News from Hughes Issue 15 Michaelmas 2011

News from Hughes Michaelmas Term 2011

Issue 15

Newsletter for Hughes Hall members

Supporting Academic Excellence – Supporting our Students One excellent outcome of our Anniversary year celebrations has been the growth of the Scholarships and Bursaries Fund, thanks to generous donations from alumni and friends all over the world. The College continues to grow and it is noteworthy that, in parallel, our ability to offer support to academically gifted students is also beginning to grow.

Until recently the work of the Scholarships Committee was limited to selecting just one or two students a year to receive financial help from the College – no easy task, given the large pool of bright and deserving applicants. This year the awarding committee had the enjoyable task of managing funds sufficient for nearly  awards of varying levels. Many of these awards are made possible by the growth of the College’s own Fund.

Other specific awards are provided by very generous donors. And in some cases the fact that the College is providing help has enabled us to secure matching funding from the University’s Scholarships Trust, more than doubling the effect of our own money.

So it is a very encouraging picture, and one which the College will continue to hold among its priorities. The economic demands on students

Our former students in Hong Kong – pictured here during the President’s September visit – have kindly clubbed together to establish an annual bursary, which is named ‘the Hong Kong Alumni Bursary’.

In addition, thanks to the great generosity of individual donors, other students are benefiting from full scholarships this year; there are three scholars under the Doris Zimmern HKU Scholarships and two (further scholars) under the Edwin S H Leong Hughes Hall scheme.

The President, Mrs Sarah Squire, in Hong Kong with Mr Norman Ho, after signing an agreement with the Ho Tim Foundation for a new scholarship scheme which will bring graduate students to Hughes Hall from the S H Ho College of The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

are tough, and ensuring that very bright applicants are able to come and benefit from a Cambridge education is important as we continue to foster the academic excellence of the College.

Support can be at a number of levels – from relatively small travel bursaries to full-fee scholarships, and prizes for academic achievement. In this issue we record the recent awards and prizes.

With the President recently returned from her fifth annual visit to Hong Kong this is also the moment to highlight the College’s increasingly strong academic links there. Together with Dr Ron Zimmern, Fellow of the College, and a group of very supportive alumni, links are well established not only with the ever growing alumni cohort in Hong Kong but also with Hong Kong University (HKU) and the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK).

Hughes Hall 1885–2010 by Professor Ged Martin This beautifully illustrated and engagingly written book will be launched on Friday,  December, between .–.pm in the Peter Richards Room. All alumni are welcome. Please see the enclosed flyer for further details about the book, and contact the Development Office if you would like to attend the launch.

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Exciting management changes!

Surely this is a contradiction in terms – management should be efficient, responsive, adapted to the organisation, and so on. But ‘exciting’? Isn’t that too much to ask?

Hughes Hall has grown hugely in recent years, particularly in the number of students (nearly doubled), the variety of courses, the creation of Post-Doctoral Research Associates, and the appointment of new staff. At the same time, the core function of providing for students becomes increasingly complex, with developments like visa requirements, fee diversity and electronic data management.

The typical response in any organisation to such changes is to address each in turn, and adapt accordingly. Hughes Hall has of course regularly done this, and we frequently reassess office workloads. But there comes a time when more radical analysis and re-organisation is needed.

This last year we have tackled this at the level of the Fellowship, with a thorough look at our committee structures and decisionmaking processes. Over the year we held many discussions in different contexts, proposing and refining new ideas. As a result, we now have a new management structure in which Governing

Body will continue to exercise overall responsibility, Council will focus on strategy, and four Operational Committees will look after specific areas of College life: Academic, House, Finance & Admin, and Development.

The new and exciting one here is the Academic Committee.

Up to now various smaller committees have overseen specific areas like Admissions, Learning Resources and Scholarships.

Now one committee will cover all these issues and more, with the remit of supporting and developing the academic life of the College. This will give us the platform to look at the bigger picture as well as the necessary detail, and enable the College to be well placed to seize new opportunities.

