Student Life
From sub fusc penguins to college puffer herds: The ‘uniforms’ of Oxford
At my matriculation, I remember laughing with my friends about how it seemed that the entirety of Oxford had been “overrun by penguins”. Everywhere you looked, you would see sub fusc, that bizarre getup that the University demands be worn for its official ceremonies and exams. During my first Michaelmas, as the weather got colder, it was impossible to walk about town and not see herds of students in college puffers, and I soon learned to recognise the various college crests embossed on them. Later, on nights out, you could always recognise a group of Oxford students by their (by then, slightly out-of-kilter) black tie. With all these sightings of homogeneous clothing, it seemed to me as though people spent more time in ‘uniform’ at Oxford than they would have done in sixth form or high school beforehand. But does Oxford really have ‘uniforms’? How might we define them? And what purpose might they serve?
Does Oxford have ‘uniforms’?
When the term first entered English about 1748, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, a uniform was “a distinctive dress of uniform cut, materials, and colour worn by all the members of a particular naval, military, or other force to which it is recognized as properly belonging and peculiar”. Aside from the definition’s militaristic associations, what interests me is the adjective “peculiar”, here meaning “exclusive” or “unique”. While we might think of uniform as simply meaning sartorial homogeneity, lots of uniforms also stand out for their unique oddness and lack of any general practicality: school blazers, to use a well-known example from the UK, are really rather constricting, useful only when you have copious items to store within their many pockets. They are often brightly and strangely coloured too. Nobody would wear them in any other context outside of school.
There is a second definition of “uniform” in the OED, in use since 1930: “The customary dress or mode of appearance characteristic of persons of a certain age, class, or lifestyle.” This marks a semantic widening: a term that entered English with quite specific reference to the flamboyant military uniforms characteristic of the 18th century, had by the 20th century broadened its meaning to any recognisable mode of dress.
Where, then, does Oxford fit into this? What might count as uniforms in Oxford? First to mind come sub fusc and academic gowns, black tie (and indeed white tie for those rather fancy balls), and college merchandise.
Sub fusc, as the oldest of the bunch, seems to fit most closely with the 1748 definition. It certainly is ‘peculiar’, as the joke about the “penguins” illustrates. Both black tie and college merchandise, on the other hand, seem closer to our 1930 definition. They could certainly be said to be ‘characteristic’ of Oxford students. The one factor that legitimates all of these forms of dress, however, which makes their ‘peculiarity’ acceptable, is the context of the University. Sub fusc, black tie, and college merchandise all link to that institutional power and prestige. These can be called ‘uniforms’ in the sense that they are homogenised forms of dress, unique and peculiar to Oxford.
College puffers
In order to find out how college merchandise is purchased and received by students, Cherwell reached out to JCRs to find out the popularity of merchandise, whether students thought it could be considered a ‘uniform’, and in what ways it was different from the other ‘uniforms’ that we have discussed thus far.
The Oriel College JCR President told Cherwell: “Oriel JCR donates all the proceeds from stash orders to a charity chosen by students.” This, in comparison to sub fusc or black tie, shows that there is a much more altruistic motive to purchase merchandise. Buying college stash is an act of goodwill as much as it might be a consequence of wanting to be seen belonging to the University.
At other colleges, proceeds from stash sales may go back into the JCR. The Keble College JCR President told Cherwell that Keble’s stash sales represent about 5% of their annual budget. In Michaelmas and Hilary this year, Keble sold 148 quarter-zip fleeces and 89 puffers, to a cohort of just 124 new undergraduates this year. The quarter-zips were the most popular item – interesting to note, as it shows the idea that college puffers are the most popular choice to be something of a myth. Even accounting for older students, it seems likely that well over half of the freshers bought a puffer, and likely even more bought a quarter-zip.
It is clear that college stash, as a purchase made by choice, and with proceeds going to JCRs or to charities, is acquired in a very different context to sub fusc or black tie, and so has a very different meaning to students. It is an optional purchase, and not a cheap one at that: in Corpus Christi’s stash drop, a college puffer will set you back £42.99. Nevertheless, the popularity of the college puffer and of college merchandise more generally persists. Why is this? Do students feel obligated to buy one because of their popularity? Or do they simply want to express pride for their college and for Oxford?
