Profile
Gina Sternberg, President of Oxford Pink Week
Comment Labour reshuffle highlights recent party tensions Page 17
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Music
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It’s time to bring balance to ‘The Force Awakens’
A tribute to one of music’s most loved stars
15.01.2016 Volume 75, Issue 1 oxfordstudent.com
Junior doctors protest in force in Oxford Toby Clyde
Deputy News Editor
Large numbers of doctors and supporters turned out to protest on Broad Street this Tuesday as part of a nationwide strike. Up to a ‘100 standing protesters’ were present at one point with striking doctors remaining long into the afternoon to talk to passers by. The protest coincided with the admission ceremony of the new Vice-Chancellor, Professor Louise Richardson in the Sheldonian, with banner holding medics parading outside while whilst gowned academics filed out.
Professor Louise Richardson was previously Chancellor of St Andrews University in Scotland
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Image: OUImages/John Cairns
First woman Vice Chancellor installed at Oxford • Professor Louise Richardson was installed at the Sheldonian on Tuesday Scott Harker Deputy Editor
Oxford University’s new Vice-Chancellor has used her installation speech to lay out her agenda for an ‘agile’ university at the pinnacle of global change. Professor Louise Richardson, Oxford’s 272 nd, and first woman, Vice-Chancellor called on the university to show ‘agility’ in an era of globalization and technological change in a speech given to the congregation of the University shortly after she had been accepted into the office of Vice-Chancellor at a ceremony in the Sheldonian Theatre. Professor Richardson said: “If we can provide leaders for tomorrow who have been educated to think critically, to act ethically and always to question, these are the people who will prevent the next financial crisis;
who will help us to grapple with the fundamental questions prompted by the accelerating pace of technological change, as we confront profound ethical choices about the prolongation and even replication of life. People who will force us to confront the costs we are imposing on the next generation by our wasteful use of the earth’s resources; who will articulate our obligation to the vulnerable, the poor, the victims of war, oppression and disease, wherever they live.”
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How do we ensure that our students understand that true nature of freedom of inquiry and expression? Amongst other topics touched upon in the Vice-Chancellor’s
speech included criticism of moves towards greater governmental control over higher education and questioned how the University can address the challenge of ensuring freedom of debate within the student community. On this, Professor Richardson said: “How do we ensure that they appreciate the value of engaging with ideas they find objectionable, trying through reason to change another’s mind, while always being open to changing their own? How do we ensure that our students understand the true nature of freedom of inquiry and expression?” Professor Richardson then also made a point of calling for the University to make ever-greater efforts to attract the world’s best students and scholars to Oxford regardless of who they may be. She concluded her speech by
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Fashionshoot:JanuaryBrights
Please join me, it will be hard, it will be fun, but we owe it to those on whose shoulders we stand
making an appeal to all at the university: “Let’s all make the most of the time we have here in this privileged, magical, extraordinary place to leave it even better than we found it. Let’s keep our eyes firmly fixed on the future, without forgetting the traditions that bind us to our forebears and the values and interests that unite us to one another. Please join me, it will be hard, it will be fun, but we owe it to those on whose shoulders we stand, and Oxford deserves no less than our very best.”
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See pages 26-27