Students at the University of Oxford have been given free colouring pencils to relieve stress. This follows the news that the Oxford Union will make ‘welfare resources’ available when Kathleen Stock is due to give a talk at the Union later this month for those students who feel traumatised by the presence of the UnHerd columnist. Ewan Somerville in the Telegraph has more.
The exercise has been rolled out in the Bodleian Social Science Library and elsewhere on university sites.
Bundles of coloured pencils are provided on a table to undergraduates, along with a sign to “try out some mindful colouring”, a picture posted online shows.
The notice says: “Give your mind a break. Help yourselves to some pencils and colouring sheets. Please return pencils to this table after use.”
But it has been mocked for “infantilising” students at the world’s top-ranked university.
Prof Lawrence Goldman, a lecturer in modern history at Oxford and the former editor of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, told the Telegraph: “The architecture of the Social Science Library led to it being called the Ministry of Truth from George Orwell’s 1984 when it was built. Perhaps it should now be renamed the kindergarten.”
Read more: Oxford Students Given Crayons to Relieve Stress – But Don’t Dare Call Them ‘Snowflakes’