Mansfield’s JCR president told Cherwell that the stash is “really helpful for college culture – we’re a small college, and not as well-known, so it’s nice to have branded coats and jumpers you can wear around.” The JCR president also noted: “I’m not sure I would call them uniforms, especially since some people are more self-conscious about wearing them in a group.” Even among students, then, sometimes the puffers and college merchandise aren’t seen as uniforms inspiring pride or evoking distinction; in fact, there is fear of exactly that.
So, college merchandise is not regularly perceived as a ‘uniform’ by those who enjoy wearing it. However, if we consider the puffer sceptics, the fact that some are conscious to avoid being seen in an “Oxford uniform” shows that, in fact, that’s the way they are already perceiving the puffers. This aversion is not trivial: it shows that some people do see college puffers as uniform-like, or that there is a risk of them becoming like uniforms.
It is also worth considering the significance of the branded puffer outside of Oxford. Many people choose to wear them at home – and many don’t. On the one hand, some people see them simply as practical coats, and others want, maybe if only a little, to show off the fact that they’ve made it to Oxford. On the other hand, for some, the meaning of the college puffer loses its significance a little outside of Oxford; without the context of many others wearing similar attire and the proximity to the University, the puffer once again becomes ‘peculiar’, and feels odd to wear. All of this is to say, while the puffer might for some be a fun way of expressing college pride and camaraderie, for others, there is the slight fear of them being peculiar, and of them feeling too much like uniforms to be worn outside of the context they came from.
Sub fusc and black tie
The University website describes sub fusc as “solemn and modest, in line with our ceremonies”.
The English student in me jumped at the chance to look into some of the language being used to describe it here. By being linked to ceremony, sub fusc is, by extension, linked to the power and prestige that it represents. Oxford students wear sub fusc as a reminder of the gravity of these shared rituals and the history of the institution. It is not a “characteristic mode of dress” in the sense of the expanded, 1930 definition of uniform, but rather a form of dress associated with specific events: collections, exams, matriculation. Its “peculiarity” and association with ceremony perhaps make it more of a traditional uniform than the college stash. While college puffers have a much more immediate purpose of fostering college community, sub fusc goes straight back to the heart of the University’s traditions and their roots in prestige and solemnity.
Additionally, as part of sub fusc, gowns group students into different categories. Those who have achieved a first in their Prelims or Mods, or those who have attained other scholarships, can wear scholar’s gowns, while the rest of the student population wear commoner’s gowns. While some may feel that it’s an exciting challenge to aim high in order to ‘win’ a fancier gown, it can also certainly be seen as problematic that students’ academic standing can be ‘read’ by anyone simply from what they are wearing. Is this something that we really need to distinguish in dress?
Related to sub fusc is, of course, black tie. This is a necessity for formal events, and it’s hard to walk around Oxford at night without bumping into a group in formal attire of some kind. While for most people coming to Oxford, having to regularly wear black tie is a novelty, it quickly becomes normalised. Sometimes, it’s easy to forget that, at most other universities, black ties and formal dinners are a rarity– if they happen at all. It’s only stepping out of the ‘Oxford bubble’ that reveals, once more, as with the puffers, the essential idiosyncrasy and peculiarity of wearing black tie on a regular basis. But the fact that this rather expensive kind of dress is effectively mandated in order to attend formal events leads us to a major problem with these ‘uniforms’ of Oxford.
Who is included?
Thinking about the ‘uniforms’ that Oxford has also means thinking about who they include – and who they don’t. First, the ‘uniforms’ mentioned here: college merch, sub fusc, black tie, all lie behind a paywall. While college merch is, strictly speaking, optional, the others aren’t, and so new students find themselves immediately having to fork over money in order to participate in the university community. Good luck going to a formal dinner, for example, without a suit and tie, or a fancy dress. Some students, unaware that these extra purchases are in order, find themselves frantically rushing about trying to buy a hat and gown before matriculation, and having to forgo formals for the simple fact of not having the right clothing.