Many of our MBA students study the tricky issue of managing change, where better structure needs to be complemented by good implementation. All Fellows will take an active part in managing this change by being members of one committee or another. Further, we have appointed a Fellowship Administrator to ensure that the implementation is as smooth as possible. So we have high hopes that the new system will have very significant benefits for the College, even if it isn’t always exciting in practice!

Philip Johnston, Senior Tutor

Phone Campaign Following the success of our very first Phone Campaign in December, 2010, when a dozen student callers contacted around 800 alumni to share thoughts on their experience at Hughes Hall and to seek support for various College initiatives, we are currently planning a second campaign for December, 2011.

Once again student callers will be speaking to a wide range of our alumni and friends, to thank them for their support of the College, to seek engagement in terms of mentoring and careers contacts for current students, and to raise funds for the College’s highest priorities – Scholarships and Bursaries, Academic Endeavour, and the development of the College’s estates.

Sir Peter Mansfield, with the President, after receiving his Honorary Doctorate from the University in March this year. Sir Peter is a Nobel Prizewinner, a medical physicist and developer of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). He is Emeritus Professor of Physics in the University of Nottingham and an Honorary Fellow of Hughes Hall.

PROFESSOR PETER RICHARDS, 1936–2011 PRESIDENT OF HUGHES HALL, 1998–2006 The College was very sad to learn of the death of Peter Richards on the 29 September. A full appreciation of Peter’s life is included as an insert to this issue of News from Hughes.

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London Alumni Reunion Hughes Hall Alumni, the President and Development Staff at the first London Alumni Reunion held on 27 July. A second reunion was held on 28 September. These informal gatherings provide an opportunity to re-connect with fellow Hughesians and find out about what’s currently happening at College.

Our next London event is planned for Wednesday, 22 February, 2012.

Please contact alumni@hughes.cam. ac.uk if you would like to attend.

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College Reception The Hughes Hall Centre for Mark Turin, Fellow of Hughes, gave an inspiring talk at Biomedical Science in Society (CBSS) Dr the well attended Reception in June, entitled Collect, Protect, welcomed Baroness Mary Warnock, who gave a talk in June to a full house on the issue of assisted dying. Baroness Warnock spoke about the need to introduce compassion into the law to make it permissible for terminally ill patients whose suffering is intolerable to be given medical assistance to die.

The respondent, Dr Hallvard Lillehammer, added further insight by drawing on key points raised and highlighting the complexity of the issue. The talk generated insightful and thought provoking questions and comments.

12th Annual City Lecture Ms Laurel Powers-Freeling delivered an engaging and insightful presentation entitled: Too Big to Fail: Economic Inevitability or Commercial Opportunism?. She provided an insider’s perspective on key issues of TBTF to a full house in May. Interesting questions and discussion continued well after the presentation and during dinner, where Fellows, students and alumni had the opportunity to network with distinguished guests from the financial and business sectors.

Alumni Weekend 2011 The Alumni Weekend held over – September had an excellent turnout and we were delighted to see so many of our alumni back at Hughes.

Dr Anthony Freeling gave a fascinating lecture entitled Did you hear the one about Darwin, the Marketing Manager and the Customer?. He began with an overview of marketing from  and went on to examine how Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection can lead companies to optimise their marketing through innovation and adaptation. His book, Agile Marketing: How to Innovate Faster, Cheaper and with Lower Risk, was published earlier this year.

Ogden PGCE Matriculation Dinner The Ogden Dinner held in September was a greatly enjoyable evening. Kathy Heaps (Former Head teacher of John Kelley Girls’ Technology College, London) gave an inspiring, amusing and instructive account of her teaching experiences. Thank you to the Ogden Trust for sponsoring this event.

Hughes Hall Photographic Society The Photographic Society is really taking off this term and a photo competition is being arranged with some fantastic prizes.

If you are interested in getting involved or entering the competition, please contact Annica at ac@cam.ac.uk

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Connect: Documenting the Voices of Vanishing Worlds.

