Plans submitted for new Schwarzman centre for humanities

Plans submitted for new Schwarzman Centre for Humanities

By Oliver Hall Oliver Hall looks at the plans for the Schwarzman Centre for Humanities, and revisits the controversy over its funding.

The University of Oxford has published its final plans for its new centre for humanities. Made possible by a £150 million donation from its namesake, the Stephen A. Schwarzman Centre for Humanities is intended to be completed by 2025 if planning is approved.

Further planning applications have been submitted for Oxford University’s new ‘Home for Humanities’. The building is set to cost £170 million to complete with the vast majority of funding coming from controversial businessman and philanthropist Stephen Schwarzman. Schwarzman is currently the Chairman and CEO of The Blackstone Group, a global private equity firm.

According to the University, the centre will “provide all of the staff and students of our faculties with facilities to support our outstanding research and teaching, to promote cross-disciplinary connections with the rest of the University, and to open out more widely than is currently possible to new audiences and visitors.”

The design from Hopkins Architects includes a concert hall, a theatre, and an additional performance space for experimental pieces. The centre will measure 23,000 sq/m and is set to be constructed opposite the Radcliffe Observatory building, providing “a dynamic hub dedicated to the humanities”.

A spokesperson for Mr Schwarzman told Cherwell: “When approached by Oxford, Mr. Schwarzman was proud to support the creation of the new Centre which was a major unmet need for the university and will benefit Oxford students, faculty and the community for years to come.”

The project has come under criticism in the past, most notably after initial public consultations in February of last year. Then, campaigners from the Student Union and university staff called for Schwarzman’s money to be rejected, wanting more transparency in general regarding the process by which donations are accepted and funding is approved.

Schwarzman has faced significant backlash in the past when contributing to other projects thanks in part to his close personal, political, and business relationship with Donald Trump. He set up and chaired the president’s ‘Strategic and Policy Forum’ before it was disbanded in 2017 and donated $15 million to a superPAC backing Senator Mitch McConnell for re-election in August of last year. A spokesperson for Mr Schwarzman told Cherwell: “Mr. Schwarzman is a lifelong Republican and it is hardly surprising that he has supported Senator McConnell – the party’s long-time leader in the Senate.”

Regarding Mr Schwarzman’s ties to former President Trump, the spokesperson said: “When asked, Steve provided advice to former President Trump on matters related to economic policy and trade. Over the last two decades he has similarly provided assistance to presidents of both parties – including the Obama and Bush Administrations – on issues such as veterans hiring, the fiscal cliff negotiations and global financial crisis response.

“Mr. Schwarzman and former President Trump have not spoken since mid-2020 – well before the November election – as Steve’s advice was focused solely on economic matters, not politics. Steve made it crystal clear in a November 2020 public statement, long ahead of the January Electoral College certification, that President Biden won the election and that he was ready to help the new president in any way he could. This was followed by a deeply personal statement expressing his horror and disgust at the appalling insurrection that followed President Trump’s remarks on January 6. As Steve’s previous statements make clear, he strongly condemns the attempts to undermine our constitution.”

Elsewhere, he saw himself drawn into controversy in 2010 after comparing an Obama taxation project to Adolf Hitler’s 1939 invasion of Poland. Mr Schwarzman’s spokesperson told Cherwell he had apologised for the comment “more than a decade ago”.

The plans for the centre are now available to view on the city council website for 12 weeks and, if approved, the university plans to complete the construction by 2025.

A spokesperson for Oxford University spokesperson told Cherwell: “Mr Schwarzman has been approved by our rigorous due diligence procedures which consider ethical, legal, financial and reputational issues. The idea of a humanities building has been in ongoing discussion and consultation for more than a decade but we did not have funding for the building until Mr Schwarzman’s gift. The Centre will benefit teaching and research in the humanities at Oxford; its performing arts and exhibition venues will bring new audiences to the University; and it will build upon our world-class capabilities in the humanities to lead the study of the ethical implications of AI.

