NEWS AND FEATURES FROM THE BALLIOL COMMUNITY | JUNE 2018 A NEW MASTER 1 Visit from the Met Commissioner 9 Social media: a threat to democracy? 20 FAREWELL TO SIR How Balliol won University Challenge 28 DRUMMOND BONE 4 Balliol entrepreneurs 39 34 16 JUNE 2018 FROM THE MASTER 1 COLLEGE NEWS 30 New Fellows 2 A class act 4 Portrait of Professor Sir Drummond Bone 6 Deans on display 6 Awards 7 New Domestic Bursar 8 Visit from the Met Commissioner 9 New Outreach Officer 10 Admissions video 10 9 Our Oxford trip 11 Chinese visitors 12 4 Groundbreaking ceremony at the Master’s Field 13 STUDENT NEWS Horses and art in Northern Plains tribes 14 Having a blast in Bangladesh 16 Balliol climbers at BUCS 16 Photo of single atom wins national competition 17 26 Orchestra tour 17 Judo medal 17 JCR introduces CAFG officers 18 First place in an international finance competition 18 BOOKS AND RESEARCH #VoteLeave or #StrongerIn 19 Target democracy 20 Dynamics, vibration and uncertainty 22 Bookshelf 24 14 BALLIOL PAST AND PRESENT Balliol College, Oxford OX1 3BJ Nicholas Crouch reconstructed 26 www.balliol.ox.ac.uk How Balliol won University Challenge 28 Copyright © Balliol College, Oxford, 2018 The Garden Quad in Wartime 30 Tutorials remembered 32 Editor: Anne Askwith (Publications and Web Officer) Walking in the footsteps of Belloc 32 Editorial Adviser: Nicola Trott (Senior Tutor) Design and printing: Ciconi Ltd ALUMNI STORIES Front cover: Balliol’s first female Master, Dame Helen Ghosh DCB Social enterprise in Rwanda 33 (photograph by Rob Judges), who took up her position in April 2018. A Listening Pilgrimage 34 Global Balliol: Canada 36 Notes from the next revolution in housing 38 Thank you to all who have kindly written articles, agreed to be interviewed, Balliol entrepreneurs 39 provided photographs or information, or otherwise assisted in the Raising standards in literacy 42 preparation of this magazine. We are always pleased to receive feedback, and suggestions for articles: please send these to the Editor by email to [email protected] or at the address above. DEVELOPMENT NEWS 43 From the Master Dame Helen Ghosh DCB No sooner had I set foot in the Master’s study at the beginning of April than I was off to the Oxford Alumni Weekend in San Slupska Julia Francisco, and a Balliol dinner with a terrific turn-out from alumni of all ages. I was well aware that the question in their heads would be ‘Who is she?’ And that’s probably a question many of you are asking too. I love Oxford. I arrived here as a student 45 years ago and will never forget the thrill of finding myself in All Souls in the study of Professor Peter Brown, who had just published his magisterial biography of St Augustine of Hippo, reading out an essay and wondering how on earth someone like him could appear to take seriously anything I might have to say on the subject. That was my introduction to the tutorial system at its very best. I have lived here ever since. It’s where I met my historian husband Peter, since 1981 a Fellow of St Anne’s, and where The Master speaking at the Holywell Manor Festival 2018. we brought up our two children. Having been a regular commuter to somewhere That was one reason why I chose to with current and former Fellows, students else, I’ve always felt a sense of relief and come back to the University. Whether and alumni show in what affection the delight when I get back to Oxford. That’s through teaching or research, universities College is held and how strongly people not just because of its physical beauty, too are institutions which shape the world feel about its distinctive character. The but also because at its best, it represents of the future. For many young people, their recent alumni survey is a rich source of the pursuit of truth for its own sake as time at Oxford changes their lives – as it advice (see page 43). Many people have well as for the sake of changing people’s changed mine. The opportunity to play my emphasised Balliol’s proud history of lives. I am grateful for all that Oxford has part in that enterprise felt an exciting one. welcoming the very best students from given me: not just a formal education, Of all the Oxford colleges, Balliol with this country and around the world, and but a doorway into a wider world. its tradition of academic excellence, public support the College’s focus on widening Three years of research for an MLitt service and intellectual independence access at undergraduate and graduate reminded me that though I loved the seemed like a place where I could feel level. Our Career Development Fellows academic world, I wanted to apply my at home. And what an honour it would have a vital part to play