A College year: Senior Tutor’s Report; Bursar’s Report; Alumni Association Report; College Chaplain’s Report

A College year

We asked some of our key figures at Mansfield to give us a rundown of the past academic year, and they’ve responded with some highlights of 2021/22.

A return to College life

Helen Lacey, Acting Senior Tutor for 2021/22 and Director of the Visiting Student Programme (VSP)

I write this report in my last week as Acting Senior Tutor, before welcoming back Lucinda Rumsey to her role. Stepping in as Senior Tutor has been a great (if at times hectic) experience. The job has been made much more comprehensible with the guidance of Helen Brooks, our everefficient Registrar. This year we have seen the welcome return to ‘normal’ College life, after all the changes enforced by the pandemic. Our students and staff adjusted remarkably quickly, and it was a joy to meet in-person once again. Mansfield students performed very strongly in Finals and we were content (but not complacent) to see our place in the 2021 Norrington Table rise to 17th. The year ahead will be action-packed as usual, with Lucinda back at the helm. This year we also saw the return of a more normal College experience for our 43 Visiting Students. Yirui Wang, the VSP Representative, organised several great social events, including Thanksgiving Dinner, Chinese New Year Celebrations and a trip to Edinburgh. Some of our VSP alumni have been in touch with their news: Tang Li (2020/21) was accepted on to an MA at Tufts; Anna Ren (2020/21) was offered a graduate place at Oxford and Linh Nguyen (2020/21) is a postgraduate at Cornell. Thais Quiroga Mendoza (2017/18) has worked for the World Health Organisation and is now with the World Bank. We are greatly looking forward to welcoming the VSP class of 2022/23.

New beginnings at Mansfield

Clem Brohier, Bursar

At the end of November 2021, I stepped on to the Quad as the Bursar of Mansfield College for the first time. Since then it has become a familiar and stimulating experience each morning, and I am glad to say this holds true for the rest of my role. I have been warmly welcomed into College life and have very quickly settled into the job. While the pandemic has not completely vanished, it is now possible to better plan for the future. A huge debt of gratitude is owed to the staff, Fellows, and students for their care for each other, their perseverance, and their hard work. We are also now able to attend to the backlog of maintenance projects, which had accumulated over the last few years, making urgent improvements to the College’s older buildings. In addition, we are addressing the most important recommendations of our ‘accessibility audit’, which took place at the beginning of summer.

Alumni action

Daniel Tarry (Geography, 2011), President of the Mansfield College Alumni Association (MCAA)

At the end of the academic year, Mike Walton (MCAA Secretary) and I joined the new Leavers’ Celebration event at Mansfield to welcome the latest graduates into the alumni family and present the 2022 Student of the Year Awards. Congratulations to Bailey Kavanagh (PPE, 2019) and Amirmohammad Farzaneh (DPhil Engineering Science, 2020) for winning the JCR and MCR awards respectively. We look forward to the contribution these new graduates will make to the alumni community. The MCAA plays an ongoing and critical role in representing Mansfield’s alumni body, which now numbers about 5,000 people in the UK and internationally. Our Committee works with the College’s Development and Alumni Relations team to keep alumni connected, communicating, and contributing to College life. We are an increasingly younger and more international group, always keen to welcome new members to ensure we represent a good spread of matriculation years – either to join the Committee or simply to help reconnect alumni via specific events or communications.

Do contact us at MansfieldCollegeAlumniAssociation@outlook.com to find out more.

Voices of protest and nonconformity: a year in the Chapel

Stephen Hearn, College Chaplain

A tiny band began the Chapel year; we finished with large congregations of many faiths and none, our non-auditioning Choir producing magnificent polyphony. It has been a joy to work with Tom Hammond-Davies in creating an inclusive and encouraging environment. Jonathan White and John Oxlade rounded out the music team, bringing our newly refurbished organ wonderfully to life, while student musicians enhanced our services with solo performances. We heard the words of bell hooks, Cornel West, the 17th-century Levellers and many other voices of protest and nonconformity as we reflected on our own vocation to social justice. It has been a privilege to care for this most excellent of colleges, still challenging the University as it did when it was founded to house, celebrate, and further traditions excluded elsewhere. My last act was to baptise the child of two Mansfield alumni, praying that he might become absolutely himself. It is the same prayer I have for all Mansfield people: to discover what it means to be uniquely ourselves, and to find our part in creating a just society.