He explained that for many communities around the world, the transmission of oral traditions from one generation to the next lies at the heart of cultural practice, and such creative works are increasingly endangered. Of the world’s over , living languages, linguists predict that around half will cease to be used as spoken vernaculars by the end of this century. Drawing on Filming in Ladakh, India, 2004 over a decade of fieldwork Photo by Adam Howarth among members of the Thangmi community in Nepal and India, Dr Turin discussed the challenges faced by small-scale societies whose oral speech forms – and the knowledge systems that they encode – are increasingly at risk of disappearing without record.

Travel broadens the mind…

For PhD students, travel doesn’t just broaden the mind, it is essential. Conferences are crucial both for the research itself and for the researcher’s academic development: presenting one’s work, meeting leading figures in the field, Xudong Zou, one of the travellers, with his supervisor and a colleague and hearing all the latest on the Great Wall of China ideas.

In – Hughes Hall gave travel funding to  doctoral students to attend conferences anywhere from Cambridge to Beijing, Sydney and San Diego. Recent comments in postconference reports include: ‘a highlight of my second year’; ‘hopefully the contacts I have made will … shift my research project onto the next level’; ‘oral presentation of my paper … more than , attendees this year’; ‘I put forward a suggestion for a graduate conference … and I have been asked to organise this in –’; ‘immensely beneficial to me’.

We also give grants to our medical students for electives. One who went to Rwanda writes of ‘an eye-opening experience’ which ‘taught me many things’. Another who worked for a homeless charity in London commented on meeting patients with aggressive attitudes, substance abuse or psychotic disorders, and of ‘learning about the profound health impacts of being homeless’. Whether near or far, such travel indeed broadens the mind and enriches one’s study.

Philip Johnston, Senior Tutor

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• Sport • Sport • Sport • Sport • Sport • Sport • Sport • Sport • Sport • Sport • Sport •

Hughes Hall rowing successes…

May Bumps 2011 For the first time, Hughes Hall and Lucy Cavendish Combined Boat Club (HHLCCBC) had five crews in the May bumps. Three men’s crews from Hughes Hall and two women’s crews competed to win blades by bumping the crews ahead of them. The club continued its run of recent successes, with both M1 and M2 boats winning blades – awarded for bumping up on each of the four days of competition. M3 did exceptionally well as a scratch crew, and held Sidney Sussex off twice in courageous rows to avoid being awarded the dreaded spoons for coming last!

In the women’s event, W1 bumped up twice, got bumped and then rowed over – giving an overall result of up one place. They had a tough row chasing Newnham on day three, and should take comfort from further securing their place in the 2nd division. The W2 boat rowed over on day one after the crews in front of them left them with no targets. On days 2 and 3, W2 annihilated the crews they were chasing, bumping on both days in less than a minute. Their overall result was to go up two places, potentially securing a place for a second women’s boat next year.

Support from the banks was tremendous throughout the week, and special mention should go to the captains Alex Randall, Aoife Murray and Orla Lynskey (LC) for their fantastic efforts in an historic HHLCCBC May bumps campaign.

Dominic Silk, Hughes Hall Boat Club President

One of the victorious Men’s crews!

Hughes still prominent at Henley despite limited involvement by CUBC Cambridge University Boat Club only sent a development four to Henley this year, but this did not mean a lack of involvement by members of Hughes on the water (as well as in other less strenuous activities in the Stewards’ Enclosure).

Shane O’Mara (HH 2007–2010) appeared in the sculls, and lost with honour. Fred Gill, (2008–2010) John Clay (2007–2009) and Tom Ransley (2007–2009), all heavily involved in GB Rowing’s preparation for the 2012 Olympics, were all to be seen about the boat tents, as was Courtney Wilkinson (HH 2008-2011) in her role as Hon Sec of CUBC.

Dr Mike Franklin, Fellow and Praelector

College News

Website Launch

Fellows Professor Marc Weller, Director of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law and Fellow of Hughes Hall, has been appointed to the role of Senior Mediation Expert in the General-Secretariat of the United Nations in New York. In that role he offers advice to the UN Secretary-General and his Special Representatives or Envoys active in on-going peace negotiations around the globe. Initial activities include Côte d’Ivoire, Sudan and Libya.

