A Great Campaign Supporting our Future Pioneers

As you know, Girton’s educational experience can be transformational for students. Donations to A Great Campaign are helping to ensure that we can continue to offer a world class education, to all those who are academically talented enough to receive an offer of admission, regardless of their backgrounds, in perpetuity.

The current priorities for A Great Campaign are:

• to grow the capital of the unrestricted permanent endowment;

• to endow 20 means-tested bursaries for undergraduates;

• to establish five much-needed graduate scholarships;

• to fund a further six teaching and research Fellowships.

To date, over 85% of our £50 million target has been raised in gifts and future legacy pledges. We are very grateful to everyone who has supported A Great Campaign.

Girton’s early pioneers 150 years ago inspired a bright future for the higher education of generations of women and, today, the College remains a beacon of widening participation. Our outreach programme reaches over 7,000 young people each year and this academic year (2019–20) the proportion of students from state schools starting at Girton was a record-breaking 74%. In this issue we highlight the impact of the generosity of our alumni and supporters on three key areas which are: original graduate research, inspirational teaching, and bursaries for our undergraduates. Can we ask you to continue to support our future pioneers?

Swirles Court

Where Originality Thrives Graduate Scholarships

Research is crucial for understanding and solving the complex problems of our world today. To help meet the global demand from sectors ranging from business to academia for talented scholars with higher degrees, Girton has decided to grow our graduate student numbers in line with the University’s same strategic objective. However, there is limited funding for postgraduate education in the UK, and even less to support international students. This is frustrating for brilliant students who come from less well-off backgrounds, and a loss to the wider world. To enable the many talented scholars (including some of our own undergraduates) who wish to embrace the challenge of completing a higher degree in Cambridge and at Girton, we need to be able to offer more funding in the form of scholarships. This increased support will ensure Girton’s graduate students come from diverse backgrounds from across the UK and the globe. It means we can give the chance to study at Cambridge to any talented scholar regardless of financial means.

Thanks to your support we have endowed three, out of a target of five, partial graduate scholarships in A Great Campaign. We are delighted to announce that one of these, the Chan and Mok Graduate Scholarship, will be open to Hong Kong and mainland China applicants in spring 2020 and the successful applicant will join Girton from October 2020. In addition, thanks to the support of the Girton Hong Kong Alumni Committee and the generosity of alumni from the region, we have completed the funding for a partial scholarship for students from less privileged backgrounds resident in Hong Kong.

Last year a total of 11 graduate students received scholarships, but a number of excellent candidates were unable to take up a place at Girton as they could not raise sufficient funding. It would be wonderful to support more graduate students and only a well-supported scholarship scheme can bridge this gap. Donations towards our Graduate Scholarship Fund will enable us to offer more invaluable support to further the careers of some outstanding scholars.

Impact of Giving

Rafmary Millan Reyes (Development Studies, 2017), a graduate student and scholarship recipient, came to Girton from one of the most underdeveloped regions in Venezuela to study International Development, with the determination to ‘find ways to tackle poverty and establish communities that thrive’. Rafmary has recently graduated and is still committed to this same goal, and she offers her thanks to Girton ‘for investing in me and helping me to recognise my own potential’.

Where Inspiration Thrives

Fellowships to support and celebrate pioneering teaching and research

The generosity of our alumni and supporters throughout A Great Campaign has allowed us to secure a set of career positions for worldclass scholars in perpetuity. Girton’s Fellowship is vital to the inclusive excellence that the College strives for, by continuing to provide inspirational teaching and maintaining the small group supervision system for which Cambridge is internationally renowned.

Last year, we were fundraising to endow a Fellowship in Physical Sciences, to be named after Dr Christine McKie. So many of you have been kind enough to tell us about the impact Christine’s teaching and support has made on your lives. We are therefore delighted to announce that we have now completed the fundraising for the Christine McKie Fellowship in Physical Sciences. We hope the endowment of this post provides a fitting legacy for such a pioneering and caring woman.

