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1 week ago | 
cherwell.org | Laurence Cooke
Somerville College affirmed its solidarity with trans students in a statement today. The intervention makes Somerville the first Oxford college to react publicly to the Supreme Court’s April ruling on the legal definition of a woman. Only the central University had previously published an update which noted they were “carefully reviewing [our] policies and practices concerning transgender inclusion and equality… [including] existing facilities across our estate”.
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2 weeks ago | 
cherwell.org | Laurence Cooke
Cherwell spoke to forensic anthropologist, award-winning writer, and St John’s College President, Sue Black CW: Violence Professor Lady Sue Black, Baroness Black of Strome certainly has a title which precedes her. The President of St John’s made her name as an academic and forensic scientist who worked to identify victims in conflict zones including Kosovo and Sierra Leone, and then later the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami.
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3 weeks ago | 
cherwell.org | Laurence Cooke
Oxford SU has postponed its elections for the part-time officer roles created under its Transformation Plan, according to a statement released this morning. They will now be held in Michaelmas. The roles, which include Equity Officers and Community Officers, have seen a “low number of candidate nominations” which the Student Union has attributed to Trinity being an “exceptionally busy term”.
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1 month ago | 
cherwell.org | Laurence Cooke
Emilie Tapping, co-CEO of Oxford SU, announced her resignation last week, with a plan to leave in June after a year in post. Formerly CEO of Oxford Brookes Students’ Union, Tapping joined Oxford SU in June 2024 and oversaw a transformation period which produced a “flat structure” of four officer roles and a “conference of commons rooms” model.
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1 month ago | 
cherwell.org | Laurence Cooke
Fewer undergraduates enrolled at Oxford University in 2023-24 than in the previous reporting year, new data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) reveals. A decline of 500 enrolled undergraduate students compared to 2022-2023 was partially offset by a modest increase of 320 in the postgraduate student total. Nonetheless, the overall number of matriculated students across the University fell for the first time since 2015/16.
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Mar 4, 2025 | 
cherwell.org | Laurence Cooke
German carmaker BMW Group has paused a £600 million investment in its Cowley factory. The project was expected to create 4,000 new jobs and expand the plant’s production capacity for electric MINIs. The factory still remains the largest industrial employer in Oxfordshire. BMW said that a reason for this is the “multiple uncertainties facing the automotive industry” as the UK is seeing weaker demand for electric vehicles at a time of rising consumer costs.
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Mar 1, 2025 | 
cherwell.org | Laurence Cooke
I have some reservations, but first, some reassurances: this review is not going to claim that Samantha Harvey’s Orbital, the 2024 Booker Prize Winner, is a work without merit. She really does manage to capture a remarkable synthesis of the galactic and the mundane. She excels in beautiful descriptions of our humble and yet majestic Blue Marble, rotating under the orbit of six ISS astronauts whose lives form the novel’s bedrock.
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Feb 6, 2025 | 
cherwell.org | Laurence Cooke
A sunny day at the Boat Race, and the air is thick with shouts of “God damn bloody Oxford” — Cambridge’s rather lame equivalent of “shoe the tabs”. I’m with my girlfriend’s friends from ‘The Other Place’, and Oxford’s dismal performance on the Thames has caused much mirth, most of it at my expense. A long-distance relationship, which started after UCAS but before uni, set me and my girlfriend on firmly different sides of the Oxbridge divide.
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Jan 20, 2025 | 
cherwell.org | Laurence Cooke
It could be in everyone at Oxford’s interests if private schools were abolished. This includes the interests of the privately-educated themselves, and therefore of people reading this. That’s provided Cherwell’s readership precisely mirrors Oxford’s demographics, but that’s an investigation for another day. We certainly know one case for abolition: the notion that private schools exacerbate social inequality.
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Nov 29, 2024 | 
cherwell.org | Laurence Cooke |Victoria McKinley-Smith
The results of Cherwell’s unprecedented investigation into students’ drinking habits are finally in. We have received over 1,250 responses – nearly 10% of the University’s undergraduate body – across every year, college, and course. Data can now tell us conclusively which colleges and courses drink the most and the least, and reveal the scope and nuances of Oxford’s relationship to alcohol.
