The Record 2010 (Pdf)

Keble College Keble The Record 2010 The Record 2010 The Record 2010 Dame Professor Averil Cameron, Warden (1994–2010) Portrait by Bob Tulloch The Record 2010 Contents The Life of the College Letter from the Warden 5 College’s Farewell to the Warden 10 Sir David Williams 13 Mr Stephen De Rocfort Wall 15 Fellows’ Work in Progress 15 Fellows’ Publications 21 Sports and Games 25 Clubs and Societies 32 The Chapel 34 Financial Review 38 The College at Large Old Members at Work 42 Keble Parishes Update 48 Year Groups 49 Gifts and Bequests 51 Obituaries 63 The Keble Association 87 The London Dinner 88 Keble College 2009–10 The Fellowship 90 Fellowship Elections and Appointments 96 Recognition of Distinction 97 JCR & MCR Elections 97 Undergraduate Scholarships 97 Matriculation 2009–10 99 College Awards and Prizes 104 Academic Distinctions 109 Supplement News of Old Members 2 Forthcoming events: 2010–11 12 Keble College: The Record 2010 4 The Life of the College Letter from the Warden This is my sixteenth and last Letter as Warden, and obviously I write with many kinds of mixed feelings. Having had to move out of the Lodgings at the beginning instead of the end of the summer vacation, in order to allow time for necessary work to be done, I feel as if I am having an unusually prolonged retirement process, but the moment will come when the clock strikes midnight on 30 September and I cease to be Warden and Sir Jonathan Phillips takes over. The past sixteen years have been an extraordinarily rich experience, and I suspect that no one except another head of house really knows the full range of what is entailed. It is of course emphatically not a managerial role—and yet it is always the Warden to whom difficult issues come. Internally and to the outside world, in large matters and in small, the Warden represents the College. I have an exciting academic programme ahead to look forward to, including travel in the next academic year to the USA, Greece and Germany, but it will be strange not to have that daily responsibility and privilege, and strange also not to have direct contact with so many people I have grown to know so well. The academic year began with the election, a year ahead, of my successor, a process in which by tradition the incumbent has no part. In fact I spent Michaelmas Term 2009 on research leave, and was able to visit Syria for the second time and to see more of the east, from Palmyra to Dura Europos and north along the Euphrates to Zenobia and Resafa, then to Aleppo and north again to Cyrrhus, all of which is bearing fruit for the book I am currently finishing. I was also able to lecture in Italy, at Pisa and Perugia, and I am very grateful for the opportunity, as I am to Ian Archer, the Sub-Warden, and during my absence the Acting Warden, who also presided with great care and punctiliousness over the Wardenship election. Being on leave in Michaelmas Term meant however that for the first time I missed seeing in the fresher undergraduates and graduates, and greeting new research fellows, a task which this year fell to the Acting Warden and the Senior Tutor. I was back in time for the Founders’ and Benefactors’ Feast in early December and for the various Christmas events, including the Advent carol service, the staff Christmas lunch served by the fellows and the traditional staff party in the Lodgings before the College closed for Christmas. During the academic year Professor Wade Allison was elected to an Emeritus Fellowship. Robin Geffen (1976, and vice- Robin Geffen chair of the Campaign Board) was elected to an Honorary 5 Keble College: The Record 2010 Fellowship in recognition not only of his generosity but also of his sustained commitment to and engagement with the College. He also becomes a member of the Chancellor’s Court of Benefactors. Professor Terence Irwin was elected to a Fellowship of the British Academy, and at the end of Trinity Term Professor Geoffrey Hill (1949), distinguished poet, critic and Honorary Fellow, was trebly honoured, receiving honorary degrees from both Oxford and Cambridge in the same week and roundly defeating other contenders in the election to the Professorship of Poetry, a post in which he follows John Keble. Terence Irwin Geoffrey Hill He ended the memorable week during which both degrees were conferred by delivering an unforgettable lecture to Old Members of his own generation attending the Keble Reunion. Planning permission has now been received for our ambitious Acland development, and this has been a year of intensive work by the Alumni and Development Office, led by Jenny Tudge (1986), with our Campaign Board, in preparation for the major fundraising that is needed. I was prevented by the volcanic ash from going to New York in April