And college merchandise isn’t cheap, either. While you don’t need a college puffer or a jumper, the fact that they help to foster a sense of camaraderie within colleges could mean that those who can’t really spare the cash to buy one might feel, to a certain extent, that they are less a part of that community for not having one.
Fortunately, there have been efforts made to improve accessibility. Oxford Class Act Society, a society “for working class, state comp, low income, first generation, care experienced, estranged, young carer & foundation year students at Oxford”, runs the Free Sub Fusc Scheme, where new students can apply to receive old sub fusc donated by leaving students for free. Not only does this save students from disadvantaged backgrounds from having to give money that they may not have to spare in order to buy academic dress, but it also means that gowns and mortar boards that are bought stay in use for longer, reducing wastage.
The sub-fusc penguins waddle on
As freshers and exam-goers waddle penguin-like through town in their black gowns, the peculiar sight impresses upon onlookers and participants alike that certain forms of dress can connote and foster seriousness, solemnity, or academic vigour. The “peculiarity” of uniforms, the fact that they are so out of the ordinary, is perhaps part of their strange allure, and the potential reason that drew some of us to Oxford in the first place. Sub fusc and black tie are peculiar, and have a direct relationship with the University’s systems and traditions.
While those seem to be “uniforms” in a more traditional sense, college stash, although prevalent enough to be considered a uniform by some, isn’t nearly as institutionally attached, nor traditionally entrenched. Perhaps the key distinction is between the forms of dress the university imposes upon us, and those we choose to participate in. One is “peculiar”, placing us in close proximity to the history and tradition that Oxford has held. The other fosters a feeling of voluntary community. Both might well be “uniforms”, but they serve different purposes and effects.
But uniforms, in whatever their form, place us into groups. They mark us out from others. Sometimes this can be a positive thing. For example, college merchandise serves to foster a sense of community. But the fact that uniforms put us into groups means, inevitably, that some are excluded from those groups. Those with lower income are disadvantaged by having to ‘buy in’ to the uniforms that Oxford demands they wear. For some, black tie, sub fusc, and college merchandise may be a normality, or will easily become one. For others, they are ‘peculiar’, lie behind an uncomfortable paywall, and may come to represent a feeling of alienation, rather than a feeling of pride and inclusion.
St Edmund Hall has opened new, sustainability-focused accommodation in Norham Gardens, one of Oxford’s most affluent neighbourhoods.
The College describes the buildings, which took three years to construct, as an “exemplar” of sustainability. Designed by architects Wright & Wright LLP, they are certified with a Passivhaus standard, widely regarded as the industry benchmark for energy efficiency, and were built using “sustainably sourced and low-embodied carbon materials”. According to a press release on the Teddy Hall website, the buildings will use 70% less energy than the typical modern building.
It contains 127 en-suite study rooms, split across three new buildings: Willis House, Ashton House, and Elliott House, on the nearly 50-year-old Norham St Edmund site. The buildings, which back onto University Parks, are powered at least in part by solar panels and are heated by air-source heat pumps.
The rooms include heated towel racks, big double beds, and dimmable lights. Despite the luxury, the College kept the nightly rate in line with the rest of its Norham housing. The College told Cherwell that it “recognises the need to keep rents as low as possible” and that its accommodation costs are “below the median of all Oxford colleges”. By that standard, tenants are expected to pay around £30 a night.
Rooms on the site will be reserved for Teddy Hall returning undergraduates. They will not be available to postgraduates and, by extension, not be offered through the Oxford University Collegiate Accommodation System, now in its second year of opening college rooms to students from other colleges. The accommodation will allow Teddy Hall to accommodate all undergraduates for their whole degree.
The development’s outdoor spaces are boasted as climate-resilient and biodiverse, with landscaped gardens and lawns. For budding geographers and biologists, the most intriguing feature may be an ecology pond.
Chancellor William Hague said in a press release: “Norham St Edmund is a world-leading blueprint for future student accommodation projects and sustainable building design, both in Oxford and beyond. I look forward to seeing it serve a thriving college community for generations to come.
