The Antonian The Newsletter of St Antony’s College Michaelmas Term 2010 INSIDE Warden’s letter Letter from the Warden ............................. 1 Professor Margaret MacMillan, Warden College News 60th Anniversary Gaudy ............................ 3 The latest government education and immigration reforms are H.R.H Prince El Hassan bin Talal ............ 4 concerning. St Antony’s is well placed to meet such challenges, Liaquat Ahamed .......................................... 4 as we consolidate our financial stability whilst remaining the Foulath Hadid .............................................. 4 place to study issues which matter in the world today. Other news .................................................. 5 As I write this, we are starting to get a clearer picture of Feature ........................................................ 6 what the coalition government intends to do to higher Obama and Israel education in this country. Fees will go up for undergraduates Is it a case of the tail (they have already gone up steeply for graduates), but the that wags the dog? grants for teaching and research will be cut so it is likely that universities will be worse off. As a graduate college, St Antony’s will not Memorial: Sir Marrack Goulding ............ 8 be affected as directly as the majority of colleges which are responsible Significant Times: Afghanistan .............. 10 for teaching undergraduates, but it GCR Events ................................................ 11 will still share in the general pain. What is also concerning us Antonian News .......................................... 12 greatly at the moment is the move by the government to cut Antonian Liaison Officers ........................ 19 immigration to this country Day in the Life: Allan Taylor, Bursar ..... 20 drastically and that includes > Photographs: Rob Judges (top and right) and © iStockphoto.com/Zorani (above) UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD www.sant.ox.ac.uk Warden’s Letter tightening up on visas, including those for workers and accommodation, offices and meeting spaces. As the students. Like the rest of Oxford, our Fellows come Bursar has pointed out to me, if we can get the from all over the world (some 40% of Oxford building costs fully funded, the College will academics are non-British) and this is one of our great immediately start to receive a steady stream of income strengths. There are worrying reports that universities from student rents and summer conference business. are hiring good candidates from abroad only to find What that will mean, among other things, is that we that they cannot get them into to the country. We are can provide more support for students and take on also hearing that students from outside the United new posts in areas that we think important. Kingdom and the European Union face increasing Four million pounds is a wonderful start but we still difficulties in getting permission to study here. Equally have a way to go to reach our target of £14m. So I, worrying is that academics in foreign countries are with the indefatigable Ranj Majumdar in the starting to tell their students not to bother to apply to Development Office, will be spending the next months universities in the UK because the potential hassle is on getting us closer to that figure. We think we can do too great. St. Antony’s is by far and away the most it and we will be calling on you all to help us get there. international college at Oxford - 63% of our students Fund-raising is the underpinning for everything we come from outside the UK and EU - so this is do - and as always the College is doing a lot. The past something we are watching closely. I went recently to a Michaelmas Term has been very busy with seminars in seminar organized by the Commons Home Affairs the Centres, special conferences on subjects from Nazi Committee where a number of us from different Germany to present-day Sudan, Warden’s lunchtime universities and schools made a strong case for making seminars - the usual fascinating mix. Among special it as easy as possible for good researchers and students lecturers we welcomed Prince Hassan of Jordan, who from around the world to study and work in the UK. gave a rather pessimistic lecture on the prospects for I sometimes feel as though I am the captain of a peace in the Middle East and Liaquat Ahamed, the rather small ship dodging giant waves. We have, so it Pulitzer Prize winning author, who drew some lessons seems, come through the worst of the financial crisis, from the Great Depression for the present. We were but we now face this new storm on the horizon. But also pleased to host a seminar in commemoration of St. Antony’s is not only sea-worthy, it is forging steadily our late Warden, Sir Marrack Goulding, where our ahead. We have just had our year-end results and, again, panellists