Issue 798 Friday 13Th November 2015
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
e Independent Student Newspaper Issue 798 Friday 13th November 2015 Published in Cambridge since 1947 www.varsity.co.uk 10 Science: Global Health 13 Comment: Class Lists 19 Culture: One Direction 21 Features: John Lewis Ad £2.5m donation to university for women in maths CHRIS WILLIAMSON / GETTY IMAGES James Su on News Correspondent e university has announced that it is to receive a £2.5 million donation from Charles Corfi eld, a technology start-up boss who is estimated to be worth in the region of £100 million. e money will be directed towards promoting women’s engagement in mathematics. e Department of Pure Mathematics and Mathematical Statistics will re- ceive the donation, which will fund the foundation of an endowed teaching offi ce devoted to redressing the gen- der imbalance in mathematics. Just 17 per cent of this year’s intake of fresh- ers studying Mathematics are women, and only the Computer Science and Engineering courses have a smaller proportion of female students. Under fire: Julian Assange speaking to the Cambridge Union Society on Wednesday, with the controversial video of US military action behind e Faculty of Mathematics has three Women’s Advisers who support female PhD students and academics facing diffi culties, and in April last year received a Bronze Athena SWAN Department Award for promoting equal opportunities. Corfi eld, who is behind the latest donation, graduated with a degree in Mathematics and Physics from the Double trouble university in 1982, and went on to found Frame Technology Corp., which Cambridge to create two new joint honours-style triposes, History and Politics and was later acquired by Adobe. is is the second time that he has made a do- History and Modern Languages, amidst further changes to social sciences courses nation on this scale, having given £2.5 million in 1996 to fund the construc- Joe Robnson and Tom other institutions. Boards of History and MML, as well ese latest proposed Triposes tion of the Centre for Mathematical According to a report submitted by as by the HSPS Tripos Management would not remove current content Sciences. St John’s College named a Wlson the General Board of the Faculties, the Committee. Both Professor Chris from the HSPS or MML courses, and court after Corfi eld in 2009 in recogni- News Edtors new triposes would supplement the Young – the Deputy Head of the are intended to “enrich the intellec- tion of his fi nancial contributions. existing Human, Social and Political School of Arts and Humanities – and tual environment of both Schools and Corfi eld’s latest gift comes as part e University of Cambridge looks Sciences (HSPS) and Modern and Dr Helen ompson lent their sup- enhance the number and quality of of the university’s £2 billion fund- set to off er two new joint History Tri- Medieval Languages (MML) pro- port to the changes. applicants.” raising drive, and was announced on poses, with Politics and Modern Lan- grammes, upon approval, which is e plans come in the wake of pro- e new triposes are also intended Wednesday alongside benefactions of guages, from October 2017. expected to be given at a discussion posals to create a new Archaeology to stem the decline in applicant num- £660,000 from the Standard Bank of In a fi rst for the Faculty of History, at Regent House due to take place on Tripos by removing that subject from bers for History and MML. e report South Africa to provide studentships the two new courses, History and 24th November. the HSPS Tripos, which was created describes an expected intake of be- for South African postgraduates at Politics, and History and Modern e recommendations from the following the merger of the Politics, tween 30 and 40 for the joint Politics Magdalene College, and over £2 million Languages, would allow students to General Board, which consists of the Psychology and Sociology (PPS) tripos, and between 15 and 20 for the from the Walters Kundert Charitable take undergraduate courses similar to Vice-Chancellor and other senior fi g- and Archaeology & Anthropology Modern Languages joint course. Trust to fund Natural Sciences fellow- the joint honours courses off ered at ures, were endorsed by the Faculty Triposes in 2013. Continued on p.3. ships and an outreach project. INSIDE: CLASS LISTS, MODI VISIT CONFUSION, FAKE DEGREES, RAPE CONVICTION 2 Editorial Friday 13th November 2015 All change for HSPS. Again. e Troubled Tripos is again being changed. tional disciplines like history, classics and languag- Make no mistake: the courses are a clear admis- es, the triposes are based around the faculties that sion of increasing competition from Oxford and At the same time the university is spinning ar- house them, stymieing the possibility of interac- UCL, among other