Human rights experts called for stronger legal protections against the risks posed by artificial intelligence (AI) at an Oxford AI and Human Rights Summit, with speakers arguing that human rights standards must be embedded into AI governance and technology.
The summit was hosted at the newly redeveloped Rhodes House in Oxford and organised by the Institute for Ethics in AI. It built upon Professor Yuval Shany’s consultation on a white paper, published in 2025, on the need for and feasibility of an international AI Bill of Human Rights, which proposes ways to adapt existing human rights standards so as to better address some of the unique challenges posed by AI systems and their uses.
An opening video address from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk outlined how AI policy can keep pace with a fast-developing technology. He said that “great power demands responsibility on the same scale, and when the two don’t match, we have a problem”. Corporate control, he explained, means that AI policy stretches beyond existing national borders. He continued to praise this summit for bringing together leaders and representatives at the forefront of the discussion.
Speakers called on the UK government to establish legislation, recalling Labour’s manifesto commitment to an AI Bill of Human Rights. The panellists broadly agreed on the importance of human rights, but appeared less aligned on what enforcement should look like in practice.
In an exclusive interview, Michael O’Flaherty, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, told Cherwell that political short-termism Continued on pg. 2 risks undermining efforts to address the long-term consequences of AI. “We are infected across our societies with shorttermist responses to the great issue of our societies and politics,” he said, adding that electoral cycles make it difficult for politicians “to think beyond the next election”.
O’Flaherty also noted that younger generations no longer take the international human rights system for granted. “There is no longer an assumption that the human rights system is safe, that it will survive,” he told Cherwell. He argued that political leaders increasingly treat human rights selectively, saying: “Increasingly, leaders are treating human rights, if they are respected at all, as an a la carte buffet. We take those rights because they serve our goal. We’ll ignore others because they get in the way.
The summit also heard concerns about the effects of AI-generated misinformation on communities that may have limited access to, or awareness of, the technology itself. An audience question asked human rights experts to consider the impacts of AI on populations, such as those in India, who might be unaware of its existence. The focus on the impact of AI on populations in developing countries more vulnerable to the power of big tech was a key theme of the summit.
Eileen Carter from the South African Human Rights Commission warned that underrepresentation of African languages in large language models could exacerbate existing inequalities. She also raised concerns about the effects of misinformation and deepfakes on elections, referring to more than 360 deaths associated with unrest and the amplification of narratives.
The third panel, which offered a civil society perspective on promoting human rights in AI systems, offered some hope. Across all speakers, the potential for AI to transform the beliefs that underpin human rights, including the rights to water, education, and an interpreter, was debated. When asked about AI’s potential to unravel and alter the definition of human rights, such as what is included in the ‘right to education’ O’Flaherty told Cherwell: “The damage that can be done by AI has hit more dramatically and more visibly than perhaps any other sector within education through the phenomenon of cognitive loss, of cognitive transfer. We’re only beginning to realise the extent to which we have allowed education to be fundamentally undermined for an entire generation.
“It’s time to seize that now and engage it. I’m not sure that the classic understanding of the human right to education is particularly well-framed for this extraordinary development.”
In a discussion on different countries’ regulatory approach to AI, Suresh Venkatasubramanian, professor at Brown University and former AI advisor to US President Joe Biden, argued that AI systems should not be treated as inevitable developments beyond human control. “We continue, I think, to talk about AI as a thing that emerged out of nowhere that we just have to deal with,” he said. “We forget that these aren’t coming from an alien planet and they were built by entities that choose to build them in a certain way.” He called for pressure on technology companies to make different choices about how AI systems are developed.
Questions of accountability also emerged during discussions about AI’s potential to improve access to justice. Research presented by Philippa Webb said that only 10% of people who have access to a lawyer can get one while there are thousands of bookings for an interpreter in a court covering 150 languages. However, this progress is not cemented as “general-purpose chatbots hallucinate 58% of the time on a legal task”. The use of AI in moderating legal proceedings raised fundamental questions about humanity and authority. Thompson Chengeta from Liverpool John Moores University said that “human rights is the last line of defence so when we say we want a human rights based governance… human rights is not an idea, it is an obligation. There is a gap that can only be recovered by a legally binding instrument”.