“All decisions about donations are made by the University’s Committee to Review Donations and Research Funding, whose members include Oxford academics with expertise in relevant areas like ethics, law and business. This committee considers whether donations or research funding are acceptable under University guidelines, and turns down proposals which do not meet this standard. The Committee reviews all the publicly available information about a potential donor and can take legal, ethical and reputational issues into consideration. Auditors have looked at our process and found it to be robust and effective, and we are confident in its ability to determine which sources of funding are acceptable under our guidelines.”

Image: Web Summit/CC BY 2.0 via Flickr

The museum is also overhalling the labelling of its displays to remove “racialized and derogatory language and narratices” found in some of its artefacts’ interpretive signs. The updated signs will include contributions from indigenous leaders and artisans.

Debates over whether to repartriate artefacts can also be of diplomatic signifcance. Greek politicians have repeatedly appealed for the return of the Parthenon Marbles to Athens after they were removed by agents of Lord Elgin between 1801-1812. The statues were sold to the British Government in 1816, and handed to the British Museum, where they are still on display. The British Museum has loaned the statues out to museums around the world, including the St. Petersburg State Hermitage Museum in 2014.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who read Classics at Balliol and presided over a debate about whether the statues should be returned as President of the Oxford Union, has expressed opposition to their repatriation. In a 2012 letter to a Greek offcial, published in The Guardian, Mr Johnson said he thought they should “never have been removed” from the Parthenon, but that returning them would be a “grevious and irremidable loss” to the British Museum.

In March 2021, Mr Johnson ruled out returning the statue to Greece. However, after a visit by the Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Number 10 said Mr Johnson thought the matter was one for the trustees of the British Museum to settle. Mr Mitsotakis offered to exchange a series of rotating exhibits which had never previously left Greece, including the Mask of Agamemnon, in return for the statues.

The British Government’s offcial stance is that whether to repatriate the Parthenon Marbles is up to the trustees of the British museum. The newly appointed chair of the museum’s trustees is the fomer Conservative Chancellor George Osborne.

Mr Mitsotakis said that the debate over the statues’ future was a “signifcant issue” for relations between the UK and Greece.

On the web...

Christ Church Dean dispute draws on

Chirst Church College under pressure to contribute to Dean’s £40,000 legal costs.

- Pieter Garicano Christmas market returns

After it was cancelled in 2020, the Christmas market returned to Oxford. - Matilda Gettins Tessa the tortoise is a male

New College recently disovered that Tessa the tortoise is a male. His name will not be changed.

- Eva Bailey

Website – cherwell.org

Instagram – cherwelloxford

Facebook - Cherwell

Twitter – @cherwell_online

Further criticism of Mosley donation

Antara Singh reports on criticism of the donation from the Mosley Trust from the wider community.

The fall-out from the University’s acceptance of the donation from the Alexander Mosley Charitable Trust (ACMT) has grown. Among the main critics are groups from within the Jewish community. The donation has come under fre from other campaigners too, including Black Lives Matter UK.

A number of weeks ago, The Daily Telegraph revealed that the University of Oxford has received just over £6 million from the Mosley family trust. Its controversy stems from the Mosley family’s fascist past, since the fund is supposedly a culmination of the inheritance of Oswald Mosley, the leader of the far-right British Union of Fascists (BUF).

The Mosley donation will contribute to multiple projects at the University. St Peter’s College, who have been gifted £5 million, aim to construct new student accommodation: the previous plan was to name the block after Alexander Mosley, but this has been rejected by students and abandoned. St Peter’s have, nevertheless, said that the trust’s contribution will make a “transformative” difference to the lives of students.

Lady Margaret Hall have been given another £260,000 for foundation years, saying that the money “enabled a cohort of students from very diverse and low-income backgrounds to attend Oxford”. The rest is to be spent on a physics laboratory and the creation of the Alexander Mosley Professor of Biophysics Fund.

Students have reacted in a similar manner, expressing distress. A joint statement from the Oxford Jewish Society (JSoc) and the Union of Jewish Students (UJS) said: “Oxford JSoc and UJS are distressed by the news that Oxford University and some of its constituent colleges have accepted donations from The Alexander Mosley Trust.

“The Mosley Family name is synonymous with Fascism and Antisemitism in Britain. The University’s decision to dedicate a professorship to this name serves to commemorate and revere the Mosley legacy.