The work of endowing our Fellowship, however, continues. We are still seeking to complete a further two Fellowships to celebrate two inspiring women.

The Juliet Campbell Fellowship

Juliet D’Auvergne Campbell joined the Foreign Office in 1957, just eight years after the Diplomatic Service fast stream was opened to women. She held prominent diplomatic roles in Europe and the Far East and served as British Ambassador to Luxembourg from 1988–91, before coming to Girton as Mistress. She is now a Life Fellow. We are seeking a further £49,000 to complete the funding for this Fellowship, which will have an international research theme and could be focused on one of the following related academic disciplines: Economics, History, Human, Social and Political Sciences, Geography, and Law. The post-holder may specialise in any of these areas and will teach the core undergraduate syllabus in their subject, whilst undertaking research in an area of International Relations.

The Lady Jeffreys Fellowship

Bertha Jeffreys (née Swirles) was an eminent mathematician, whose text book (co-written with her husband Sir Harold Jeffreys) Methods of Mathematical Physics, first published in 1946, is still used by today’s undergraduates. She entered Girton in 1921, graduated with First Class Honours and then took up research in what was then the exciting new field of quantum mechanics. She returned to Girton in 1938 to an Official Fellowship and Lectureship in Mathematics. Affectionately known in College as ‘Lady J’, her association with Girton spanned more than 70 years, during which time she held many different College Offices, including Director of Studies in Mathematics from 1949 to 1969 and Vice-Mistress from 1966 to 1969. Her autumn apple picking parties became legendary, not least for the glorious home-made tea held afterwards in her kitchen.

We need a further £61,000 to complete the funding for this Fellowship in Applied Mathematics, which we know many of you have generously supported over the years.

Where Diversity Thrives

Undergraduate Bursaries

Since its foundation, Girton has opened its doors to people with exceptional academic talent, from all backgrounds and circumstances, and given them a remarkable and rare educational opportunity.

For Girton to remain truly diverse and offer a transformational educational opportunity to all those who qualify for a place here, the College must be able to provide financial assistance to those talented applicants who need it. Typically, one in four of our undergraduates would be unable to afford university without the support that a cost-of-living bursary provides. Our bursaries enable these students to take full advantage of everything a Cambridge education has to offer.

The generosity of our alumni and supporters in donating towards our undergraduate bursaries, whether the Emily Davies Bursaries, bursaries for students reading particular subjects or our 150th Anniversary Class Gifts, means that we have now endowed 17 out of our target of 20 bursaries. This means that 17 students will receive the financial support they need each and every year.

Further gifts towards our bursaries will ensure that every promising scholar is supported so that they can realise their potential. With your help we can ensure that more of our students can benefit from this support.

Impact of Giving

‘To say that this bursary has enriched my time so far as a Cambridge undergraduate would be an understatement. Free from the anxieties financial hardship can bring I have been able to devote myself to an English course I adore, and fully embrace other aspects of university life (sport, debating, theatre, College JCR—to name but a few). In light of this, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all donors for their generosity…Knowing the impact a bursary can have I look forward to following in your footsteps in years to come.’

Harry Camp (English, 2018)

The Harding Challenge

If you have never given to Girton (or the University) before and are considering making a donation to support our undergraduate students then there has never been a better time to give. Any gifts made by new donors to our undergraduate bursary funds will effectively be doubled thanks to the very generous donation made to the University of Cambridge by David and Claudia Harding. If you donate now, your gift will unlock a contribution to a special fund for undergraduate financial support at Cambridge, and so will not only benefit Girton’s students but also the students in greatest need across Cambridge. Gifts of any size up to £100,000 qualify and every pound makes a difference. For more information please see www.philanthropy.cam.ac.uk/give-to-cambridge/harding-challenge

As we conclude our celebrations of the 150 years since the foundation of the College, it is truly humbling to think of what has been achieved for students as the result of your generosity as our alumni and supporters.

Thank you.