news
From the Master L
Sporting success has ranged from Cuppers wins in football, rugby and cycling for the men, through the Cuppers final in women’s squash, to wins in both the League and Cuppers for frisbee (almost as unknown as a College sport in my time as was karting last year). Perhaps the biggest success, though, thanks to a generous anonymous donation to sports, has been the huge increase in lacrosse participation, which will surely lead to success in the future. Balliol members were also in the Oxford teams which won this year’s Varsity matches in rugby, golf and women’s rowing. In Michaelmas Term and Hilary we had a wonderful range of good research news. David Lucas (Tutor in Physics) and Dominic O’Brien (Eastern Electricity Fellow, Professor of Engineering Science and Tutor in Engineering Science) had a major role in securing an over-£30M grant for quantum computing, as part of the Quantum Technology Hubs programme, which will explore the properties of quantum mechanics and how they can be harnessed
for use in technology; Edith Elkind (Research Fellow in Computational Game Theory) and John-Paul Ghobrial (Lucas Fellow and Tutor in History) won major European Research Council awards; and Tom Melham (Professor of Computer Science and Tutor in Computation) played a key part in the University’s selection as a founder of the £40M-plus Alan Turing Institute for Data Science. The Royal Society honoured Emeritus Fellow Denis Noble’s pioneering work on the heart by including his article in its 350th anniversary publication. Ofra Magidor (Fairfax Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy) won a major Philip Leverhulme Prize, for her work in the philosophy of logic and language, metaphysics, epistemology and philosophy of mathematics, and Andrew Hurrell (Professorial Fellow and Montague Burton Professor of International Relations) was given the Susan Strange Award. The Buttery has now reopened in its new splendour (stamps still affixed to the ceiling, however) – come to see it and visit the College for one of our many alumni events. Rob Judges
ast year I wrote about the departures of Judy Longworth and Douglas Dupree, and signalled that Judy’s successor as Development Director was to be Richard Norman from the University of Reading; this year I can write about the arrival of Bruce Kinsey, too, as our new Chaplain and Welfare Officer. Bruce comes to us from the Perse School, Cambridge, where he was Chaplain and Senior Tutor, but he also has long experience as the Chaplain at Downing College, Cambridge. As well as his Chapel duties he leads a welfare team which includes another new arrival, Denise Barulis, as Academic Work Counsellor, a new part-time position shared with St John’s College. And of course Bruce works closely with the equally new Dean, Rachel Quarrell, who has been a chemistry Lecturer in College for a good number of years. Not only do we have these crucial new members of College, but equally crucially, you might think, we have a new kitchen, and the lawn has been once again revealed from under the temporary structure. The College has also carried out a major survey of its buildings on the Broad Street site, and now has a plan in place to catch up on maintenance over the next ten years – of the order of £10M worth – and, even more importantly perhaps, a rolling programme which should ensure that it does not fall behind again, though of course we are in about as much control of the financial context as anyone else in a not very stable environment. The upcoming election has a number of serious variables built in, and what look like significant rises to both National Insurance and USS employers’ contributions will add to our pay bill. Our undergraduate performance in Final Honours Schools has been almost as unstable as the financial environment in recent years, and after a couple of years back in the top ten, we slipped again last year. Small differences can have large effects on the Norrington rankings, which mean little – but the fact of it is that we must ensure that all our students fulfil their promise, and from this year on we are making significant changes in the way they are supported in a number of subjects, where the College will provide more back-up to teaching provision supplied by the University’s academic divisions. We also have longer-term plans to increase our tutorial strength by possibly as many as 12 young high-fliers in both research and teaching. Again, I fear these plans are dependent on the continuing generosity of our alumni and we are discussing them with a number of you, I know.
i s s u e n o . 2 1 MA Y 2 0 1 5
1