“Furthermore, the absence of any communication or consultation with Oxford’s Jewish students is inconsiderate and inappropriate.

“We encourage Oxford University, and the beneftting colleges, to refect on the impact these donations will have on its Jewish students and the wider student body.

As an institution that seeks to promote an inclusive environment for all, we hope that Oxford University and the colleges involved will reconsider their positions.”

An alliance of Jewish charities has similarly condemned the University’s decision, branding the donation as “fascist cash”. The Daily Telegraph reported that the charities sent a letter to the Vice-Chancellor of St Peter’s College, expressing distress at the prospect of a Jewish student being taught by a professor holding the Mosley name. Several prominent Jewish charities signed this letter, including the Holocaust Educational Trust and the Jewish Leadership Council.

Most recently, Black Lives Matter UK have said that Oxford University should hand back “tainted and dirty” money from the Mosley family. In a letter to the Vice-Vhancellor to St Peter’s, they wrote that “no university should touch money belonging to fascists and racists, especially violent racists.”

Vice- Chancellor Professor Richardson speaks at the Union

Jill Cushen reports on Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University, Professor Louise Richardson’s talk at the Oxford Union.

Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University, Professor Louise Richardson addressed the Oxford Union on Monday evening, speaking on the theme of civil discourse and the digital age.

Prof Richardson delivered a speech entitled ‘It’s time to get rid of the pillory: Making space for civil discourse’ in which she outlined her concerns for the current state of civil discourse and the impact of the digital world. She began by reminding those in attendance that she was not there to preach or lecture but to solicit ideas of how we can maintain a space for civil discourse, one in which there is “no room for hate speech or bullying or ostracizing others”.

After briefly discussing a number of significant events in the history of the University, Richardson said that “Oxford has to acknowledge that our history included intolerance” and make “strenuous efforts” to ensure that voices which have been historically underrepresented are heard.

Richardson described social media as “the pillory of modern times” and compared the “potentially overwhelming and quite addictive” use of it to the “satisfaction and stimulation of craving” seen in the late 20th century trend of chain smoking. She elaborated on the damaging effects of the digital world by stating that it has fostered an environment in which “intellectual risks become impossible” and presented us with an “endless set of binary choices”.

The more these binary models of intellectual choice are reinforced, Richardson explained, “the more depleted our intellectual lives will become”. She proposed that we routinely interrogate in order to move away from binary modes of thought: “We respect the binary tradition and perhaps we should respect it less.”

Richardson credited Universities with having the power to challenge these binary modes of thought.

Read the full article at cherwell.org

City Council announces return of severe weather emergency

Efan Owen reports on the City Council’s policy for emergency accomodation for the Oxford homeless.

Oxford City Council this week announced the return of their Severe Weather Emergency Protocol (SWEP). The policy is intended to provide overnight accommodation to homeless people living in Oxford in the event of particularly harsh winter weather.

The Council expanded on their plan for housing those in need of shelter over the winter. In partnership with charities St Mungo’s and Homelessness Oxfordshire, thirty bedspaces have been secured across twentyfve rooms. The Protocol will be activated if extreme weather conditions are predicted.

The decision to activate will be made on a day-by-day basis, and anyone believed to be in need will be contacted and offered a place by representatives of St Mungo’s. In a continuation of the social distancing measures frst implemented in response to the coronavirus last year, homeless people will also be offered separate and segregated accommodation if they desired. Communal spaces will only be available to one person at a time. For the frst time, accommodation will also be pet-friendly, and room in dog kennels will be allocated to those who arrange in advance.

The Council believes that these provisions ought to meet the needs of Oxford’s homeless community, particularly as the busiest night last year saw demand for as few as eighteen beds. However, contingency plans are in place should the number of people in need of accommodation be higher than predicted. A Council spokesperson clarifed that the policy, if deemed necessary, would involve the introduction into the scheme of “a number of venues and hotels ... used over the course of the pandemic,” but stressed that such an eventuality is currently viewed as highly unlikely.

In 2020, Oxford’s population who were experiencing homelessnes was estimated to be four times the size in relative terms of its London equivalent.

Speaking to a homeless individual in Oxford, they said that frustration persists towards the responsiveness of local government to the genuine concerns of those living on the streets, particularly with issues of accommodation.

