1967 2013 1968 1969 1970 1971 1972 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 Y E A 5 0 R S D O L 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992F R O C The University of York Alumni Magazine of The University H W A 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 N E G H I T N G 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 www.YorkSpace.net/grapevineonline Contents Anniversary The way we wore Celebration Weekend 6 10 The hallmark of Secrets of the deep a modern research scientist 12 22 The people behind YorkSpace the research – Anniversary Special 28 39 Origami campus Have Note to my wildfowl something younger self to add? BE paRT OF IT! Send in your submission. www.yorkspace.net/ 42 44 younger-self. Contact us: Picture credits: For individual team contact details visit www. YorkSpace.net/contact/staff. • DFID – UK Department for To keep in touch with us and to receive details of future alumni events, International Development please remember to keep us up to date with your contact details. • Suzy Harrison • Jon Houlihan You can do this via our online form (www. YorkSpace.net) or email ([email protected]). • Ian Martindale University of York Alumni Association, Alumni House, University of York, • Vicky Matthers, Iconphotomedia 5 Main Street, Heslington, York, UK YO10 5DD • Tim Ngwena • Sarah Phillips grapevine is produced by the University of York Development and Editors: Tim Ngwena and Sarah Phillips. Writer: Patricia Nicol. Alumni Relations Office, with the support of the Communications and Infographic: Tim Ngwena.com. Design: Ball Design Consultancy. Press Office. The views represented in this publication do not necessarily This document is 100% recyclable. Printed by Sterling reflect those of the editorial team, York alumni or the University of York. (sterlingsolutions. co. uk), an ISO 14001 certified company, using All information was correct at the time of print. All rights reserved. 100% vegetable-based inks. Each copy costs approximately 70p. Welcome to grapevine his year not only marks the 50th anniversary of the University but also the T35th anniversary of our alumni publication. First as Gazebo and later as grapevine, it has been the constant mission of the magazine to deliver news from across the York community – from the latest groundbreaking research to your personal stories. This special anniversary issue will be no different. But some things have changed over the last thirty years. Thirty-five years ago, would people have dared imagine that grapevine would be read in over 140 countries by more than 90,000 alumni and friends? Aware of the competition for your attention, we try to be innovative in how we deliver our news. We now speak to you through an array of publications and digital platforms, as well as at our diverse programme of events. Above all, we strive to remain oral history project. Our fashion We also pay tribute to Professor relevant and accessible to all of our piece, The Way We Wore on page 10, Brian Cantor, York’s Vice-Chancellor alumni and friends – wherever and includes some of the photos you’ve in the special anniversary whatever you are doing. shared with us. supplement, which includes a We know that you have many Chef and environmental copy of the Vice-Chancellor’s demands on your time, but we hope campaigner Hugh Fearnley recent address at the launch of that grapevine and York will always Whittingstall has created a very our anniversary celebrations. hold a special place for you. So, if special anniversary recipe for us So here it is. I hope you enjoy it, you haven’t already done so, join all to enjoy – based on sustainable but most of all I hope it spurs you on YorkSpace.net, our alumni portal; ingredients of course. Hugh’s a to get involved and to get in touch. take part in our programme of global colleague of York through Professor Every day, in far reaches of the world, events; and take that call from one Callum Roberts whose world-class in your workplaces and beyond, you to Welcome of our students when they ring as part research into marine conservation are ambassadors of York, and you play of the annual telethon. In 2013, such is featured on page 22. your part in spreading the word about a special anniversary year, we are Baroness Haleh Afshar, alumna and your excellent institution. So here’s to asking more people than ever before Professor of Political Science at York, you, alumni and friends of York! Have to be part of our celebrations – please provides a very special anniversary a wonderful and prosperous 2013! grapevine do get involved in our campaign. message – especially fitting, as it We have an extraordinary year was Haleh who wrote an 'Alternative lined up for you – much of which is Grapevine' for the 25th Anniversary. previewed in grapevine and also on Ever wondered what makes a Mary Haworth YorkSpace.net, where you will find leading academic tick? Well find an anniversary timeline, a pictorial out in our series of profiles on Director, Development history of the University, and our some of York’s leading scholars. and Alumni Relations Office 3 Guest welcome minimum number of members to be able to form a society, I joined but, sadly, to this day I have not found out what tiddlywinks is! I was much more serious about the informal, unorganised Jazz Club that gathered around the amazing Mike Simmons (English Literature, Langwith, 1966). With the appropriate long hair and flowing beard of a spiritual leader, Mike arrived in York with armfuls of the most fantastic jazz records. We used to gather in the badly lit, creaky and bare upstairs room in the Black Swan every Wednesday around the record player dancing smoking drinking to the latest Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, John Coltrane, Sonny Rollins and a raft of others. What was memorable about the early days was the huge fun; there were seminars that were sometimes conducted in pubs or aroness Haleh Afshar, developed a vibrant camaraderie in a member of staff’s sitting room. (Politics, Derwent, among all of us and in due course Lounging around in a fog of smoke 1967) remembers her a few of us ended up marrying we languidly considered deep Bintroduction to York 50 some of them! philosophical ideas and talked late Thanks to the wonderful into the night. Perhaps the verve years ago, as the University Professor Graeme Moodie we were and enthusiasm that participatory celebrates its 50th anniversary. invited to be part of the University’s learning generates that pervaded decision-making process. the teachers and the taught meant I arrived in York on crutches, after a Our suggestions were not only that all of us completed our degrees. car crash, for an interview for a welcomed, but also taken on board. And a surprising number who were place at the University that was Some proved useful, others not so; considered most unlikely to do so, starting in the following academic especially the one which suggested went on to do further degrees and year. I was met by the stunningly exams with short sharp questions become academics! sophisticated Laura Herman who where students would gain a mark It’s been such an incredible was receiving the applicants at for a correct answer and lose one journey for us all, so I would just like King’s Manor. She looked me over for the wrong one. Unsurprisingly, to welcome you all to grapevine quizzically and said with the trace the only time that we had such an and wish the University all the best of a smile “It is [Douglas] Dosser exam I got something like minus for the next 50 years. interviewing, you’ll blow him over!" 20 and those who had managed to On arrival in October I met the get half of the questions right got first 216 undergraduate students zero! A more successful suggestion Baroness Haleh Afshar is a all of whom seemed to have been was that of having mixed colleges. Professor in the Department of chosen not just for their academic These worked so well that York Politics at the University of York, credential, but more specifically became a blueprint for many other an alumna and was selected to for their potential ability to survive much more ancient universities. be a non-party political peer in the year as part of a bunch of It was the 1960s and we were the House of Lords in 2007. ‘characters’ and ‘originals’ taught all discovering the wonders of being She is also an advisor to the by a highly unconventional team. young and liberated. We invaded the Government on public policy What surprised me was how pubs and bars in town and formed relating to Muslim women and very young and friendly the staff every possible society, in particular Islamic law. In 2005 she was The University of York Magazine for Alumni and Friends of The University were. I was stunned when my I remember joining the Tiddlywinks awarded an OBE for services supervisor asked me to call him by Society without even knowing to equal opportunities. his first name. Unsurprisingly, there what it was; the group needed a 4 The QR codes featured here will link you to key York websites via your News in brief smartphone. Download one of the widely available barcode reader apps HIGHLIGHTS FROM 2012/13 to scan the code with your phone. YORK NEWS YORK EVENTS GRAPEVINE ONLINE 50TH ANNIVERSARY YORKSpace Read the latest Register for Read this issue online at Find out more Join our new website news from York at upcoming University www.yorkspace.net/ about the 50th for alumni and friends www.