little bit more awareness about the importance of spoken language (now), but suddenly, about 10 years ago or so, that wasn’t the case…” After her speech and language therapy degree, Krishnan trained as a cognitive neuroscientist. She said: “I was really, really surprised when we first started this research (about) how little we knew about the brains of children with DLD.”

Krishnan added that while there has been “hundreds if not thousands” of research on autism or ADHD, less than 20 studies have been conducted on the neurophysiological basis of DLD. “Sample sizes (of those studies) tended to be fairly small,” she told Cherwell. “This was a particular issue as well, because … if you have a small number of studies or small sample sizes and the group you’re studying is heterogeneous, it’s not very surprising that everyone has slightly different results.” As part of the BOLD study of brain organization and language development, Krishnan and her colleagues “really wanted to try and identify what might be different (in) the brains of children with DLD”. 

 Logistical challenges and teamwork

Both Krishnan and Watkins cited obtaining funding as an initial challenge. Krishnan told Cherwell: “No one tells you how difficult funding is… In my case, I did apply for funding four times. And even (for) this particular grant, we submitted it, and it got triaged, which basically meant it didn’t even go to the panel to be discussed. They came back with some things for us to address, and we had to resubmit in order to get funding. Just the process between the triage and when we resubmitted (the application) was nearly a year (long).”

Despite the challenges of obtaining funding, Krishnan’s research team remained supportive. “I really wanted to do it,” Krishnan said. “And as I said, like it was … a struggle to get funding, because I kept getting stuck and rejected. I was really grateful that the final funding came through.” Krishnan also stated that she found out about the eventual funding approval at a neurodevelopmental disorders meeting in Oxford with Watkins and one of the co-writers Dorothy Bishop. “I remember that Dorothy gave both of us a big hug. And Dorothy is not a hugger. It was really exciting. This is the best moment ever.”

Since the research project involved children and young teenagers aged 10 to 15, another challenge Krishnan and Watkins had to consider was keeping the participants still in the MRI machine during the brain imaging process. Krishnan said: “(Children) definitely move more than adults do. But as a team, we have some good strategies to try and keep them as still as we could… One of the best ways to stop children from moving is to show them a movie. We had these very special noise canceling headphones so that they could listen to a movie regardless of their scanner. And… we literally had a movie selection. And they could come and choose before they went into the scanner which movie they were gonna watch.”

Scientific questions about the research project

One interesting question one might ask about DLD is whether it is caused by genes, environmental factors, or a little bit of both. Watkins told Cherwell that the diagnosis of DLD states that the condition should be unexplained. “It can’t be explained by some brain damage, it can’t be explained by some really serious abuse, like being deprived of communication… We know that it isn’t due to parental influence,” Watkins said. “So, in DLD, it’s likely that there is not just one genetic cause, but many – it’s a very heritable disorder. It’s very common for there to be more than one child in the family, for example, or for a parent or a relative to also have some sort of learning difficulty.” Watkins added that although the condition appears to be caused by genes, they would love to learn more about what exact roles specific genes play in the development of the disorder. 

Many people might also be interested in why the research team chose to investigate children with DLD rather than adults. In response to this question, Watkins stated: “It’s probably easier to identify the children with DLD. And most of the other research has been on children… Once adults have left the school system, it may be harder to reach them and enroll them in a study… I think just to get the numbers that we needed to get for this study, it was easier to focus on children.”

Krishnan stated that as part of the project, her research team used new quantitative MRI technology to minimize artifacts. “In a traditional scan, it’s the contrast that counts. But in these scans, (it is) actually the numbers – it does give you the same kinds of contrast, but the way you put it together allows you to (quantitatively see the results),” Krishnan said. “(This method) controls for the differences in random field variation. And so it’s really exciting, because it allows you to make more solid inferences about the cellular makeup of the brain.” Krishnan added that contrary to traditional belief, in addition to white matter, gray matter in MRI scans can also represent myelin. “In our paper, we actually focused on gray matter myelin,” she said.

 Relevance to the world and the Oxford community

Pembroke College first-year student Deepak Alagusubramanian found the research project “really meaningful”. Alagusubramanian told Cherwell: “I study Philosophy, Politics and Economics. I am excited about the possible implications of such research on public policy, and how the needs of children with development language disorder can be better accommodated, thereby allowing them to integrate better into our society.” He was optimistic that this research would serve as a “stepping stone for further research”, potentially leading to the development of new treatment options and public policies.

Krishnan hopes that schools can create new policies to better accommodate children with DLD. She said that many children with DLD only receive speech and language support services at school from age five to ten. “A lot of times, by the time they are ten and going to secondary school, they get discharged from speech and language services, so the support isn’t the same anymore. But (they) still have the same language problems.” She added that even when they grow into teenagers, these children “always seem to be worse on language than their peers”. “A lot of these things like having poor language will really feed into your exam performance, your social relationships with those around you, and particularly things like getting a job. So I think it’s really interesting to track what would happen after school age, when a lot of this support goes away,” she said.

Krishnan also finds raising awareness of DLD important. She stated: “It may be a better way to think about DLD in the sense that we have this continuum of language abilities. We expect that these children are at the bottom end of the continuum, but they definitely need support.”

However, how exactly should schools support these children? Krishnan believes that there are many interesting school policy debates around the question of inclusion. She stated:  “Let’s say, you live in London – you deserve to go to your local school, just like every other child, and you deserve the environment to be tailored to you. Trying to understand how teachers can create that environment, what support we need to provide, and so on, are really interesting and important research questions.”

Watkins also hopes that this research can contribute to creating medical interventions to help children with DLD. She told Cherwell: “Understanding what the kind of underlying neural differences are in the brain (in DLD patients) could … perhaps give us insight into what kind of interventions would work or what kind of interventions wouldn’t work.”

Future DLD research

Krishnan and Watkins hope to conduct further research based on the findings of this project. Watkins stated: “The plan we have next is to try and get some funding to follow up children longitudinally, because this was just a snapshot, a cross sectional study of what they’re like now. What is really important to know is how they change and how they change in relation to how their language changes as well. So, that would be really exciting.”

Both Krishnan and Watkins consider expanding DLD studies to include adult populations important. Watkins told Cherwell that it is difficult to enroll adult participants for DLD research. However, she also said that it is not impossible to involve adults in such studies: “I have colleagues who are doing that, and I definitely would do it.”

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