When asked about the Council’s level of consultation with homeless people, a spokesperson from Oxford City Council said that a questionnaire was distributed to each individual who took up the offer of accomodation last year. The results of these questionnaires have informed this year’s policies, including the decision to maintain separate room spaces, in spite of the scarcity of available venues. The Council points to their close relationship with the Lived Experience Advisory Forum, a board of people who have experienced homelessness.

Hackers target University’s Covid vaccine

Charlotte Keys explores the online targeting of Oxford’s vaccine research.

The National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) has highlighted in their annual review that hackers targeted the University of Oxford’s Covid vaccine research this year.

Their review shows that the health sector has been experiencing record hack attempts, with 777 cases recorded between August 2020 and September 2021. This is an increase from the 723 incidents recorded in 2020.

The NCSC, part of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), revealed that one in five incidents were aimed at organisations with connections to health, with particular targeting of coronavirus vaccine research.

Additional cyber-protection support has been provided by the NCSC to those working in the health sector, from NHS workers to vaccine researchers.

Researchers at the University of Oxford received help from the NCSC this year after security experts alerted them to a threat from ransomware which had the potential to significantly disrupt the progress of the Oxford/ AstraZeneca vaccine.

Ransomware, an area of growing concern, is a form of cyber-attack where the criminal or hostile state locks a user out of their data and demands a ransom for the return of their data. However, in some cases, even if the money is paid, not all data is returned to the victim of the attack.

The NCSC’s Active Cyber Defence (ACD) programme removed 2.3 million cyberenabled commodity campaigns; this included 442 phishing campaigns using NHS branding.

The growth in reported incidents is in part due to “the organisation’s ongoing work to proactively identify threats through the work of its Threat Operations and Assessment teams,” the NCSC has said.

Earlier this year, NCSC Chief Executive, Lindy Cameron, warned that criminals and state-backed groups would use the pandemic as an opportunity for cyber-attacks; both in targeting information around vaccines and creating fear. She said, “some groups may also seek to use this information to undermine public trust in government responses to the pandemic, and criminals are now regularly using Covid-themed attacks as a way of scamming the public.”

The transition to remote work and use of third-party computing and cloud services has created an opportunity for criminals to target businesses during the pandemic, whilst hostile states have an interest in medical and vaccine research, threatening the UK’s medical industry over the past year.

The NCSC also predicts that ransomware attacks, which first gained prominence in 2020, are “almost certain to grow” in the next year.

Director of GCHQ, Jeremy Fleming, stated, “This year we have seen countless examples of security threats: from state-sponsored activity to criminal ransomware attacks. It all serves to remind us that what happens online doesn’t stay online – there are real consequences of virtual activity”.

Fleming added that “In the face of rising cyberattacks and an evolving threat, this year’s NCSC’s annual review shows that world-class cyber security, enabled by the expertise of the NCSC as part of GCHQ, continues to be vital to the UK’s safety and prosperity.”

China, the NCSC states, is a “highly sophisticated” operator in cyber space and has been singled out as the biggest threat to Britain’s tech security. They warn in their annual review that “how China evolves in the next decade will probably be the single biggest driver of the UK’s future cyber security”.

Oxford/AstraZeneca hits 2 billion doses

Humza Jilani reports on the university’s medical milestone.

On Nov. 15, AstraZeneca announced that the vaccine they jointly produced with researchers at the University of Oxford had reached its 2 billionth jab.

Additionally, a new paper, published in collaboration with AstraZeneca in Biotechnology and Bioengineering, tells the story of how a key discovery just before the start of the pandemic unlocked the possibility of large-scale manufacturing.

AstraZeneca has faced some setbacks in the last year, from slow deliveries in Europe to rare side effects and lower efficacies than mRNA counterparts, leaving regulators in the United States, United Kingdom, and Europe hesitant to scale up its delivery. As demand for vaccines in Western countries has waned, AstraZeneca have delivered more jabs overseas.

Today, the vaccine is produced in fifteen different countries, with jabs having been delivered in over 170 countries. The AngloSwedish drugmaker initially rebuffed pressures to make a profit on its 2 billion vaccines, while its rivals netted billions in revenues. This year, AstraZeneca is set to make a loss on the vaccine of 3 cents per share, according to the Financial Times.

