News in Brief
Students can feel much safer in their colleges, as it has been revealed that Oxford University's manual security service has become one of the first in the country to be approved by the National Security Inspectorate.
The new scheme set up by the Inspectorate is aimed at improving manual security services throughout the country, and this show of favour appears to suggest that Oxford students are some of the most well-protected in the country.
Ben Simpson, Development Officer at Wolfson College, and Co-Vice Chairman of Thames Valley Police Authority, described this acknowledgement as "an important step", which he claimed showed the University's "pro-active approach" in improving its security systems.
A revolutionary new treatment for heart attack and stroke victims, announced in America earlier this week, was researched and discovered by a group of Oxford-based scientists.
Statins, which help lower cholesterol levels, could prevent up to a third of all heart attacks and strokes if used to treat at-risk patients. Professor Rory Collins of the Clinical Trials Service Unit, who led the £21million Heart Protection Study, saw it as a "stunning result", calling statins "the new aspirins".
The Oxford student would like to apologise for a misleading story published in fourth week this term, which asserted that the front page story in Cherwell's second week edition had "no basis in truth".
The Cherwell article, written by Andrew Sutton, claimed that a Central Student Venue had been found by OUSU President Ruth Hunt, located just "five minutes' walk away from Carfax." The Oxford Student was, however, informed differently and, it has now been established, wrongly, by various members of OUSU staff, and was unable to contact Hunt or Sutton before going to press.
The Oxford Student accepts that the article printed in our fourth week edition was ill-informed and misleading, and would like to take this opportunity to apologise to Cherwell, and to assure its readers that the story was written and printed in good faith. We are happy to clarify this matter.
The allocation of up to £1billion per annum of public funding to English and Welsh universities for research is under threat following a large increase in departments which have been judged as coming within the top bracket.
It means Universities used to large sums being awarded to them to continue their research, such as Oxford, may find that their activities must be curtailed or that they will have to look elsewhere for funding.
The Research Assessment Exercise, which is underpinning funding from 2002/2003 for five years, has given the top grade of 5 or 5* to half of the 2500 departments that took part.
OXFORD university'S FOUR a cappella groups performed a charity concert on Monday evening, to raise money for Oxfam's Afghanistan Appeal. 'Out of the Blue', 'The Oxford Gargoyles', 'Oxford Belles' and 'Alternotives' teamed together for over two hours of unaccompanied singing at the town hall. £1200 was raised by the event.
The OUSU VP (Welfare) has launched a high-profile campaign against homophobia. A range of posters have been designed and will be put up in colleges soon.
The campaign comes in the run up to Diversity Week in 4th week of next term, when OUSU's equal opportunities groups will join together for a week of events celebrating diversity and campaigning against discrimination.
OUSU Vice-President (Welfare) James Rowlands noted that "there have been tremendous steps forward in recent years...nevertheless there are still important problems to be tackled. Section 28 is still on the statute book. There are still incidences of homophobic behaviour."
22nd Nov 2001