The Record 2008 The Record 2008 Wade William Magill Allison, MA D.Phil. (MA, Cambridge), Tutor in Physics, Professor of Physics photograph by Jemimah Kuhfeld The Record 2008 Contents The Life of the College Letter from the Warden 5 Professor John Hilton Edwards 10 Professor Michael Frede 12 The Revd Canon (George) Christopher Stead 13 The Revd Prebendary Edward Chad Varah CH OBE 15 Lord Stokes 16 Fellows’ Work in Progress 16 Fellows’ Publications 23 Sports and Games 29 Clubs and Societies 35 The Chapel 36 Financial Review 39 The College at Large Old Members at Work 43 Keble Parishes Update 49 Year Groups 49 Gifts and Bequests 50 Obituaries 59 The Keble Association 78 The London Dinner 79 Keble College 2007–8 The Fellowship 80 College Elections and Appointments 86 Undergraduate Scholarships 87 Matriculation 2007–8 89 College Awards and Prizes 94 Academic Distinctions 97 Supplement News of Old Members 2 Forthcoming events: 2008–9 12 Keble College: The Record 2008 4 The Life of the College Letter from the Warden I write this Letter in late July, as the last graduation ceremonies are about to take place and the Finals results are nearly all in. Thirteen Keble graduate students have gained their D.Phil.s during this academic year and another thirteen await their vivas or results. In May we held another of the highly popular ‘big BA days’, when almost all our undergraduate finalists of 2007 were able to graduate together. I am glad to say that this year again we have done very well in Schools. Over the past few weeks, we have also held a Reunion weekend for those who were up in the years 1983–8, a Summer Dinner, a day-long meeting of year group representatives photo: Jemimah Kuhfeld and a dinner for the Douglas Price Society. A retirement dinner for Professor Wade Allison took place a few days ago and a dinner for the Harris Society of ex-Keble lawyers awaits us, but before that a period of academic quietude beckons, while the College staff work as hard as ever with the conference business which helps to keep us going. In the meantime the Senior Common Room is still busy at lunchtime, as colleagues come and go from academic conferences or at last get on with their research. In recent months there have been two important announcements: the launch of a major fundraising campaign, Oxford Thinking, embracing both the University and the colleges, and with Dame Vivien Duffield as the campaign chairman, and the news that the next Vice-Chancellor is to be the current Provost of Yale, Professor Andrew Hamilton, a distinguished chemist of British origin, and the first Vice-Chancellor not to be an Oxford alumnus. Both appointments are highly significant. Oxford is now an enormously complex teaching and research university which competes with the best in the world. It must set its targets as high as they do, and a higher degree of financial independence is crucial for this. The same applies to its colleges, not least to Keble, which continues to do incredibly well, but does so from a financial base lower than that of the majority. Regular giving by our alumni is vital, and the Talbot Fund is now thoroughly established and doing well. We are tremendously grateful to those Old Members who support us through the Talbot Fund. Moving this forward so that the great majority of our Old Members contribute annually is our next challenge. As for the incoming Vice-Chancellor, it can be no accident that he will be the fourth Provost of Yale to have moved on to the top position in a major university. Everything that I have heard so far is very positive and indeed enthusiastic, and it is a splendid sign that the University has been able to attract a British academic (albeit not an Oxonian) from one of our ivy-league competitors. 5 Keble College: The Record 2008 It is right that we should ask ourselves why anyone should give to Keble, and the question deserves a robust reply. Nostalgia and loyalty still go a long way, but most people nowadays want a better justification than that. There are the simple facts that as a college we receive in various forms of fee and board and lodging income considerably less than we have to spend, and that we still do not have the endowment cushion of many colleges, not just those well- known to be rich. More important, though, is the value of what we do, and how well we do it. Very simply, we are committed to excellence, and like our founders, we are committed to making that excellence accessible to all, regardless of their background. It is not difficult to point to examples of that excellence, whether in our Finals results, our sporting successes and cultural life, or the work of our academics. Although it is invidious to single out specific examples, we are proud of the fact that two second-year Engineering