Despite its extensive experience of vaccine development, the University had never manufactured more than a few thousand doses of any single vaccine until 2020. The Oxford team, headed by Dr. Sandy Douglas, followed a three-step process to take the vaccine out of the laboratory and into the arms of hundreds of millions in need.

First, in January and February 2020, researchers experimented with a simple process to manufacture large amounts of the vaccine. Second, they persuaded manufacturers in the UK, India, China, and Europe to start prepping the vaccine, well before the first clinical volunteer had even been approved. They “franchised” the vaccine, which meant they outsourced production to different sites throughout the world to ensure vast distribution across multiple countries in need. Third, researchers forged a vital partnership with AstraZeneca in May 2020, which allowed them to tap into the pharmaceutical giant’s immense resources and ramp up production at an industrial scale.

The researchers believe the “franchise” strategy’s success provides a template for remedying global vaccine shortages in future pandemics. The process can be applied to other adenovirus-based vaccines, helping to close gaps in equitable access to vaccines.”

Image Credit: Marco Verch Professional Photograhpher/CC BY 2.0 via flickr.

Alice in Wonderland themed campaign to support local businesses

Meg Lintern reports on a campaign to encourage shopping and supporting local businesses in Oxford.

In the run-up to Christmas, Alice from Lewis Carrol’s Alice in Wonderland will be appearing on the streets of Oxford as part of a City Council campaign. The campaign, launched on November 15th, aims to encourage shoppers to return to the streets and support independent businesses.

The six-week project is designed to showcase the city as a hub of tourist activities, from shopping to fine-dining, in a bid to increase visitors during the festive season.

Lewis Caroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland, studied at Christchurch and composed his famous novel whilst living in Oxford. Carrol’s characters have long been used to bring magic to the city. Now, the Covered Market is once again decorated with fantastical figurines.

Between 2019 and 2021, the Covid-19 virus stunted many celebrations. The restrictions on in-person shopping have had severe impacts on the independent shops that rely on tourism and holiday trade.

Oxford City Councillor Susan Brown told the Oxford Mail: “The pandemic has seen a big reduction in the number of international visitors to our city and we are keen to continue to support businesses across our city to recover. Oxford is particularly magical at this time of year and I would encourage everyone to enjoy our city and remember to support the local businesses that make it so vibrant when planning your Christmas shopping and entertainment.”

Funded by the Government’s Contain Outbreak Management Fund, established to support businesses at a crucial time of year, the campaign will feature a range of interactive elements to encourage shopping locally. These will include digital adverts on county-wide bus shelters and on-board Thames Travel buses in the south of Oxfordshire, as well as posters in local media including the Oxford Mail.

Extensive content filmed by Independent Oxford and Fortitude Communication will highlight the broad range of entertainment the city has to offer, from the independent businesses of the Covered Market to the attractions of Westgate. All businesses will be encouraged to promote the campaign by tagging #VisitOxford on their social media channels..

The campaign is intended to reach students, locals, and tourists. The City Council seems hopeful that Alice in Wonderland will be able help make the Christmas season truly “magical” for its independent businesses.

The Cherwell view on the end of term

Sasha Mills (she/her), Editor-in-Chief

During my degree, I’ve been involved in every big student publication except The Oxford Student (no shade but still wouldn’t touch it with a barge pole). I’ve done media and investigations at The Isis, edited podcasts at The Oxford Blue for a time, and tried (and failed) to set up news at The Flete (RIP). Basically, I’ve tried pretty much all of it, and I can tell you now that Cherwell is the only place that has successfully kept me for more than a few terms.

And why is that? Not to be basic, but it’s the people. I’ve made so many friends here that I wouldn’t have met otherwise in my little OX2 island of St. Hugh’s, and when I spent a term at home last Hilary my Cherwell weekly zoom calls were really a highlight in quite a diffcult time. When I came to Oxford I never really thought I’d be able to run something like this. Cherwell, once upon a time, was a bit of a boy’s club. Now, it’s had all-female editor-in-chief teams for a year running. That’s pretty cool.

