TRINITY HALL CAMBRIDGE Trinity Hall Review 2017/18 Academic Year 2017/18 Academic Year Trinity Hall Trinity A year in the Hall life community of the Trinity 2017/18 2017/18 2 Trinity Hall Reports from our Officers Welcome to the fifth edition of the Trinity Hall Review. We hope you enjoy reading about the year in College. A highlight for us was the Alumni Summer Party in July. We were delighted to welcome over 190 alumni and guests to a sunny Wychfield for a fun-filled day of activities and socialising. We hope everyone had as much fun as our cover star! During the year, we also launched the improved College website, received planning permission for a new music practice and performance space in Avery Court, and welcomed back several alumni for their weddings in College. Your generous donations continue to have a positive impact on the lives of students and the fabric of College; thank you for your continued support. Kathryn Greaves Alumni Communications Officer Stay in touch with the College network: 32 Alumni @TrinityHallCamb News inside Reports from our Officers 2 The Master 2 The Bursar 4 The Senior Tutor 6 The Graduate Tutor 8 The Admissions Tutor 10 The Dean 11 The Development Director 12 The Junior Bursar 14 The Head of Conference and Catering Services 15 The Librarian 16 The Director of Music 17 College News 18 The JCR President’s Report 20 The MCR President’s Report 21 Student Reports 22 News of Fellows and Staff 26 Seminars and Lectures 28 Fundraising 30 18 Alumni News 32 THA Secretary’s Report 34 College News Alumni News 36 In Memoriam 38 2017/18 Information 40 List of Fellows 42 College Statistics 46 List of Donors 50 Get involved 59 Thank you to all who have contributed to this edition of the Trinity Hall Review. 40 Cover picture: Guest at the Alumni Summer Party 2017/18 Information 2 REPORTS FROM OUR OFFICERS View over the Fellows’ Garden towards Clare College from the Jerwood Library The Master’s Report Celebration has to be balanced with recognition The Revd Dr Jeremy Morris Master t has been a very eventful year at Thomas for this, and to Dr Alex Marr for “It’s important the Hall, one way or another. Our approaching Cornelia. The installation to debunk celebration of the 40th anniversary of makes good the lack of a “fine arras” Ithe admission of women has come specified in Dr Eden’s will in the mid- to its climax, with the great celebratory 17th century; we know the arras was some of the ball last summer; the unveiling of the there for a while, but disappeared portrait of the first two female Fellows, perhaps just 20 years after it was first more outlandish Drs Sandra Raban and Kareen Thorne; put up, not to be replaced until now. and selective Sandra’s booklet on women at the Hall; Other important markers of the year and the final sequence of lectures given included yet another strong showing in statements made by female alumni. the summer exams, and on the river. This year, incidentally, was the first One can’t but be aware that celebration year when the new regime on release by politicians and has to be balanced with a recognition of results came into effect: something that, on a number of fronts, diversity approaching a third of students across the press.” and inclusion remain challenges for the University declined to have their Cambridge in general, as well as the results published outside the Senate Hall. We’re ‘good’ on some things, not House. Personally I regret the change, so good on others, though we put a for reasons too complicated to list here, lot of effort into improving things. So but the changing tide of opinion on this celebrating what has been achieved is has been evident for some years. important. The academic year began with the unveiling in Hall of Cornelia Much as I can claim success for the Parker’s extraordinary tapestry, Thirty Hall over the last year, I am also aware Pieces of Silver; thanks are due to Nigel that the current political atmosphere 3 over higher education in the United Education Funding Council), and seems domestic aspects, when the horizon Kingdom is perhaps more unsettled to be developing a more interventionist of Cambridge in terms of student than it has been for many years. You approach. No one knows yet how recruitment (especially at graduate will be aware of the continuing concern that will play out in practice. But when level) is increasingly a global one; when over admissions, access and outreach. you combine that uncertainty with a third of our academic staff are from It’s important to say that concern is continuing uncertainty over student outside the UK; and when Britain has shared fully by the Fellowship, and – finance, and over the impact of hitherto been able to out-compete again – we put a lot of effort and money Brexit, you can see just why there are our European partners in research into improving admissions across a concerns all round. funding. I don’t like the trend for seeing range of targets, including of course education in market terms, but British One of the things that usually falls school background, social background higher education is a remarkably out of the picture in press attention and ethnicity. And it’s also important to successful export, and yet we (I mean on Oxbridge is the fact that British debunk some of the more outlandish society in general) are constantly universities are a runaway success and selective statements made by sniping at it, trying to tie it down, and in international terms. We should politicians and the press. Last year, interfering in it. In such a time, strong celebrate that success. For years the College achieved 75% maintained leadership is required for the University, Cambridge has been near the top or school entry, well above the University’s and this year Stephen Toope took up at the top of the international rankings, target figure. The key thing we have office as Vice-Chancellor, in succession competing directly with the Ivy League to bear in mind, however, is that not to Sir Leszek Borysiewicz. The universities, despite having nothing like only is there, rightly, continuing public challenges Cambridge faces are many, their financial resources (we’re working pressure on the broad question of but that the colleges and the University on that). The British attitude to elite access, but that the new regulatory together can certainly face up to them. universities is strangely two-faced: body, the Office for Students, has nearly all the criticism focuses closely @TrinHallMaster more teeth than its predecessors (the on what one might call specifically Office of Fair Access, and the Higher 4 REPORTS FROM OUR OFFICERS BuThe r s a r ’s Report A year of steady progress have just reread last year’s article. teams on their hard work. Whilst it is Apart from surprising myself at how gratifying that the levers over which we I someone my great age can be quite so have some influence have been pulled so precocious and pretentious, I did spot successfully, it is becoming ever clearer one sentence that resonated particularly that academic fees (up £100,000 or as I stare once again at the draft annual 2.3%), whilst clearly significant to those accounts. I wrote then about the figures who pay them, are making a diminishingly about to be published: “they continue small difference to our overall wellbeing. to be an exercise in sophistry and I will look at our investment performance the attenuation of numbers as far as in a moment, but, for the sake of they relate to actual money”. Indeed, completeness, it is worth noting that the I am guilty of frequently branding improvement in our ‘Other Income’ line accountants as people who can only was largely the benefit of VAT rebates see numbers, not the value (or lack received for the renovation work on the of it) they represent. Thus £3,000 and Master’s Lodge. £3,000,000 can both be profits, only Paul ffolkes Davis Happily, our Expenditure of £15.9 million non-accountants can easily detect Bursar was only up 7% on a year ago. Last year, that one is much better than the other. I caused considerable consternation at A softer way of saying this, and the Governing Body when I announced that reason I am yet again rehearsing this “The challenge the level of professional fees we had paid argument, is to remind everyone that a had reached £290,000. They are now set of accounts is merely the facsimile for any charity is £672,000! However, reassuringly most of a snapshot in time. What is right of these were incurred with our lawyers today can and will be wrong tomorrow. to try to judge the and property advisers in what proved to Thus it was when I wrote my slides to be a very active year, buying and selling present to the Audit Committee on the competing claims of land and farms and starting joint ventures day before the meeting, to discover on to develop properties we have owned waking the next morning that, with the current and future for some time with this ultimate goal in incorporation of new numbers from the mind. To give a flavour, we have recently auditors overnight, the result had shifted generations.” sold outright the freeholds and land on dramatically in one of the best ‘with one was just one facet of a relatively simple the Cambridge Science Park to Trinity jump Johnny was free’ feats seen in and wholesome story: unlike last year, College that they had previously held recent years.