Bursary

Richard Anthony, Bursar

It was with some trepidation that we started the past academic year. Back in October 2021 uncertainty around COVID-19 was still raging and we were not sure how the Term or the year was going to pan out. Luckily, there were no further lockdowns or major outbreaks, which meant that we were gradually able to ease the restrictions and get back to ‘ normal’ . By Easter Term, there was a distinctly familiar feeling to life, with the first half focused on revision and exams, followed by the exuberance of the Bumps and the May Ball. Of course, for those undergraduates in their final year of a three-year degree, this was their first normal year-end of exams and parties

The restrictions and lockdowns that we experienced during COVID-19 were incredibly challenging for the College. I want to thank all the Fellows and staff for their incredibly hard work at getting the College back on track, something that was clearly appreciated by many of our students. We are conscious of the toll the pandemic has taken on young people in particular, and we have been continually investing in support of them. As part of this we welcomed the College ’ s first Mental Health Nurse, working alongside the rest of our fantastic Tutorial Team, led by Professor Geoff Parks, our Senior Tutor. Geoff is stepping down after 10 years. He is the most dedicated individual at the College, who works tirelessly for the benefit of the students, and has been a fantastic source of advice and support to me.

The financial effect of the pandemic on the College was very significant, much more so than for the University. Fortunately, during the current year students were back in residence which meant that accommodation and catering income recovered. Hardest hit was the College ’ s conferencing business, which almost disappeared during the pandemic. I am delighted to report that Jesus was probably the most proactive College in restoring this key source of revenue and, whilst we are not there yet, I am hoping it will recover and even exceed pre-pandemic levels.

d o n B i n t a r M b y o o t P h

I was pleased to work with the JCSU President on a restructuring of catering and accommodation charges which resulted in the abolition of the Kitchen Fixed Charge (KFC). Many alumni will remember that there is a fixed catering charge to undergraduates. With an increasing range of diets and choice of catering, KFC has become increasingly outdated. From 2022-23, new students will not be charged KFC and we have managed to maintain affordable food prices in the ‘Caff’ .

In October 2021, Jesus became the first institution in the world to return a Benin Bronze. Being the first meant that we had to establish what was an appropriate legal process in handing back such an important object. This involved seeking the formal permission of the Charity Commission and entering into a legal agreement with the Nigerian National Commission for Museums and Monuments and the Royal Court of Benin. The ground-breaking nature of this decision became apparent when I received a phone call from the Department of Culture, Media and Sport on the day of the handover asking me how we had done it.

The other major legal event was the petition to relocate the Rustat memorial, resulting in a three-day court hearing in the College Chapel in February 2022. This involved a significant amount of work in relation to the legal aspects, the operational challenges of organising the hearing (which took place in the Chapel), and in dealing with the media. All at a time when there were still concerns over COVID-19. I want to thank my colleagues and members of staff for the incredible efforts they made to ensure the process ran smoothly, and, whilst we were disappointed with the result, our running of it reflected well on the College and drew plaudits from all those who attended, including the Judge.

A key part of my responsibilities involves managing the endowment to ensure that it provides a constant source of financial income to the College, without which we could not support our students and academics in the way that we do. This became even more important during the pandemic, where the stability of the endowment income helped us to steer the College through the financial challenges. After some fairly extreme volatility in the financial markets at the start of the pandemic, our financial investments performed well with a return of 20.1% for the year ended 30 June 2021. Although some of our investment properties were affected in terms of rental receipts, the College saw substantial rises in the values of its residential and commercial properties. As a result, the return on property was 11.1%, which with the financial investment provided an overall return on the endowment of 15.4%, well above the CPI+5% (7.6%) target that we set.

As part of managing the investment property, we sold an industrial property in Leeds and some land in Cambridge at well above historic valuations. We received planning permission and are now in the process of constructing eight 1-2 bed residential units in Elm Street (just to the south of New Square). The College is also working with a developer to develop a redundant farm site in Harston, and we are investing significantly in one of our major properties on the corner of Hills Road and Station Road. All of these include significant sustainability features, which are now a standard part of our approach to managing our property.

As regards sustainability, we continue to implement the College ’ s Responsible Investment Policy, which is regarded by many in Cambridge as a leader amongst the Colleges. This includes becoming fossil-fuel free in the largest part of the financial portfolio by the end of 2022, and we are working towards establishing a carbon emissions baseline against which we can measure future progress. The College is active in engaging, singularly and jointly with other Colleges and endowments, with its fund managers and banks regarding their own actions on sustainability. Most exciting has

College Income & Expenditure 2020/2021

been the work done in conjunction with the Intellectual Forum on Universal Ownership, bringing together some of the world’ s largest pension funds and the academic expertise available in Cambridge to address key areas of systemic risk that will affect long-term investors. This demonstrates the convening power of Cambridge and Jesus College, and our ability to have an impact that is much greater and well beyond our own operations and investments.

I must return to a regular theme of my annual reports, which is the range of risks and challenges facing the College in terms of maintaining its ability to fund its ongoing operations in the future. There remains a constant and large deficit on the College ’ s educational account, with figures shown above from the last set of published accounts in 2020-21. This was made worse that year by a dramatic drop in revenue for accommodation, catering and conferencing, which in previous years was moving close to covering its costs, a direct consequence of the pandemic.

The previous decade saw significant rises in the financial and property markets from which the College has benefitted and has helped us fund the deficits. During 2022 we have seen financial investments fall in value. This has come at a time when inflation has risen rapidly impacting on staff, energy and food costs in particular, whilst many of our sources of revenue are either static (undergraduate tuition fees) or increasing at a lower rate (for example student accommodation). Now more than ever, donations and endowment income are the key to maintaining the College ’ s services today and in the future.

Some of the staff members who received long-service awards this year

One of the more pleasurable duties of my position is to write to members of staff, who have been given long-service awards:

Ten years

Mandy Collis – Housekeeping

Ian Gilchrist – Porters ’ Lodge

Sue Jermakow – Housekeeping

June Sadler – Housekeeping

Joana Vilemaite – Housekeeping

Nikki Williams – Development and Alumni Relations

Fifteen years

Xiao Yan Liu – Housekeeping Nicola Simpson – Catering Renata Szarfranska – Housekeeping Malcolm ‘Toby ’ Wingfield – Maintenance

Twenty years

John Baker – IT Damian Kramer – IT n