When I found out that I got this job, I really

Friday 12th November, 2021. I’ve painted my lips crimson, (matt liquid, a sensible choice for a long day in the library) and my nails ruby to match, in honour of the occasion.

But I’m thinking about when I was I was 13, dancing in the Gods at the Greenwich O2 arena as the infectious beat of Holy Ground kicked off Taylor’s Red concert. Songs like ‘All Too Well’ and ‘Almost Do’ were turned up high on the 202 into school and lyrics were whispered under my breath about boys whose names I now barely remember. And on the way home, Taylor was there to sing about mean girls and big city ambitions, like an older sister picking me up after a particularly shit day.

I grew up with her words. Each album I can pinpoint to a school bus route, the tube station outside a boyfriend’s fat, singing in the car with my parents on a family holiday or a winding road in Wales with my long-suffering housemates. She’s put how I feel elegantly and eloquently into words, when I couldn’t fnd my own. Her songs have been dance anthems and cathartic cries (sometimes at the same time, thank you Taylor Swift Society) and with each re-released album, a new wave of nostalgia threatens to overwhelm me.

Listening to ‘Better Man’ on Spotify, rather than a badly taped bootlegged version on YouTube this week was, frankly, a lot. Being reminded of both the boy who broke up with you over a text on a school trip and the man “who didn’t know what he had when he had it”, makes for a pretty unique listening experience. Realising as I listen to the recent album that I’m probably going to be Beginning Again for some time to come, and turning back to that old familiar favourite to make a beginning out of an ending, like I have been since my frst childish love at 16, is quite a reassuring thought. But it’s even more comforting when you see the light in Taylor’s eyes as she looks up to Joe Alwyn behind the camera in her documentary ‘Miss Americana’, and realise she might have Begun Again for the last time. (And that one day, so will you.) These new songs feel like Taylor saying; “just you wait for what’s to come”, whilst they make something beautiful out of what’s already been.

Hearing the heartbreak anthems in past tense, the loves that Taylor has left behind (“cold was the steel of her axe to grind, for the boys who broke her heart”) and remembering the salt-inthe-wound 2am sing-alongs that I’ve survived, makes her capturing of such universal experiences so poignant. We’ve all been there. Her fans didn’t send a gut-wrenching ten minute version of a song that was never a single to number 1 for The First Time In History for no reason. Her lyricism is painfully relatable. But it’s hearing these songs with the new mature infection in Taylor’s voice and knowing she’s moved so far beyond that old hurt (“now she sends their babies presents”) that’s so beautiful – because it reminds you that so can you. Or it makes you realise that maybe, you already have.

Importantly, the re-recordings are reclaiming not just what is rightfully her art to own, but her history - all the happy, free, confused and lonely she wrapped up in her words. She can own the “past trapped behind the glass” – not just the rights to the royalties. It’s an emotive, yet business-savvy approach that you can’t help but root for. With every re-recording, she reiterates

what her fans have always know: she really is The Man.

Why write my Leader on something so trivial? Well, because it’s not. Being a fan of Taylor Swift is an act of feminist resistance. Surviving the tabloid witch-hunt that wrongfully painted her as a villain in a fght she never wanted and emerging a fan regardless of the slander? Feminist. Challenging the misogynistic dismissal of her relationship-inspired song-writing, as if everyother-male-singer/songwriter isn’t doing exactly the same thing with none of the same scrutiny? Feminist. Understanding her ‘eras’ as the necessary reinventions she herself acknowledges that female artists must undergo in order to retain relevance in a patriarchal music culture? You can see where I’m going with this.

She isn’t just a pop star, she’s a fantastic businesswoman and a passionate political activist with signifcant electoral sway, as well as being a three dimensional human being with a crazy solid grasp on the rhetorical powers of the English language, and she is more than worthy of your respect.

You don’t have to be a fan of her music, to be a fan of Taylor Swift.

wanted to turn this paper around – and I feel like we were able to take the frst steps in doing that. We have advertisers again (?!?!), we fnally rebranded (RIP 2010 aesthetic Cherwell, you will not be missed), and adding in pronouns is one of the frst (but defnitely not last) steps we’ve taken to making the paper more inclusive. The UK media is, to put it frankly, dying. Publications need to make real steps to become better, and central to that is becoming signifcantly more gender inclusive, rather than publishing trans-exclusionary content under the guise of free speech. Until nationals begin to do that, they’re going to continue failing. I’m not going to pretend we’ve always done everything right, but the Cherwell team is, and will continue to be, always open to being better.