Social Media

Staff

We are always pleased to hear from our

Annica Curtis, the new Events and Communications Officer, joined the Development Office in August. Annica is a graduate in English Language and Linguistics from the University of York.

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With many improvements going on at Hughes, we eagerly anticipate the completion of our new website in the Michaelmas term. This re-design should make it easier to keep up to date with the College and our up-coming events.

Look out for it!

Natasha Saltes left in August to return to Canada and study for a PhD.

alumni. For any enquiries or to update your

Lindsey Peters is the new Admissions Secretary in the Academic Office. Lindsey joined the College in September, from Cambridge City Council, where she worked in schools admissions.

Office: alumni@hughes.cam.ac.uk. We can

details, please contact the Alumni Relations also be found on Facebook and Twitter: facebook.com/HughesHallCambridge and @hughes_hall

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News from Hughesians NOUAR QUTOB (2007, MPhil and PhD in population genetics, MCR President 2009 –2010) has taken up an appointment as Assistant Professor at Al Quds Bard Honors College, Al Quds University in Jerusalem. The programme on which she is teaching leads to a dual degree, a BA Honours from Al Quds University and a BA from Bard College in New York, and is open to students from all sectors of Palestinian society and from around the world. Nouar is also Vice President of the Palestinian Forum for Medical research.

DR PHEBE MANN, EUR ING (1998, BA in Computer Science) was awarded a UKRC Women of Outstanding Achievement Award at the Royal Academy of Engineering in May. Dr Mann has broken new ground by being the first and only woman to hold five professional engineering qualifications concurrently in the UK. In addition to her other qualifications, Dr Mann is also the first female chair of the Leicester Centre of the Chartered Institute of Building (CIOB). She is a Science Engineering Technology and Mathematics (STEM) Ambassador and takes every opportunity to encourage girls to consider civil engineering as a career option. These awards are now in their sixth year and recognise the diverse contributions of women as leaders, innovators and role models.

DuoFertility, the conception assistance service invented by Hughes PhD students SHAMUS HUSHEER, ORIANE CHAUSIAUX AND LYDIA FERGUSON in 2006, has had a good year: taken on

by Boots pharmacy after appearing on the BBC’s The Next Big Thing; celebrated the 200th pregnancy; and published a paper showing greater effectiveness than IVF for couples with unexplained infertility!

Contact events@hughes.cam.ac.uk for the programme

If you are interested in any of these events please contact events@hughes.cam.ac.uk

HAT CLUB RESEARCH SEMINARS Meets every other Wednesday during term at 8.00pm Contact Mr Nicola Mingotti (nm441@cam.ac.uk) for details

ZIMMERN MEDICAL DINNER 7.00pm, Friday, 18 November, 2011

HUGHES HALL BOOK LAUNCH 6.30pm Friday, 2 December, 2011 Open to all alumni

CHARNLEY LAW DINNER 7.00pm, Friday, 3 February, 2012 Open to Law alumni. Lord Philips, President of the Supreme Court, will be speaking

BOAT CLUB BLACK TIE DINNER 7.00pm, Friday, 9 March, 2012 Open to Boat Club alumni

LONDON ALUMNI REUNION Open to all alumni

ACADEMIC EVENING Wednesday, 25 April, 2012 Open to all alumni One of the successes: Baby Jennifer at the DuoFertility 200th Pregnancy Party at Hughes in September.

Keir says The start of any job is daunting enough; but starting work with 1.5 million people scrutinising your bedside manner is really scary! Throughout the filming, I dealt with some fascinating patients, some equally fascinating colleagues and had an existential crisis about what sort of doctor I would eventually be. In the end I decided to become a paediatrician.

We were sad to learn of the death of Doreen Elizabeth Crothall, née Lansdown (1950, Education). Doreen had a long and productive career as a teacher. She was quite unusual for the time in being a working mother, and managed to carry on teaching while caring for three young children. She joined other young mothers to set up some of the very first playgroups and mother and toddler groups.

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THE MARGARET WILEMAN MUSIC SOCIETY

London, Wednesday, 22 February, 2012

KEIR SHIELS (2005, CGCM, MCR President 2006–2007) appeared in the BBC Three Documentary Junior Doctors in March this year. The Radio Times had, by episode 5, christened him ‘SuperDoc’!