Avi Shlaim, Adam Roberts and Tessa I am very happy to say, we have shown a slight surplus. Blackstone discussed his life and work. We have managed to increase our spending on By the time you get this, we will be well into another maintenance and IT and provide some more term with its full panoply of activities from the academic scholarships and bursaries to our students. We have to the social. Let us hope that, for all of us, 2011 is a also decided to fund some post-doctoral posts at the year of hope and progress. As for St Antony’s I am College as part of an attempt to support good young confident that it will keep steaming ahead. academics in the early stages of their careers. I am often asked what my vision for the College is Professor Margaret MacMillan and the short answer is to make it financially stable so that it can continue to be the best place in the world to study the great issues of our time, the world and its regions. (I will be saying more about this in the next issue.) I am happy to say that we have made a significant advance towards that goal in the past few months. Last summer we received an extraordinary donation of £4m and, to add to our pleasure, it came with no strings attached. Moreover our generous donor was quite firm about wanting to remain anonymous. We have decided to use it for a project which will, in time, transform the College’s finances. We are going ahead with the Gateway Buildings, which will provide us with an entrance on the Woodstock Road and, equally important, much-needed student UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD College News: Major Events After that, and before lunch, the College introduced current members of the Governing Body, each of whom gave compact and fascinating insights into the world. Vivienne Shue spoke about the state of higher education 60th in China, Alex Pravda and Eugene Rogan spoke about the political dynamics of Russia and the Anniversary Gaudy Middle East respectively and Valpy Fitzgerald kicked off the session speaking about the future of Oxford. The 2-3 July 2010 was a glorious summer weekend A lazy afternoon and then a wonderful in Oxford and, by chance, the perfect one on which to anniversary dinner followed in the evening. The urgent and itinerant Antonian is too rarely hold St Antony’s 60th Anniversary Gaudy. seen in College - it was a pleasure to see so many there. More than a hundred Antonians, many from the College’s earliest days, gathered for 2 days of Ranj Majumdar enjoyable celebration, a wonderful opportunity to reminisce and appreciate the continuing academic impact and influence that St Antony’s has on the world. A charming and delicious dinner on the Friday evening was followed on the Saturday morning by an extraordinary gathering of the college's Emeritus Fellows, who all shared their reflections of earlier College days: of wardens and students, of flying hammers, erstwhile tennis courts, smoking at Governing Body and the admission of women. Alan Angell, Archie Brown, Harry Shukman and Tony Nicholls gave their respective musings on the College then and now and it turned out St Antony’s 60th Anniversary Gaudy to be the most 2-3 July 2010 charming and Photographs: Rob Judges enlightening of discussions. PAGE 3 THE ANTONIAN MICHAELMAS 2010 www.sant.ox.ac.uk College News: Major Events Prominent Visitors Two visits of particular note took place at the end of last Michaelmas Term. H.R.H Prince El Hassan bin Talal of Jordan H.R.H Prince El Hassan bin Talal of Jordan visited College for the second time on 26 November 2010. He gave a wonderfully insightful and urbane seminar on the politics of the Middle East: ‘Positive Progress or Continued Asymmetric Dialogue’. The topic was a sober one but the seminar was enormously well H.R.H Prince El Hassan bin Talal of Jordan with Dr Eugene Rogan received. Lively discussion continued at the charming dinner that evening, which the Prince attended. Liaquat Ahamed Liaquat Ahamed, Pulitzer Prize-winner and author of Lords of Finance: The Bankers who Broke the World gave a lecture in College on 2 December. An engaged audience took in every word of his absorbing analysis of the two great financial crises of the last century and indeed looked to his words for prescient predictions of the financial future. Photographs: Rob Judges Professor Margaret MacMillan with Liaquat Ahamed Foulath Hadid set up the Hadid Scholarship Fund Special Advisor and helped secure the endowed funds for the Mohammed VI Fellowship, for which he was decorated by the King of Morocco with the highest Royal honour, The Wissam Alaoui. Foulath Hadid, Honorary A graduate of Cambridge University and the Harvard Fellow of St Antony's, Business School, he is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered has been appointed Accountants in England and Wales and a former partner Special Advisor at KPMG.