Thanks so much for being along with us on the ride, and if you want to become part of the team, section ed applications are open now! Feel free, as always, to pop me a message or email

(like our Pitt Rivers collaboration in this week’s Culture section) and a non-hierarchical community where everyone lends their skills towards issues full of surprises. We take care not to make mistakes, but when we do we prioritise humility and set new goals for growth. The point being: Cherwell is made by amateurs and creatives who learn on the job, and that’s a good thing.

Although, just from the time I’ve known them, the media world would be a far better place should any of my colleagues end up on Fleet Street. Wherever they take their talents (except to the OxStu), I hope Cherwell is a chapter in their university careers that they look back upon proudly. It’s been the best time.

I wrote my frst Cherwell article in late October 2019, a short news piece on the sale of JRR Tolkien’s home. Little did I know that going to one news meeting at Hertford JCR would end up consuming my life, 2 years later.

Well, that’s partly a lie. Of course I didn’t know the future, but even since joining staff later that year, I’ve come to believe that Cherwell is a community worth being a part of in Oxford’s maze. Over the next six terms and through the pandemic, the passionate, dedicated, and interesting peers here have been a consistent source of inspiration and camaraderie. It’s rare to fnd a group of people who value thoughtfulness above attention, celebrate creativity in every corner, and see what they do as both genuine fun and real responsibility.

I’m not going to defend the value of student journalism with some illustrious language, because the fact that we don’t always take ourselves seriously is worth celebration. Our impulse to experiment has led to exciting opportunities

Irene Zhang (she/her), Editor-in-Chief

Izzy Merriman (she/her), Deputy Editor Leader: On the Swiftie Renaissance

“You don’t have to be a fan of her music, to be a fan of Taylor Swift.” Masthead

SENIOR EDITORIAL TEAM

Study-Blogger-Turned-Infuencer, We miss you Irene, Twitter Famous, Ireland’s Finest, SU Insider, Cherwell’s Monica Lewinsky, Medieval Queen, Where’s Rusty Kate

NEWS

Sports Insider, Port Meadow Afcionado, Green Fingers, Reporting from the Chambers, Wednesday Morning Tutes

COMMENT

Weary from Poor Wif, ‘My WordPress is Weird’, Second Read Enthusiast, The Only One with InDesign

FEATURES

The History Squad, Queen of the Edit, Tonsilitis Queen

PROFILES

Profling Professional, Fabulous from Afar, An Iconic Cherwell Institution

INVESTIGATIONS

Sherlock Holmes of the North, Classy Classicist

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

The-one-who-wants-SciTechto-be-Jill’s-favourite, Lover of an unnecessary cycle

BUSINESS & FINANCE

The-one-who-came-back-forround-3, WordPress Afcionado, Our Fantastic Fresher

CULTURE

The O’Sullivans, Flor-ishing

STAGE

Permanently at rehearsals, OUDS Contact

FASHION

Edna Mode, Linda Evangelista, Anna Wintour

MUSIC

The Dynamic Duo That Tops the Charts

FILM

Jessica (couldn’t also for) Moore effciency, Rosa Chal-pen is mightier than the sword, Hopkins-McQuillan, 007

BOOKS

Writes everything for the section, Always at rowing, Course II Queen

LIFE

Gadhia of the Galaxy, T. shutes (she scores), Zetis

THE SOURCE

OxStu Double Agent, Best Fashion Sense, Still the Queen of Art

SPORT

Doing every sport under the sun, Calling Maebh out on lack of football knowledge, Miss Arsenal

FOOD

Free Food Enthusiast, Dalgona Fan

MEDIA

Dreams of a Cher-Tok

CREATIVE

Mia Clement, Aleksandra Pluta, Zoe Rhoades, Heidi Fang, Rachel Jung, Ella Markham, Liv Fugger

SOCIAL MEDIA

Min Luo, Mia Clement, Faith Owolabi