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Events Diary

THE 11th ANNUAL KATHLEEN HUGHES MEMORIAL LECTURE 5.00pm, Monday, 30 April, 2012

COLLEGE RECEPTION Saturday, 23 June, 2012 Save this date for your diary!

New books…

JENNY ROSE (1977, PGCE, MCR President, 1997–1998) has published her book Zoroastrianism: An Introduction with publishers I.B. Tauris, in their Introductions to Religion series.

PARNESH SHARMA (1999, MPhil in Criminology) has turned his PhD thesis into a book, The Human Rights Act and the Assault on Liberty, published by Nottingham University Press.

ASHLEY DARTNELL, the wife of alumnus Bruce Steinberg (1979, BA in English) has recently published Farangi Girl: A Memoir of My Mother, Parties with Princes and Growing Up in Iran, with Two Roads (a new imprint of Hodder and Stoughton).

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Hughes Hall Scholarships Chi Hu PhD, Chemistry Burcu Ozcelik PhD, Politics and International Studies Hughes Hall Bursaries Vanessa Bonsignore PhD, Land Economy Tehmina Hammad PhD, Education Fergis Votis PhD, Law Hughes Hall Santander Bursaries List to be published next issue

Prizes for 2010–2011 E M BURNETT PRIZES FOR FIRST CLASS OR DISTINCTION Andrew Brock Education Stefano Gogioso Mathematics Benjamin Tay Engineering Pierre Caquet History Hong Kin Ng Natural Sciences Jiri Buryan Law Alice Lam Law Marketa Lindnerova Law Nicolas Rennuy Law Fotis Vergis Law Alexander White Law Kate Honnor Medicine Polly Robinson Medicine E M BURNETT PRIZES FOLLOWING A UNIVERSITY PRIZE Chloe Leadbetter PGCE, Charles Fox Memorial Prize Marketa Lindnerova Law, Berwin Leighton Paisner Prize for International Commercial Tax Moa Hoijer ASNC, Wallenberg Prize Kate Honnor Medicine, William Harvey Scholarship Polly Robinson Medicine, Clinical School Prize for Obstetrics & Gynaecology, Roger Morris Prize, John Fawcett Prize, Elective Prize JOHN KENWORTHY PRIZE IN CLASSICS Andrew Brock Actor in Cambridge Greek Play Agamemnon

Help Hughes when you use Amazon Help support Hughes by doing your Amazon shopping through the Hughes Hall website. Just click on the Amazon link on the library web page. A percentage of the purchase price goes to the College, at no cost to you.

Hughes Hall is an associate of amazon.co.uk

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Music Music continues to thrive at Hughes, with concerts of great variety. One of the highlights of the Easter term was the splendid violin concert presented by Nigel Brown OBE, founder of the Stradivari Trust and Honorary Fellow of Hughes, featuring Rebecca Greenstreet. Accompanied by pianist Simon Lane, Rebecca performed Beethoven and Franck on a violin made by Johannes Tononi in the 17th century. Rebecca is hoping to purchase this fine violin through the assistance of the Stradivari Trust, which was created to support musical and literary projects, both in Cambridge and nationally.

Another, very different event, was Ian de Massini’s Ocarina concert. It turned out to be an unexpected but very enjoyable canter through the seemingly vast repertoire of the ocarina in its many ingenious manifestations. Bach it was not, as the President said, but we have come to expect the unexpected from Ian, and this concert did not disappoint.

A highlight this term has been the viola concert featuring Nigel Brown prizewinner, Rosalind Ventris, with accompanist Sophia Rahman. They played a varied programme, including pieces by Milhaud and Bridge, and a beautifully played interpretation of a Brahms sonata. The concert was a prelude to forming a trust – supported by the Stradivari Trust – to purchase a fine viola for Rosalind’s use. The loud applause at the end of the concert indicated unanimous endorsement of this endeavour! Rosalind will repeat the programme in November in recitals at the Purcell Room and Wigmore Hall in London.