in maintaining mind to more concrete problems. The be to inherit the title of Master from so and developing our teaching and research Civil Service seemed to me a place where many distinguished predecessors. Three excellence. Continuing Drummond’s drive intellectual and practical challenges could months in, I feel that honour very strongly. to put the CDF programme on a firm combine with serving the public good. In Thanks to Drummond Bone and all he financial footing will be a priority for me; 33 years in Whitehall there were many achieved as Master, the College is thriving. the successful completion of the Master’s highlights, whether working with local The people we celebrate from our Field building project will be another. communities in East London or very closely history – Jowett, Lindsay, or Dervorguilla Most of all, I believe the role of the with ministers as a Permanent Secretary. herself – are those who have planned for Master is to ensure that the College is a The chance then to lead Europe’s largest the future while still valuing the past. I see happy and stimulating community in which conservation charity was an opportunity I my challenge as the new Master as being students, academics and non-academic staff couldn’t resist. The National Trust combined to maintain and celebrate what makes can thrive – and of which alumni still feel my interests in history, the environment us special, but with a clear eye on how they are an important part. I look forward and public service. As a historian, I was we can meet the world ahead of us. to meeting you and welcoming you back also conscious of the role of big non- For the time being, the most important to Balliol, as warmly as the College has governmental organisations in changing thing is for me to listen to what other welcomed me. society, alongside or ahead of governments. people think. The conversations I have had FLOREAT DOMUS JUNE 2018 1 New Fellows Mark Baker literature, and in the study of minorities at Newcastle in the Golden Age. Her doctoral thesis University and then Mark joins Balliol and subsequent monograph explore moved to History Rob Judges as Supernumerary the influence of Masuccio Salernitano’s Il and to Oxford (St Fellow and Career Novellino on early modern Spanish writers Hugh’s and The Development such as Lope de Vega and Calderón de la Queen’s Colleges) Fellow in Modern Barca, and she has published papers on for her MSt and Global History. the circulation of Sansovino’s anthology DPhil, and a JRF. He is currently of novellas in Golden Age Spain. Other Helen is an completing his PhD research has focused on the representation historian of the at Yale University, of women in Golden Age literature, in early Middle Ages, where he is a particular the concept of mujer ventanera with a particular focus on Anglo-Saxon Dissertation Prize (women-at-the-window), and on the image England. Her interests lie in social, cultural Fellow at the Council on East Asian Studies. of black slaves in Golden Age literature. and religious history, and she is a leading Prior to this, at Oxford, he completed his Her current work explores the slaves’ expert in the history of medieval liturgy. BA in Modern History at Oriel College, poetry written in Spanish. Her monograph Liturgy, Architecture and and his MPhil in Modern Chinese Studies Sacred Places in Anglo-Saxon England (2013) at St Antony’s College. He also spent Calliope Dendrou draws on archaeological and architectural a year as a Visiting Research Scholar at evidence to explore the importance of Zhengzhou University in China. Calliope is ritual to people’s religious lives in this Mark is a historian of modern China, Supernumerary period. Helen is currently writing a book, with interests in urban history, rural- Fellow and Rob Judges English in the Liturgy before the Reformation, urban relations, comparative imperial/ Research Fellow which explores the use of the vernacular in colonial history, and the history of in the Sciences medieval church services. war. His doctoral thesis, which will be (Medical Sciences) the basis of a book, explores spatial at Balliol, whilst Claire Jarvis change at the urban edge of the cities continuing to hold of Kaifeng and Zhengzhou between the position of Sir Claire, an Assistant 1900 and 1960, examining rural-urban Henry Dale Fellow Professor of connections (and disconnections) during and Group Leader English at Stanford this tumultuous period. His future projects at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human University, include an exploration of the competing Genetics in the Nuffield Department of California, interpretations of the life and thought of Medicine.