Buying back your bike
The Rangers pick up abandoned bikes from around Cambridge. Many of these belonged to students who left Cambridge and abandoned their bikes. These bikes all go to the depot on Mill Road. Where do they go from there? Well, it seems that The Bike Man in Market Square is allowed to pick them up and take them to his warehouse, where he refurbishes and sells them. This is why he always has second-hand bikes for sale. When my bike was removed, I went to try and retrieve it. I had great difficulty doing this, and eventually tracked it down in his warehouse, where he did actually give it back to me. However, during my enquiries at the depot, I discovered that I was not officially allowed to collect my bike from there. Nor are any of the other bike merchants in Cambridge. Seems a little odd, don’t you think?

Why should he have exclusive access to this near-unlimited supply of second-hand bikes, allowing him to push the price up? Why can’t individuals and the other merchants collect bikes from there? If other people were allowed access to these bikes, it would be a great boon for all students arriving in Cambridge to be able to get a cheap (or even free) second hand
bike.

Name and college supplied

Kept in the dark
I am a second-year undergraduate at Corpus Christi who would like to report the dismay that I and many other ‘Corpuscles’ felt regarding the sudden departure of both Professor Paul Schofield and Sir Alan Wilson, the College’s Senior Tutor and Master, at the end of last year.
Their resignations were reported to students in two short emails, neither of which made much reference to the reasons behind their departure or the process by which they were to be replaced. While many of us expected our JCR representatives to have been consulted or at least informed, it soon came to light that these decisions took place behind closed doors and that no information was to be provided to undergraduates. For all the complaints that have been voiced, the College revealed only that Professor Schofield left for ‘academic reasons’, while Wilson’s resignation was wholly unexplained.

In this age of top-up fees, of an education that is meant to provide a professional service to paying students, surely this secrecy regarding the figures that control the running of our College institutions is inappropriate. Sir Alan began his term as Master promising Corpus freshers that he would be a guide and companion for them through the years ahead.

Yet, for the majority of us, this was the last that we heard of him before the four-line resignation email that we received in May. Having paid £3,000 a year, the least that students deserve is an accountable administration which provides detailed information and accepts the views of their own representatives with regard to positions that greatly impact upon our University life.

Without conceding too much to the anti-Oxbridge declarations of the tabloid press, this secrecy also suggests the old-fashioned nature of the College administrative system in Cambridge, which in many respects compares poorly to the more open infrastructure of the younger British Universities or the American Ivy League. Reform is desirable and would be in the interest of all who work in this University, not least academics and administrators themselves.

Let us hope that the Corpus debacle may result in such a positive change.

Mike Kielty

A Criminal Closure
According to the Home Office Research and Development Statistics, in 2001/2002 there were 105 recorded sexual offences in Cambridge, a little above the national average for the population size. In 2006/2007 the number is still over the national average. With rape conviction rates at an all time low, it is easy to see why these are often a tiny minority of the real number: victims do not find the emotional stress of going to the police worthwhile.

But that does not mean victims want to stay silent. The Rape Crisis Centre in Leicestershire received 250 calls in one month, while only 10 people went to the police. The importance of helplines, advice centres and shelters cannot be overstated, yet take a look at the rapecrisis.org.uk list of centres and there is red box after red box: Hounslow (closed); Milton Keynes (closed); York (closed).

Cambridge Rape Crisis Centre offered comfort and advice, but also information on medical and legal procedures. Like so many other centres, it closed this summer due to a lack of funding and volunteers. Our MP David Howarth, the council and the original centre are working with CUSU to set up a student and community counselling service, but even if the funding issue is resolved, they will still need an ongoing stream of volunteers. Rape is a crime that cuts across every social bracket, every class, age and race, in and outside the Cambridge bubble. If anyone reading this is interested in volunteering then the CUSU women’s officer Elly Shepherd is collecting names.

Jennifer Blair, King’s College