Nigel Brown OBE, former City Fellow, with the President and Fellows after his election as an Honorary Fellow of the College.

!he "ay #all The May Ball survivors in grand fettle! The Hughes Hall ball ‘Around the World in 80 days’ was a spectacular evening. With live band performances and a harpist, a magician, ice sculptures, a silent disco, swing boats, dance performers, a chocolate fountain, popcorn and candyfloss, a snake charmer, a beach and a bouncy castle, the entertainment was almost endless. Hughes Hall’s own Rock & Roll band The Maggie Wilemans gave a tremendous performance and it was great to see so many Hughesians on the dance floor!

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Angela and Peter Clifton

List of those Scholarships and Bursaries for 2011–2012 announced to date

What does the Praelector do?

The Praelector is one of the six College Offices prescribed by Statute. Of those six its purpose is perhaps the least obvious.

In origin the word ‘praelector’ means ‘one who reads aloud and expounds upon an author’, but only in the ‘other place’ has the title retained this connection with scholarly endeavour. In Cambridge the Praelector traditionally used to be called the ‘father’ of his College because he was the Master representing the College who, up until the eighteenth century, brought his ‘sons’ to the [Old] Schools for the rituals associated with the passing of the trivium, the precursor of Tripos Examinations. The explanation for the divergence between the customs in the two Universities probably lies in the fact that in at least one Cambridge College the Praelector’s full title is praelector rhetoricus, that is ‘one who expounds aloud in terms calculated to persuade and/or impress’.

Essentially therefore the Praelector’s job has always been the link between the College and the University. He or she signs all the matriculation sheets confirming that the students of the College are qualified to become members of the University.

But by far the most obvious part of the Praelector’s role is presenting members of the College for their degrees in the centuries-old degree ceremony. To do this Praelectors persuade their fellow Regents assembled in full Congregation in the Senate House (look at the words on your degree certificate) to grant their charges’ petitions that they receive their degrees, by pledging that they really are suitable (the Latin word is idoneus, meaning suitability for office in the church, which in ancient times is what a degree meant) tam moribus quam doctrina ‘both by reason of morals and learning’. To speed up the progress, Praelectors present four candidates at a time, each holding one of their outstretched fingers, to emphasise that the Praelector’s oath to the Regents is

valid for each of their ‘sons’ (and now ‘daughters’!). The ViceChancellor, with the assembled Regents looking on, then admits the candidate to their degree, auctoriate mihi commissa, (by the authority entrusted to him or her).

Behind the scenes, however, prior to these ceremonies, a ‘supplicat’ and a certificate that the required number of terms have been kept, have been submitted by the Praelector to the University Registrary. These days supplicats are sent electronically via CAMSIS, the University’s computerised student record system, but up until very recently they were sent in paper form to the Registry where they were kept for posterity (there are  bound volumes of them in the University Archives covering the period –). University Ordinances then prescribe that an hour and a half before the ceremony, the Registrary shall post a list of those for whom a supplicat has been received and whom he or she confirms has done all that is required of them to proceed. In the ensuing half an hour, any individual Regent may object, whereupon the Vice-Chancellor must delete that person’s name.

The motion the Proctors put is that the men and women of Hughes Hall, whose names have been posted by the Registrary and not deleted by the Vice Chancellor, should be granted the degrees for which they have properly applied. The Proctor bows in turn to the Registrary and the Vice-Chancellor, while addressing the assembled Regents.

So, as the present incumbent is wont to say, perhaps slightly irreverently, at Matriculation Dinners, “the pleasure of the job is seeing all the students in at the start of their course – and getting shot of them at the end!”.

Dr Mike Franklin, Praelector of Wolfson College –; Praelector of Hughes Hall since 

Hughes Hall Education Life Fellows Pat Story was the Classics Method Lecturer in the Department of Education,1971–1991. She was an early member of the Cambridge School Classics Project, and its Director, 1987–1996. She pioneered the use of Graded Tests, Worksheet Masters and Independent Learning materials to accompany the Cambridge Latin Course and was Revision Editor for the fourth edition.

