2018 Committee Lunch

Date: Wednesday 5th week, Trinity 2018 (2018-05-23)

Attendance

Present: Leah Mitchell (President), Gregory Brinkworth (Lindsay), Hannah Williams (Dr. WHO), Ellen Cropley (Dr. WHO), Joseph Al-Khalili (Foody), Athravan Sett (Access and Admissions Officer), Mia Liyanage (Access and Admissions Officer), Amrita Khandpur (Design & Maintenance Officer), Jack Weatherilt (Entz Officer), Joshua Tilley (Environment & Ethics Officer), Safia Khan (Ethnic Minorities Officer), Avnish Nijjar (Ethnic Minorities Officer), Tanja Gunther (LGBTQ Officer), Antonia Siu (Website & Computing Officer), Lauren Tavriger (Women's Officer)

Absent with apologies: Charlotte Lee (Vice-President (Administrative)), Rebecca Clark (Charities and RAG Officer), Eleanor Cook (Student Disabilities Officer), Francesca Back (Women's Officer)

Absent without explanation: Beth Thomas (Secretary), Henrique Aguiar (Treasurer), Thomas Laver (Foody), Pria Bourne (Student Disabilities Officer), Helena Cox-Smith (Entz Officer), Dylan Behr (Environment & Ethics Officer), Xinyu Luo (International Students Officer), Alexander Gruen (Housing Officer), Mick Yang (LGBTQ Officer)

Agenda

1. Matters Arising

• Secretary Co-Option

• Money for Welfare Week Book/Repeal the 8th

• Alternative Prospectus

• Admissions Report

2. AOB

• Renaming Fridge Room

• Food for Iftars

Minutes

1. Matters Arising

Secretary Co-Option

Michael O'Connor was co-opted as secretary. 

Money for Welfare Week Book/Repeal the 8th

Lauren requested £9.18 to buy a book called ‘Repeal the 8th Amendment’. It concerns the referendum in the Republic of Ireland on Friday 25th May 2018. She wishes to keep it in the nook in the JCR. Money goes directly to the ‘Yes’ campaign. 

No objections, motion passes.  

Alternative Prospectus

Mia noted that the college’s alternative prospectus needs to be updated as it is several years old. Daisy Cutts, one of her predecessors, had attempted to do so but was unable to obtain the necessary funding. Several other colleges use a designer called Andy Whelan to produce their alternative prospectus; he quoted a figure of £1700. It would cost £2400 to print 3000 copies. Mia suggested that we could design the publication ourselves given a) the cost of hiring a designer and b) the fact that several members of the JCR have experience with InDesign. She further suggested that it should be online only.

Michael noted that it might be sensible to include more college-specific information in the prospectus as well as statistics that might help to demystify the admissions process. Isis suggested that the prospectus should be detailed enough to help people choose between colleges. It was generally agreed that the JCR should be consulted regarding the content of the prospectus. Avnish suggested the creation of a working group; Hannah recommended outsourcing the task of writing the prospectus to present and former committee members. Mia agreed and said that she planned to complete the prospectus early in Michaelmas 2018. 

Admissions Report

The report is available here.

General Comments

Leah noted that the university-wide committee of JCR presidents has released a statement suggesting that the university needs to rethink its approach to access. Foundation years like that at LMH may be the way forward. Mia said that the figures were much worse than expected given the JCR’s heavy involvement in outreach programs and schemes designed to improve access. She noted that college staff don’t think that foundation years are necessarily useful as they divert funds away from other access efforts. It is good that LMH and other colleges have foundation years but they may not be as useful at Balliol. 

Gender

The gender balance at Balliol is the worst at the university – there's a roughly 60-40 male-female split. Lauren noted that the gender divide may partly be due to missed offers (c.15 missed in the most recent year, mostly female). Further, there have been 164 more male than female applicants over the past three years. However, Isis noted that there was a notable gender skew in acceptance rates for male v female applicants in mathematics even accounting for numbers applying. 

Ethnicity

Balliol has admitted only two UK-domiciled Black students in the past three years, the second lowest number in the university. It received 46 applications from UK-domiciled Black students in that period, and gave offers to four. Offer rates for UK-domiciled Black applicants were substantially lower than those for UK-domiciled White applicants. Leah noted that the highest number of applicants admitted at any college was seven, so other colleges didn’t do much better. This is a university-wide problem and it requires university-wide coordination. 

It was also observed that the fellowship is predominantly white and so is not necessarily reflective of the college’s belief in diversity. It was further noted that certain tutors dislike unconscious bias training. Unconscious bias may well play a part in explaining the lack of offer-holders. It was also observed that the college is doing much better with respect to BME students overall. 

Access Approach

Mia explained the college’s current approach to access. Colleges are assigned to UK regions. Balliol has been assigned Hertfordshire. It is not allowed to take on another region, nor is it allowed to visit other regions on an ad-hoc basis. College staff have informed Mia that the college will be given a new region within the next two years. In the mean time, the college cannot run a coordinated outreach program in another region.

Mia noted that there is a training session on Thursday 7th June 2018 at Oxford SU for students who wish to return to their schools or other schools in their local areas to encourage sixth formers to apply to Oxford. She encouraged people to attend. It was generally agreed that the best thing to do was to run more school tours and to pressure the college to improve admission rates for students from minority backgrounds. 

First Generation

Isis noted that Balliol has one of the highest percentages of state-school students (64.5%). However, very few of these students are first generation. Hence she suggested that part of the problem may relate to class and to familiarity with university as well as to ethnicity and school type. 

Action

Two courses of action were discussed: 

• Greg suggested sending an open letter to the college (signed by members of the JCR) to express the JCR’s discontent.

• Leah noted that there is an academic committee meeting on Wednesday 30th May 2018. A number of tutors will be present will be present, as will other key members of the college. It is important to bring a concrete set of proposals to the meeting. Mia agreed to take the lead on this; Amrita, Safia and Isis also said that they would be happy to help. The secretaries noted that they would do provide all necessary support.

Both courses of action were agreed upon. 

2. AOB

Fridge Room

Amrita requested up to £14 to pay for the plaque in the Fridge Room that has Huw Braithwaite’s name on it. 

No objections, motion passed. 

Food for Iftars

Avnish and Safia noted that Ramadan falls in exam period this term. They suggested purchasing takeaways for students who will be breaking the fast. It was suggested that the funding for this might come out of the money passed for Welfare Week. Ellen agreed that this would be possible as there is plenty of money left from welfare week. Safia said that roughly £50 would be enough. She is working in co-operation with Yasmeen Arif, one of the MCR Welfare officers, to organize this and Yasmeen may be able to obtain funding from the MCR. Joe asked whether pantry facilities would be needed. Avnish confirmed that they would be needed to wash plates and cutlery. Hannah stressed the importance of ensuring that those who ate the takeaways were in fact fasting.