University College Record October 2018
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University College Record October 2018 a ©Philip Mynott Professor Stephen Hawking (8 January 1942 – 14 March 2018) Honorary Fellow and Old Member of this College (matric. 1959) University College Record October 2018 The Record Volume XVIII Number 1 October 2018 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 24 Academic Results and Distinctions 26 University Prizes and Other Awards 30 Scholarships and Exhibitions 33 Travel Scholarships 38 2017-18 in Review 39 From the Chaplain 40 From the Librarian 43 From the Director of Music 45 From the Development Director 48 The Chalet 54 Junior Common Room 55 Weir Common Room 56 Obituaries 57 Honorary Fellows 58 Fellows and Visiting Fellows 64 Old Members 65 Univ Lost List 94 Univ Lost List 96 Univ Benefactors 2017-18 105 The 1249 Society 106 Major Benefactors 110 Principal Benefactors 112 The William of Durham Club 113 Roll of Donors 116 College Information 142 Degree Ceremonies 144 College Contact Details 145 iv Editor’s Notes Inside this issue of the University College Record, you will find a factual account of the year – Fellows’ news, academic results, College reports and news of departing Fellows and staff. We were deeply saddened to report the deaths of three of our Honorary Fellows this year: Professor Stephen Hawking (1959, Physics), Sir Maurice Shock – Univ’s Politics Fellow from 1956-77, and Estates Bursar from 1958-73, and Sir V S Naipaul (1950, English). Our thoughts are with their families, friends and colleagues. Tributes to members of the Univ community that we have sadly lost in the last twelve months are included in this edition. My sincere thanks to the families and friends of those mentioned herein, for sharing their personal tributes and reminiscences of their loved ones. It is awe-inspiring to read about the incredible vocations and causes to which many of our Old Members have devoted their lives. I would like to thank all those who contributed to this edition, in particular: Dr Robin Darwall-Smith for his diligence in compiling the obituaries, and for his continued support and advice; Dr Ian Boutle, Cameron Ott, Sally Stubbs, Karen Franklin and Louise Wright, for their assistance in compiling the Fellows’ listings, academic results and details of travel scholarships; Rob Moss for compiling our Roll of Donors, and for designing the Record with his usual flair; and finally to my colleagues Justin Bowyer, Ariane Laurent-Smith and Frances Lawrence for their proof-reading assistance. If you have any comments about this issue, please do get in touch. Sara Dewsbery, Communications Officer [email protected] 1 Master’s Notes After two years of comfortably nesting in the top ten of the Norrington Table, Univ slipped to a middling 17th in 2018. The number of Firsts awarded was a commendable 36, almost matching last year’s 37, and the fourth highest number in the College’s history, but unlike 2017 a small number of students gained Lower Seconds and Thirds, which pulled us down the rankings. Star billing goes to the twelve historians, of whom nine gained Firsts – a remarkable feat for Finalists and their tutors alike. Academic prizes were not limited to our Finalists. A number of our Fellows won national recognition for their academic distinction over the year. Ngaire Woods and Sarah Harper were each awarded a CBE in the Honours Lists both for the eminence of their research and for their sustained contributions to public policy in, respectively, the fields of global governance and population. The Royal Society selected Tamsin Mather, a leading volcanologist, for the 2018 Rosalind Franklin Award and Lecture on the basis of her research and outstanding ability to communicate it to a wider public. Paula Koelemeijer, also a volcanologist, and a junior research fellow, was awarded the Doombos Memorial Prize for her pioneering work on the Earth’s deep interior. Barry Potter won the 2018 Tu Youyou Award for the advances of his research in the fields of medicinal chemistry and chemical biology and Laura Herz received the Nevill Mott Medal and Prize from the Institute of Physics for her ground-breaking work on the fundamental mechanisms underpinning light harvesting, energy conservation and charge conduction in semiconducting materials. Three of the award winners – Sarah Harper, Laura Herz and Barry Potter – are Supernumerary (non-teaching) Fellows elected by the College under a scheme launched seven years ago to strengthen the links between the College and the most dynamic branches of the University’s research community. A growing number of senior researchers in the University, many with global reputations, are funded by international research programmes and attached to a University department but have no college association, and therefore little or no contact with undergraduates. Many work in the medical and biological sciences, fields in which Oxford has expanded at an astonishing pace in the