2
HUGHES HALL: A RETIRING SENIOR TUTOR’S REFLECTIONS
‘Hughes has come of age’ A retiring Senior Tutor’s reflections When Dr Philip Johnston joined Hughes Hall in 2009 as Senior Tutor, the job description was full of terms like ‘improve, develop, take initiative, give leadership’. In the years since then, he has demonstrated all those qualities and more. Now, on the eve of his retirement, Philip reflects on his ‘very challenging and extremely rewarding’ time at Hughes Hall. Hughes Hall has truly come of age as a Cambridge college in the last decade. This has been a remarkable period of growth in numbers, infrastructure, vision and integration. Hughes Hall no longer sits on the outer periphery of Cambridge colleges as a relative newcomer. It is well integrated into university and inter-collegiate life, provides excellent facilities and support for its increasingly diverse student body, and has a clear vision for the future. I have been privileged to be its Senior Tutor for the last 12 years (2009–2021) and to have played a part in this wonderful development. The basis for our current momentum was laid long ago with a progressive foundation in 1885, followed by agility and adaption to survive through the early 20th century. Then came the crucial late 20th century developments: expansion of the student body from the early 1970s to both genders, all subjects and all levels; and extensive building from the late 1980s, with the Pavilion annexe, Chancellor’s Court, Centenary and Fenner’s Buildings, Leong Library and Gresham Court. But the development of the last decade has been far more profound than any of this. A key aspect is the exciting vision for a college which bridges academia and the wider world. However, I want to focus here
on the extensive developments in my own areas of responsibility. A Senior Tutor has to be a ‘jack of all trades’. The old saying continues ‘and master of none’, but that’s not possible in this role, since you have to quickly master a wide range of activities and arcane knowledge, and contribute to almost every college area and committee. My work has involved three broad areas. Improving student support and wellbeing Over my 12 years the student body has nearly doubled, with a steadily growing undergraduate cohort, several large part-time Master’s courses and more PhD students. The Senior Tutor’s main responsibility is oversight of all students. This covers helping students in difficulty, leading the tutorial team, being a tutor myself, steering admissions, leading the Directors of Studies, addressing academic concerns, overseeing hardship and scholarship awards, and ensuring good administration and strategic leadership. This growth in numbers and diversity meant that it was critical to invest in support for our student community. So in this last decade we have diversified the team with Associate Tutors and Deputy Senior Tutors, appointed a Nurse and Counsellor, and recruited increasingly professional and competent administration. We’ve revised all the old policies and instituted
many new ones, addressing key issues such as disability, equality, safeguarding and study support. We’ve steadily increased college bursaries for student hardship. We’ve massively increased college funding for scholarships from zero to £100,000 pa and successfully attracted many more external benefactors. We have also developed the college’s post-doc community, both in number (more than tripled) and in engagement with the student body and senior membership. Overall this has been a huge collective effort, and I’m proud to have led the team. Supporting college senior management I’ve worked with two Presidents, two Bursars and four Development Directors. Each change has brought new ways of working and new