Leadership Award undergraduates, for instance, were both awarded Engineering winners Nneka Orji & Toby Miller Leadership Awards by the Royal Academy of Engineering this year. News of the prizes gained by our undergraduates in Finals and in their preliminary examinations is only just now coming in. Simon Quinn, a Keble graduate student and Junior Dean (and excellent cricketer) was awarded a prize fellowship at All Souls. Our research fellow, Sarah Apetrei, another former Keble graduate student and holder of the Liddon research fellowship, gained one of the highly competitive British Academy post-doctoral fellowships. Theresa Burt de Perera, already a Royal Society research fellow in Zoology, was also awarded a very prestigious Simon Quinn L’Oréal–UNESCO Women in Science national fellowship. Several of our fellows have gained awards for excellence in teaching or Sarah Apetrei been awarded the title of Professor in recognition of their academic distinction. Keble fellows have also been active in organizing academic conferences and meetings in the College and Jeff King, research fellow and tutor in Law, recently organized a very successful event for the Social Sciences Research Group based on a showing and discussion of Barack Obama’s notable speech on issues to do with race. Among books published by fellows, Jonathan Zittrain’s The Future of the Internet, has roused considerable media interest and coverage. Jeff King The achievements of our Old Members are equally impressive, not least in the cultural sphere. In the past year Keble Old Members have won an Oscar, produced major documentary films, had new pieces of music performed, and written for major newspapers. The Royal Opera House is run by a Keble man, and another is currently presenting the Proms on BBC2, while among our former organ scholars one is having a considerable success directing the Orchestra Europa and another has become organist at the 6 The Life of the College Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington DC. A Keble Old Member from among our very successful lawyers is currently Chairman of the Bar Council for England and Wales. Cultural life within the College has been transformed since the completion of the Sloane Robinson Building with its theatre and music room. During the past year there have been four productions a term in the O’Reilly Theatre, ranging from David Hare’s Fanshen to the new musical, Swing, and some memorable concerts including student performances, an organ and percussion concert and an alto saxophone improvisation in the Chapel. Our primary object is of course education, but College life can be all-embracing. The gardens were open recently for the first time under the National Gardens Scheme, with tea and home-made cakes served in Newman quad. We also hosted the centenary garden party for the Engineering department, a fine occasion with many Keble Old Members present. One of the most notable recent events was a conference on the poetry of Geoffrey Hill (1950) organized by two graduate students, one of them formerly a Keble undergraduate. Papers were given by Charles Lock (1974) and Sophie Ratcliffe, research tutor and fellow in English, and the opening event was a ‘conversation’ between Geoffrey Hill and Dr Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Geoffrey Hill This year saw the retirements of Dr Judith Palmer, professorial fellow and Keeper of Scientific Books since 2000 and Professor Sir Barry Cunliffe FBA, professorial fellow and Professor of European Sophie Ratcliffe Archaeology since 1972. Jeff King was also appointed as research fellow and tutor in Law, and has now been appointed to a five- year fellowship at Balliol. Dr Simone Ghislandi, research fellow and tutor in Economics, has moved back to his native Milan, and Professor Jonathan Zittrain has accepted a full-time appointment at Harvard but will continue to be attached to Keble for three years as a fellow by special election. Professor Wade Allison retires this Jonathan summer after being fellow in Physics since 1976. He will continue Zittrain to teach on a part-time basis, but the number of his former pupils who came back to College last weekend for his retirement dinner is testimony to the very great impact he has had during that time. Reading the short biographies which they had provided for the occasion provides an extraordinary insight into the trajectories of Keble students. New fellows have also arrived: Professor Markus Bockmuehl joined us from St Andrews to be fellow in New Testament, and Howard Jones (now Dr Jones, after gaining a Ph.D. Howard Jones Markus in German philology from King’s College London) was elected Bockmuehl as a fellow by special election in connection with his position in financial economics at the Saïd Business School.