institutions. Even if the tripos chaeology off into its own Tripos – an admission tion apart from the rare borrowed papers in fi nal system off ers some of the broadest arts degrees in that the discipline’s “visibility” had suff ered signifi - years about which prospective students know very the country, joint honours off er a potential way cantly as a result of the HSPS merger – the univer- little. Did you know, for example, that it is already to maintain that fl exibility while also making it sity is taking the radical decision to create two true possible to combine an MML degree with a classi- far clearer to prospective students precisely what joint honours courses in Oxford style in History cal language from the Classics Tripos, eff ectively course they will be studying. and Politics and History and Modern Languages. giving a joint honours course, and that this has been possible for decades? Many don’t, including Indeed, the news History and Politics Tripos It says a great deal about the endurance of the many potentially interested prospective students, could negatively impact on its closest similar sub- tripos system that the idea of introducing two true because the option is only available as part of the ject, HSPS. Given that problems with this course joint honours courses seems so unusual. After all, MML Tripos. Hence the degree that students regarding its visibility and its course options have the system is sold to prospective students as off er- graduate with following this path is MML. Unfor- been apparent since its inception, the introduction ing unparalleled opportunities to study a subject tunately, such students also lose their privileges to of a far clearer course that will undoubtedly appeal broadly before specialising in later years. Why ap- choose any combination of fi nal-year papers from to a signifi cant number of potential HSPS appli- ply for an early modern history course when you Classics, eff ectively forcing second-years to choose cants could have a further eff ect on numbers for can apply to Cambridge’s broader History Tripos whether to follow MML or Classics near exclusive- the latter course. and be exposed to other periods that may capture ly. Hardly a joint honours system for those students EDTIORIAL your interest more than you could have imagined? who would like to maintain their interests in both Time will tell whether the eff ects on applications disciplines, and hardly refl ective of the course path are so severe as to warrant yet another change to e trouble with this approach is that for tradi- they have followed in their fi rst two years. HSPS, rapidly becoming the Troubled Tripos. INVESTIGATIONS Feeling the strain? Varsity Writers’ Meetings Focus on mental health at Cambridge; this week uncovers an array of support structures and their problems (page 8) Varsity will be INTERVIEWS holding meetings for aspiring writers, Jackie Ashley photographers, illustrators, designers and e new President of Lucy Cavendish discusses harass- ment, gender inequality and a reading week (page 12) sub-editors every Monday in our o ices at COMMENT 16 Mill Lane at 6:30pm. Freshers’ fi rst fi ve weeks Come along, or email [email protected] Five freshers share varying experiences of their fi rst fi ve weeks in Cambridge (page 14) to find out more. CULTURE Petar on fi lm: Macbeth Clarifi cations and Corrections [email protected] Varsity’s columnist is left broken (“in the best way”) after Last week’s Varsity story “Grossly incompetent” incorrectly attributed the statement of Senior Proctor David Goode to the latest adaptation of Shakespeare’s classic (page 18) Senior Pro Vice-Chancellor Professor Duncan Maskell. As his quote later in the original article suggests, Professor Maskell remains highly supportive of the project, and said at the meeting at the Senate House: “I strongly support the North West Cambridge Development. ere is a clear need for key worker and inexpensive housing to make sure that we can continue FASHION to attract people to work for the University...” Referring to criticisms in the original audit report, he said: “Both of these reports are clear that there is no individual blame to be apportioned for this projected cost over-run, but it is clear that there are elements of process that could have been Top 10 cheap beauty buys done better... e Internal Rate of Return (IRR) for the project remains around the 6 per cent mark, which is a long way in How to look good on a budget (page 22) excess of the 4.25 per cent interest being charged by the University to the project, and the 3.75 per cent that the University is paying as interest on the bond.... ese are very healthy values for a development of this nature.” “It is important to recognise that this kind of over-run and re-baselining is common in development projects of this size and complexity..