for the Oxford North American Reunion (though Jenny got there and ably stood in), but both of us went to Hong Kong and Beijing in May, and Jenny to Singapore as well. We said goodbye in December and again at the Summer Dinner in July to Isla Smith, who was our highly popular and successful Alumni Officer and Development Director during a period when the College’s relations with Old Members and its fundraising have been put on an entirely new footing, not least through the success of the Talbot Fund. Isla has presided over the fundraising for many initiatives, from the Library chairs project to the telethons and the new pipe organ, and she is much missed. I have mentioned in previous Letters the increased internationalism and also the increased mobility among academics in Oxford including Keble. Our growing number of post-doctoral research fellows helps us to cover our tutorial teaching as well as bringing new ideas and diversity to the College. Sadly some of them are moving on: Dr Iain Morley in Archaeology, Dr Sarah Apetrei and Robert Matava in Theology and Alex da Costa in English, but we are welcoming Dr Christopher Hays as a British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellow in Theology and Dr Lambros Malafouris in Archaeology, whose academic range will greatly enhance the research cluster in Creativity. We also expect to welcome career development fellows from the University of Singapore, building on the Christopher Hays Lambros research collaborations of our fellows. This pattern reflects Malafouris changes in academic life as a whole, and the College’s role in 6 The Life of the College supporting these early-career academics is one on which both Keble and the University as a whole lay great stress. 2010 sees the retirement of Professor Sir Mike Brady, Professor of Information Engineering and Professorial Fellow. He is an academic star, and though he is constantly in demand and constantly travelling, he will leave a large gap at Keble, where he has fostered the field of biomedical engineering and supervised many fine graduate students. Those who have heard him lecture on his various fields of expertise—digital imaging, including mammography and colon cancer imaging, and robotics (a return to his earlier interests)—will not forget the experience. Mike also pioneered interdisciplinary collaboration between arts and science by working with my friend and colleague, Alan Bowman, Camden Professor of Ancient History, to apply this technology to the decipherment of ancient documents. Another leaver this year is the Chaplain, the Revd Allen Shin, whose five-year appointment came to an end this summer. He and his wife Clara will be based at Huntington, Long Island, USA, where Allen is taking up the post of Rector of St John’s Episcopal Church. During Allen’s chaplaincy the Chapel has become the centre of a strong worshipping life, with wonderful music and liturgy and a steady stream of vocations among the students attending. The College parishes have also been nurtured and Allen’s careful and thoughtful attention to all parts of the College community will be greatly missed. He has been replaced from 1 September by the Revd Jenn Strawbridge, Keble’s first woman chaplain, who is also working on a D.Phil. in New Testament. Jenn knows Keble well already. She did her master’s degree at the College before returning to the US for ordination and subsequent service in large parishes in Connecticut and Virginia, and she has been Assistant Chaplain at Keble during the past year. I would also like to pay tribute Jenn here to the Revd Canon Charlotte Methuen, who has been Strawbridge attached to Keble while teaching in the Faculty of Theology and latterly held a lecturership at Cuddesdon. Charlotte served as Assistant Chaplain during 2008–9, and has made a strong contribution to the Chapel and as College Advisor to graduate students in Theology; she is also very active in wider church life. She will take up a post in 2011 in ecclesiastical history at the University of Glasgow. I feel I have been fortunate indeed in my time as Warden to have known such a strong Chapel life, and I was touched indeed when a Saturday colloquium was organized last term in my honour at Keble on ‘Women in the Church’, 7 Keble College: The Record 2010 with contributions from Keble people and from leading women theologians and ecclesiastical historians in Oxford. Last term was also marked for me by a series of four lectures in honour of my retirement given by distinguished colleagues, on the theme of ‘Religion in Byzantium’, with a concluding lecture by myself. Both these events were entirely unexpected as far as I was concerned, and the pleasure was all the greater for that.

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