past two decades and is widely recognised as the world’s pre-eminent centre of excellence. The College appoints two supernumerary fellows a year, by open competition across all disciplines, from the unaffiliated senior research community in Oxford. All of those elected are not only highly distinguished academics but have made a valuable and varied contribution to the College’s intellectual and social life, from which students and Fellows alike have benefited. The scheme will continue for some years to come. The year marked a significant expansion of the College’s Fellowship as a result of major benefactions, with supplementary support from the University. A generous gift from Pavel and Ivana Tykac of Prague endowed a Fellowship in their name in Czech 2 Language and Literature. This will ensure that Czech studies continue to feature in the University’s modern languages curriculum and that Univ – which has taught Russian since 1964 – consolidates its position as a leading college for Slavonic studies by offering a second Slavonic language. In partnership with the Rothermere American Institute the College jointly endowed the Edward Orsborn Chair in US History and Politics, tenable at the College, as a result of major benefactions to both institutions. The holder of the Chair will combine teaching undergraduates with directing the Institute, and, as our fourth Fellow in History, reinforce Univ’s strength in the subject. The College also secured the permanent endowment of a second tutorial fellowship in computer science, relieving Dr Andrew Ker of the burden of being our sole tutorial fellow in the subject. In this case Mr Raymond Ting of Hong Kong has provided the critical funding; he has also given significant financial backing to a new research centre at Univ – the University College Oxford Blockchain Research Centre, directed by Professor Bill Roscoe. Blockchain is a rapidly developing technology, with many commercial and practical applications; the College’s research centre will focus particularly on ethical and environmental applications and will initially be housed close to the College’s north Oxford site. After some years of expansion and modernisation on the main site, the concrete mixers fell silent and scaffolding disappeared. It has been a quiet period for building projects, but not without activity. The old Law Library on Logic Lane was converted into the new JCR which, being on the ground floor, is for the first time accessible to wheelchair users. Although slightly smaller than its predecessor above the Senior Common Room, it has proved more popular. It spills out onto the Goodhart Lawn, which is being re- designed with railings (for security) along Logic Lane but with more open access from the renovated Goodhart Building, the Durham Buildings and the houses on 83 to 85 High Street. Building works and an exceptionally hot summer has scraped and parched the grass but it will be landscaped in time for much fuller use and enjoyment next year. There are plans in the coming year to create a new and tranquil space in the south east corner of the College, by merging the small gardens behind Nos 9 and 10 Merton Street, but this depends on our persuading the Oxford planning office to let us take down the old but unremarkable wall that currently divides them. The College has quietly and efficiently busied itself in its preparations for the development of its expanded north Oxford site – potentially Univ’s most ambitious construction project since the building of the main quad, chapel and hall in the mid seventeenth century. It is a baptism of fire for our new Finance Bursar, Andrew Grant, but fortunately one that, with over thirty years’ experience in financial and project management for BP, he is ideally equipped to deliver. The competition for the appointment of an architect for our expanded site was won by Niall McLaughlin Architects Ltd, whose buildings in both Oxford and Cambridge have earned critical acclaim, most notably and recently the Sultan Nazrin Shah Centre, in Worcester College. Their concept – a series of low rise student residences, academic and research rooms, and social facilities, enclosing garden courts, that echo the quads of the historic main High Street site – appears to fit well with a style appropriate for the late Victorian north Oxford setting. There has been and will continue to be much testing and iterating of these ideas over the coming year, along with work to capture the detailed costings, financing and seeking of permissions to enable us to move forward with confidence. 3 The first cohort of eight undergraduates admitted through the College’s Opportunity Programme completed their year successfully. They filled additional undergraduate places reserved for those from markedly disadvantaged backgrounds who met the University’s exacting standards of admission; the Programme requires them to attend an intensive College residential course in study skills as preparation for transition from school to Oxford.