The event culminated in a panel offering an industry perspective. Co-host Dr Caroline Emmer De Albuquerque Green questioned representatives from Meta, Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI. Michael Karimian, who works in digital diplomacy at Microsoft, discussed the role of private sectors in engaging with AI, defining corporate responsibility as something which “provides transparency and identified risks”.
All companies supported having formal programmes to ensure that they have an AI policy in place. Within their own companies, they suggested protective measures such as specialised training to ensure that policies, such as whistleblowing, are understood. Alexandria Walden from Google described how consultations with stakeholders could be used to identify when the product breached users’ boundaries. These assessments, according to OpenAI’s spokesperson, “feedback into tangible technical input” and “benchmark it”.
Fundamentally, understanding the rationale behind human rights is imperative, though lacking. Alexandria Walden from Google said: “Whether or not they understand human rights, they care enough to infuse it in their company… we might not always get it right, but it is something we care about.”
Where former panels discussed controls to ensure human rights are considered in the development and implementation of AI products, this panel focused on mitigation. A spokesperson from Google pointed out that technology is inevitably going to move faster, so multiple tools are needed. Companies, OpenAI’s representative noted, still encounter issues such as discrimination and free speech. Consequently, they regard this as an additional policy which companies have a structured model to deal with, but newer companies, and newer industries, haven’t learnt it yet.
In her concluding remarks, Green called for policy makers to “make the abstract actionable” at both governmental and corporate levels. She argued that, by framing the issues posed by AI as human rights issues, we gain a “foundation” for recognising AI’s many societal impacts.
Ugandan participants in a clinical safety study received an Oxford developed Ebola vaccine this week.
Researchers vaccinated the first participants on 6th October in Masaka, Uganda. The phase follows the launch of a first-in-human Phase I trial in the UK evaluating the same vaccine candidate.
They received the vaccine as part of an evaluation of the safety and efficacy of a ChAdOx-based Bundibugyo Ebola vaccine candidate developed by the Oxford Vaccine Group (OVG) and the Pandemic Sciences Institute at the University of Oxford.
Development for this vaccine began in May this year in response to the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The research, led by OVG’s Professor Teresa Lambe and Professor Simon Drysdale, is funded by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). No licenced vaccine for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola virus currently exists.
In a statement to Cherwell, OVG said its involvement includes collaborating with the Ugandan research team to support “the study’s scientific design, clinical trial coordination, safety oversight, and evaluation of vaccine safety and immunogenicity”. The Phase I clinical trial addresses a rare strain of Ebola virus affecting communities in the DRC since May. The phase is a collaboration between the Medical Research Council/ Uganda Virus Research Institute and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).
Dr Nicole Lurie, CEPI’s Executive Director for Emergency Preparedness and Response, told Cherwell: “It [the Bundibugyo outbreak] remains the fastest-growing and second-largest Ebola outbreak ever recorded – and we currently remain without a licensed vaccine or treatment.” The Bundibugyo Ebola epidemic in the DRC has surpassed 8,600 cases, with almost half of infections proving fatal.
The outbreak was declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in May.
OVG told Cherwell: “For more than a decade, the University of Oxford has performed many clinical trials of candidate viral-vectored vaccines. Some of the most promising vaccines used a modified chimpanzee adenovirus, a harmless version of a common cold virus. The Oxford-AstraZeneca (ChAdOx1) COVID-19 vaccine was approved for emergency use in the UK in December 2020 and was estimated to have saved six million lives during 2021 alone, and over 3 billion doses were used worldwide.” The adenovirus vector vaccine technology trialled in this study was successfully used worldwide as part of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
More funding is necessary to ensure the development and approval of the Ebola vaccine. Lurie told Cherwell: “Without sufficient additional funding, we are at risk of not being able to develop these promising vaccine candidates… CEPI urgently needs US$128M now to keep our Bundibugyo emergency R&D response moving. Without it, we are putting the DRC, and the world, at tremendous risk.”
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