RevieClare Hwall Cambridge Annual Review 2014 Clare Hall Annual Review 2014 2 Contents President’s Letter 2 Bursar’s Notes 4 From the Senior Tutor 5 President’ s From the Development Director 7 List of Donors 8 A few weeks later, visiting the US, one of our New Research Fellows 10 transatlantic Life Members said that being at Clare Hall was like waking up and thinking Student News 11 you had gone to heaven. Visiting the Institute GSB Committee 12 for Advanced Study at Princeton to see what Family Activities 13 we might learn from them, I began to wonder whether it was not really the other way Sports News 14 round. Is there anywhere else in the world Rowing News 15 where there is such a mix of scholars across u all disciplines, of all ages, and from all over the The Year in Music 16 a e d o world, and with absolutely no hierarchy? l i B A Year of Art 18 s i Not yet, I think – but it is very gratifying to n e D be visited by occasional delegations from Literary Talks 22 : o t o h overseas universities who hope to set up Colloquium 23 P such a community and want our advice on Ashby Lecture 24 The President, David Ibbetson how to do it. Tanner Lectures 25 A few years ago, in the holiday column of one As Michaelmas Term started, I began to find Pro file: Helen Pennant 26 of our more respectable national newspapers, out what collegiate life at Clare Hall entailed. Pro file: Andrew Blake 27 there was a recommendation to visit As well as the day-to-day administration, Cambridge in August, when the students were which is essential and which is done here Pro file: Wai Yi Feng 28 away and the city could be appreciated with a tiny staff compared to most other Pro file: Amir Amel-Zadeh 29 properly by those taking a holiday. So, as I colleges, there was the wonderful music, the Pro file: Tony Street 30 parked my car for the first time in the Clare art exhibitions, the Tuesday night colloquia, Hall car park in the morning of 1 August the literary groups, the Tanner and Ashby Pro file: Elena Vecino 31 2013 I did not expect to be moving into a Lectures, and a host of informal gatherings, Miroslav Dosen 32 college that was anything but dead, exactly not to mention the Wednesday night dinners the same as the college where I had been a Jon Yewell 32 with their unpredictably wide-ranging Fellow the day before. How wrong I was. conversations. Elsie Eden 33 On my first day as President I came to realise Moira Gardiner 34 what a different place Clare Hall was as I met I had been fairly well prepared by Martin different members of the college community: Harris to take over from him, but even he Elizabeth Ramsden 35 staff, students, Fellows, Visiting Fellows, had not prepared me for all the really good In Memoriam: Michael Stoker 36 Life Members. And everybody was talking things – the really valuable things, the really News of Members 38 to everybody else, before going back to fun things – that the college was doing. their post-lunch work. What he had told me, very truly, was how Cover: Tony Rothon, ‘Summer Trees’, Audley End Edited by: Trudi Tate Produced by Cameron Design & Marketing Ltd Clare Hall Annual Review 2014 3 Letter utterly dependent I would be on the college officers of that vision. Unless we are forced by external and the college staff, under the watchful eye of pressures to do otherwise, and we have no reason Domestic Bursar Cherie Evans, without whose help to believe that we will be, we will retain a small and and guidance I would have been lost. I am also most elite body of students from around the world, a grateful to Joanna Womack, who has returned to fellowship cutting across all disciplines, and a Clare Hall as Acting Bursar after Moira Gardner’s programme of Visiting Fellowships which is second retirement on 31st March – a seperate tribute to to none. The only point of expansion, we expect, her appears elsewhere in this Review . Liz Ramsden will be in post-doctoral members, a group which has been another valuable guide, who we were very hardly existed in 1966 but which now constitutes pleased to honour with a President’s Award on the largest group of researchers in the university 11 June for her sterling service over 25 years. without any college attachment. Liz recently took partial retirement, but is still busy in college, looking after accommodation. As a newcomer to the college, I have been Her role as College Secretary has been taken astonished just how much is done with so little over very capably by Amanda Barclay. capital funding behind us, and know just how much more we could do with even a small amount of extra recurrent income. If I dared dream, I would look to a major increase in our endowment which would enable us to leverage funds from elsewhere. This would allow us to offer support to first-rate graduate students who could not otherwise get funding, as well as making our collegiate future secure for the next half century. Nearly half a century after our foundation, the far-sighted vision of Lord Ashby, Richard Eden, Brian Pippard, and other members of Clare College who midwifed us into existence has come to represent the way Clare Hall Members came from far and wide to celebrate forward for the university as it consolidates its Pat Jakes’ 75th birthday in November 2013. Left to right: position as one of the really great research Liz Ramsden, Pat Jakes, Gillian Beer and John Beer. universities in the world. It is a matter of real pride for me and for all of us that we are members of a As we move towards our fiftieth anniversary in college which should play such a central part in the 2016, we have to look forward as well as back. university of the future. Our founding fathers in 1966 had a vision for the collegiate institution they were creating, and the David Ibbetson Governing Body is committed to the continuance President Clare Hall Cambridge Clare Hall Annual Review 2014 4 Bursar’s Notes which was marked by receipt of the I am writing this at the beginning of July, President's Award at a Formal Dinner in when the figures for the financial year June, but it is lovely to know that she is ended 30 June 2014 are not yet available. still here, on a part-time basis, helping to On the basis of management accounts find the right accommodation for all our forecasts we are expecting a small Visiting Fellows. Cherie Evans, our operating surplus, but this will turn into a Domestic Bursar, has now stepped up to significant deficit once Depreciation has a full-time role as Head of Operations. been taken into account. This is the same It is clear to me that the college is picture as we have seen for many years, benefitting from her oversight of the and explains why Clare Hall has such a minutiae as well as her increasing struggle to find money for capital projects involvement in strategic thinking and and major repairs. We run a pretty tight planning. She is supported by an excellent ship, but with our new President and team of experienced Heads Development Director firmly in place, of Department. I sense a real determination to find ways to generate additional income. I look Finances remain in the capable hands forward to hearing about this further of Martin Aldridge, who is somehow after I retire yet again. managing to move the college on to a new financial system whilst continuing to The full set of accounts for 2013-2014 do his day job. There have been many will be put up on the college’s website as When I stepped down at the end of am again, standing in as Acting Bursar at changes and updates in the I.T. systems soon as they are complete and audited. September 2013 from the role of Interim Clare Hall, notionally on two days a week, and provision, for which we have to thank Bursar at Murray Edwards College, but as you can perhaps imagine, I am not Adrian Powell-Owens. You may notice Joanna Womack I thought that three retirements was very good at ‘part-time’ either! some changes in the catering provision, Acting Bursar probably more than enough for anyone. with a change of supplier following a It turned out that I am just not very good at It is great to be back and to see so many review earlier this year. We thank retiring. When Moira Gardiner unfortunately old friends still in post, beavering away to Baxterstorey for their service to the had to take early retirement on grounds of keep things working smoothly and college over a ten-year period and we ill-health earlier this year I allowed myself to efficiently. Liz Ramsden has retired from look forward to our new relationship be persuaded back into harness. So here I the job of College Secretary, a change with Lexington. Clare Hall Cambridge Clare Hall Annual Review 2014 5 From the Senior Tutor who gain a blue or half-blue during their the Development Office we have been able time with us. Eight such awards have been to raise matching funding for three such made in 2014: to Pei-Shan Hsieh and Alice bursaries for 2014-15.