John Raffan was University Lecturer in the Faculty of Education, 1976–2004, specialising in science/chemistry education, with research interests in assessment and education–industry links. He worked with PGCE, MPhil and PhD students; was PGCE (secondary) Course Manager; Senior Tutor 1982–2001; and a Vice President, 2003–2007.

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Dr Ann Turner continued her involvement until recently with what is now Cambridge Assessment, becoming Principal Examiner for Overseas English Language and A level English Literature. Currently she teaches Shakespeare: Text, Film and other Media with the University of the Third Age (U3A).

Ken Turner retired from his University post in the late ‘90s but continued to work in European education, directing two major projects: environmental education and developing social competences. He participated in a number of others funded by the European Commission. His current interests include U3A and digital photography.

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The Hughes Hall Education Conference 2012 …is being planned for the fourth week of July, 2012 Education has always been at the heart of Hughes Hall. Indeed, our Education students number almost  out of a total of over  this year, with  PhD,  MEd,  MPhil,  BA and  PGCE students.

from individuals who have been through the school system as teachers and education professionals. t Engage alumni with new research, sharing their experiences and enabling mutual learning.

Ongoing contact with our many education alumni is very important to the College, and we spoke to a number of them during the  Phone Campaign. One of the major ideas to emerge from discussions with alumni during the Phone Campaign was that of a ‘Hughes Hall Education Conference’ which could be held over a couple of days in the early weeks of the summer school vacation period.

If we were to have a series of annual or biennial conferences, we could develop particular themes (for example, leadership in education, transition stages in educational careers) or perhaps operate a number of streams, featuring topics of interest to different attendees, according to the level of attendance.

The conference would act as an alumni reunion and an opportunity for attendees to hear about the latest developments in educational research and to contribute to debates on the leading issues of education practice and research.

Over a series of sessions on the two days we aim to: t Showcase current research in education being undertaken by our doctoral students and fellowship. t Provide an opportunity for our PGCE students to hear

We are currently working on the detailed format and nature of the event and would be delighted to receive input from alumni so as to maximize the benefit to as wide a range of attendees as possible.

If you are interested in attending, helping to organise or have ideas for sessions and subjects you would like to see covered in the Conference, do please get in touch with us at events@hughes.cam.ac.uk or phone Annica Curtis on + () .

Jonathan Taylor, Development Director

Hughes Hall Education Fellows Professor Neil Mercer is a psychologist with particular interests in the development of children’s language and reasoning, classroom dialogue and the use of digital technology in schools, who has worked closely with teachers and researchers in several countries. With colleagues, he developed the Thinking Together approach to talk for learning which has informed the National Strategies for primary and secondary education.

Professor Kenneth Ruthven’s research focusses on the improvement of school mathematics and science education, including the systematic integration of new technologies and the development of teacher expertise. This year his research team is analysing the data collected during a large-scale randomised field-trial aimed at evaluating an innovative classroom intervention designed in the light of current research-based knowledge about effective teaching and learning in these subjects.

Professor Peter Gronn is Head of the Faculty of Education. His major research interests are in the areas of leadership, management, policy and history. Recent research projects have included the preparation, recruitment and selection of headteachers, school leadership standards and a biography of an Australian educational leader. The focus of his current work includes school autonomy, and the recruitment, preparation and career progression of teachers.

Dr Nidhi Singal is a University Lecturer in Inclusive Education. Her research work focusses on investigating the impact on national systems of international discourses in education, particularly in challenging the exclusion of learners belonging to marginalized groups, such as those with disabilities or in minority ethnic groups. She is currently working on new understandings of ‘disability’ in developing economies, informed by a deeper appreciation of the disability and poverty nexus.

News from Hughes: Editor Annemarie Young (annemarie.young@ntlworld.com) Design by Andy Wilson (andy@andywilson.biz) Contact us with your news, by post at: Hughes Hall, Cambridge CB1 2EW; or by email at development@hughes.cam.ac.uk Photos courtesy of Adam Howarth, Angela and Peter Clifton, Ken Turner, Jonathan Taylor and contributors Printed in England

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