University College Record December 2017
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University College Record December 2017 a Professor Glen Dudbridge (2 July 1938 – 5 February 2017) Shaw Professor of Chinese and Fellow of University College from 1989-2005. University College Record December 2017 The Record Volume XVII Number 4 December 2017 Contents Editor’s Notes 1 Master’s Notes 2 Fellows and Staff 5 The Governing Body 6 Honorary Fellows 11 Foundation Fellows 12 Newly Elected Fellows 12 Fellows’ News 14 Leaving Fellows and Staff 19 Academic Results, Awards and Achievements 21 Academic Results and Distinctions 22 University Prizes and Other Awards 26 Scholarships & Exhibitions 29 Travel Scholarships 32 2016-17 in Review 33 From the Chaplain 34 From the Librarian 36 From the Director of Music 39 From the Development Director 41 The Chalet 48 Junior Common Room 49 Weir Common Room 50 Obituaries 51 Emeritus Fellows 52 Honorary Fellows 54 Former Lecturers and Chaplain 55 Old Members 56 Univ Lost List 94 Univ Lost List 96 Univ Benefactors 2016-17 107 The 1249 Society 108 Major Benefactors 113 Principal Benefactors 115 The William of Durham Club 116 Roll of Donors 119 College Information 148 Calendar for Degree Ceremonies 150 College Contact Details 151 iv Editor’s Notes In many ways, this has been a vintage year for Univ. All our finalists achieved a 2.1 or above, plans are in place for a new site in north Oxford, and we welcomed the first group of students supported by our Opportunity Programme. And to top it all, Oxford was named the best university in the world for a second year running (Times Higher Education World University Rankings). However, the last 12 months has also seen the loss of an unprecedented number of Old Members, friends and colleagues, including the former Shaw Professor of Chinese and Univ Fellow, Professor Glen Dudbridge. Professor Dudbridge was at Univ for more than 15 years and played an important role in the lives of countless students and staff. He will be greatly missed. Dr Tao Tao Liu and Professor Barend ter Haar remember the hard-working, conscientious man who loved to play the piano (page 52). My thanks go to Dr Liu and Professor ter Haar and to all the friends and families who took the time to write tributes and to share their memories for the Obituary section of the Record. Near the back of the Record you will find a full list of everyone who has made a gift to Univ this year. We hope that this permanent record of the remarkable generosity of our Old Members will go some way to showing our gratitude for their support. My thanks of course go to all those who contributed an update for the Review section of the Record and to all those members of staff without whom this publication could not have been produced, in particular Robin Darwall-Smith (1982, Classics) who collated the Obituaries section. I am indebted also to Ian Boutle, Sally Stubbs and Cameron Ott in the Academic Office, and to Louise Wright, for their help with the Fellows listings and academic results. And finally, a big thank you to our designer, Rob Moss. If you have any comments about this issue, or news or tributes that you would like to share with the Univ community, please do get in touch. Martin Cornish, Communications Officer [email protected] 1 Master’s Notes Peter Strawson, our eminent post-war Fellow in Philosophy, once remarked that Univ was excessive only in its moderation. The College doesn’t go in for self-congratulation, let alone showing off. But the College had more than one cause for quiet satisfaction over the year. It was ranked 8th in the Norrington Table, a small slippage from its 4th place in 2016, even though its overall score was a fraction higher than last year. This was the second successive year in which the College was placed in the top ten of the Table, after a disappointing run in the bottom ten in the previous three years. Univ finalists were awarded 37 Firsts, a number only once bettered (last year) and, for the first time in its history, not a single finalist was awarded a Lower Second, Third or Pass degree. It is greatly to the credit not only of our students, but of their tutors, that every one of our Finalists achieved a First or Upper second. The College’s new Opportunity Programme swung into operation during the year. We set aside up to ten additional undergraduate places for applicants from markedly disadvantaged backgrounds and were pleased to feel confident enough to make ten offers – subject to the University’s standard A-level grades prerequisite – in January. The College received many more strong candidates than usual flagged by the University as disadvantaged, the result perhaps of the publicity that the announcement of the Programme had attracted in the national media and among schools the previous summer. In August we confirmed the places of eight of the ten, who had not only met but in almost every case surpassed the A level grades required, and in September we brought them to College for an intensive four-week course in study skills before the start of the academic year. We have every reason to believe that they will thrive at Univ. The College’s initiative to expand opportunities for graduates by building up its stock of permanently endowed scholarships progressed well. Endowed capital for fully- funded graduate scholarships (which cover living costs as well as tuition fees) has steadily accumulated in the past five years as a result of generous benefactions from Old Members, the University’s matched funding scheme, and partnerships with the Rhodes Trust, the China Scholarship Council, the Rothermere American Institute and a number of University Departments. The College has increased the number of scholarships it can offer each year from seven to 35, and expects a further increase in 2018. This year, for the first time, over a hundred graduates at Univ had scholarships provided by the College, either exclusively or jointly with the University and only four new doctoral students were reliant on private funds. The happy outcome of being able to support more graduates than any other mixed college is that the quality of candidates for graduate places is now outstanding and the proportion who accept an offer of a place has risen quite sharply. As a result, we admitted significantly more than planned in October but managed to meet our pledge to house 2 all the newcomers in College accommodation. A repeat would present the College with problems next year, but these are the problems of success. The College continued to extend its presence in north Oxford in anticipation of the growing dependence of graduates and early-career Fellows on the College for accommodation, and the likelihood that property prices will go on rising for some years to come. We undertook an extensive refit of the former convent at Harberton Mead in Headington, near the John Radcliffe Hospital, in time for twenty students to take up residence in Michaelmas Term. A handsome building with an extensive garden, set in a quiet wooded area, Harberton Mead will be ideal for graduates with research placements in Oxford’s hospitals or the labs in South Parks Road, all within a ten minute bike ride. The College also acquired two properties at 98 and 100 Woodstock Road, with gardens abutting its Staverton Road site, which it intends to earmark for small research groups. For much of 2017 the College has been giving careful and systematic thought to the development of its newly expanded north Oxford site. A working party of Fellows, professional advisers and Old Members has produced an outline of the accommodation and social and educational facilities we envisage building for a mixed community of about 250 undergraduates, graduates and academics, and it has embarked on a search for an architectural practice to draw up a masterplan. The College expects to announce its choice of architects early in the New Year. Old Members have offered wise advice on the development of the north Oxford site, as on many other aspects of the College’s future. This was notably so at the weekend retreat held at Ditchley Park in October 2016 for some of our leading supporters, where the College set out its long-term plans for the consolidation of its tutorial provision, for financial support for students and for the Opportunity Programme as well as for its expansion into north Oxford. At the many gatherings in the course of the year I have again been struck by the engagement and goodwill of our Old Members towards the College. I enjoyed warm welcomes on visits to New York and Washington DC in the autumn, to Hong Kong, Beijing, Singapore, San Francisco and New York (again) in the spring, and to Prague in June, where a rooftop dinner for our central European alumni in sight of the floodlit castle will linger long in the memory. It was the perfect setting to announce the endowment of a scholarship by Dr Pavel Klein (1974, Psychology, Philosophy and Physiology) for an undergraduate from the Czech Republic. The high participation of Old Members at gaudies, the Annual Seminar, the Univ Society Dinner, Univ in the City, and local meetings in Birmingham and Cambridge has been matched by the response to the Annual Appeal. It topped £1.1m for the third successive year and once again a third of all our Old Members made a gift. No other Oxford college commands as much support, year after year. Univ is fortunate and privileged to have such a loyal community of former students.