Inside this Issue Daring to be Different
f
mans ield
Q&A with New Principal, Helena Kennedy
125th Anniversary Celebrations Photographs and Reflections
Living the Blues
Rajiv Sharma on Captaining OUCC
Winter 2012
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Contents
credits
News
4-8
Q&A with New Principal Helena Kennedy
10-11
125th Anniversary
12-15
Annual Reports
16-21
Student Life
22-27
Student Articles
28-31
Focus
32-33
Visiting Student Programme
34-37
Alumni Articles
38-43
Alumni Events
45-46
Alumni News
47
Obituaries
49
Fellows’ Research and Publications
50-51
2011 Exam Results
52-53
2011 Academic Awards
54
2012 Events Calendar
55
Editors Design
Paul Lodge Bob Trafford Philip Kennedy Keiko Ikeuchi (www.keikoikeuchi.co.uk)
Photography Mike Rudge (email: mike.rudge@gmail.com) Cover Keiko Ikeuchi (www.keikoikeuchi.co.uk) pp 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 (top), 11, 12, 13 (except left), 14, 16, 17, 18, 20, 21 (bottom), 22, 24, 25, 26, 34, 35, 37, 43, 46 (bottom), 47 (right), 52, 53, 54, 55, Back Cover Shutterstock (www.shutterstock.com) pp 29, 33 (right), 36 (top), 45 Supplied by authors pp 13, 15, 19 (top, bottom), 21 (top), 33 (top, bottom), 27, 31, 33 (left), 38, 39, 40, 41, 44, 46 (middle), 47 (top, middle), 49, 50, 51 Acknowledgements The editors would like to thank all those who have contributed to this year’s magazine. Special gratitude is due to the following people for their help in bringing it to publication:
Contact Alumni Relations Officer Mansfield College Mansfield Road, Oxford OX1 3TF
Ros Ballaster Michael Burman (Chemistry, 1962) Justin B. Jacobs Michèle Mendelssohn Lucinda Rumsey
TEL +44(0)1865 270998 FAX +44(0)1865 270970 Email: alumni.officer@mansfield.ox.ac.uk
Printed by FE Burman (www.feburman.co.uk)
www.mansfield.ox.ac.uk
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welcome
From the Principal
W
elcome to the latest edition of the Mansfield Magazine. I hope it gives you some flavour of what has been happening at the College and reminds you of why it is such a special place.
It has been a great privilege to take on the role of Principal and my first term has been very enjoyable. My starting priority was to learn about the College, absorb its ethos and spirit, and create a clarity about its place within the wider university. Mansfield has unique qualities and it should be able to declare itself proudly as equal but different. I have started by inventing as many opportunities as possible to engage with the students and Fellows and to bring the outside world in. The Friday Lecture Series has been a great success and we hope to embed it as a part of Mansfield life. Hearing from people from a broad swathe of the professions and public life is a constant reminder that education has greater purposes. The College is embarking on a period of transformation. We expect the building of new kitchens to commence this year and new student accommodation as soon thereafter as is possible. It is also planned that Mansfield will become home to the Oxford Centre of Brazilian Studies, which will be a really exciting development given the advances being made in that part of Latin America. Mansfield is beautiful. One of the things which inspires our students is living in such a heavenly place. But its fine Victorian Neo-Gothic structures are fraying at the edges. To repair and preserve the buildings for future generations of students involves a stewardship which comes at a cost. Any change is a challenge for an institution with a history. This means reaching out to our friends and alumni for advice and support. I hope you will think of ways of helping us to make it all happen.
‘
Mansfield has unique qualities and it should be able to declare itself proudly as equal but different.
’
Baroness Helena Kennedy QC
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news
2011 Norrington Table Success Although the performance of our undergraduates has always been very good, in the past few years we have languished near the bottom of the Norrington Table. This year we shot up to twelfth equal. This was our best performance ever and placed us alongside University College and several places above Balliol. Relative positions on the table indicate only small differences in the overall distribution of degree classes, but we are, of course, much happier to say that from the top third of the table! (See pages 52-53 for a full list of examination results).
State Sector Offers Top 80% Mansfield is well-known for its record of success in widening participation to Oxford, and for eight out of the last ten years we have been the college making the highest or second highest number of offers to state sector students. However, Mansfield’s number of state sector offers has risen significantly in the past two years. In 2010 we made more than 85% state sector offers and in 2011 around 80% (with the University average around 56%). Other colleges with high state school entry rates in recent years have been Wadham, Hertford, Balliol, St John’s and Merton.
Brimelow Prize Awarded to Helene Jones Alison Brimelow has recently established a prize for women students studying sciences at Mansfield. We are pleased to announce that the first winner is Helene Jones (Materials Science, 2009). Helene told us: ‘I feel very privileged to have been awarded the Brimelow Prize. I am currently in my fourth year, which is quite different to previous ones since I have to undertake a nine month research project. I am doing this as part of Jason Smith’s photonics nanocrystal group, and I am really enjoying working within a team on something for which I feel genuine ownership.’
Helene with Jason Smith in the lab.
Sporting Triumphs 2010-11 may well go down in history as the most successful sporting year for the College (please do write to tell us if we are already wrong about this!). MertonMansfield Football finished runaway champions of the JCR Premier Division and reached the semi-final of the Cup, and Merton-Mansfield Cricket Club 1st XI retained the University League title. Not to be left out, MCBC’s Women reached 5th in Division 2 in Torpids, the highest place ever attained by a Mansfield crewe. (For more details, see pages 22-24).
Honorary Fellows A ceremony was held on Friday of 8th week in Michaelmas Term to elect formally two Honorary Fellows, Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty and a former Hands Lecturer, and our Director of Music, John Oxlade. We will be introducing two new Honorary Fellows in Hilary Term: Lord Justice Stephen Sedley, who has just retired from the Court of Appeal, and the eminent QC, Ben Emmerson, who has just been appointed Special Rapporteur to the United Nations on Counter Terrorism and who will base his UN office at Mansfield.
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news
The Mansfield Lecture Series In Michaelmas 2011 our new Principal introduced a fantastic array of speakers to Mansfield’s Chapel on Friday evenings as part of the newly created Mansfield Lecture Series. Helena created the series to bring exciting speakers to College – not only so that we heard from them but so that they also learned more about us. Visitors included: politician Baroness Shirley Williams; author Nawal al Sadawi, who was a leading voice in the Arab Spring in Egypt; broadcaster Jon Snow; filmaker Roger Graef; human rights campaigner Bianca Jagger; and comedian Sandi Toksvig. Most weeks there was standing room only as Mansfield students and people from all around the University came together to listen to talks on a fascinating array of topics. The Lecture Series continues in Hilary Term 2012.
Hilary Term 2012 Talks begin at 5pm on Fridays of Weeks 2-8 in the Chapel. Alumni are most welcome. 27th January David Marquand Political writer and historian; Principal of Mansfield College 1996-2002. 3rd February Victoria Brittain Former associate foreign editor of The Guardian; Research Associate of the London School of Economics. 10th February Owen Jones Author and commentator whose book Chavs: The Demonisation of the Working Class was long-listed for the Guardian First Book Award. 17th February Hisham Matar Author whose novel In the Country of Men was shortlisted for the 2006 Man Booker Prize. This book has been read by the student body of Mansfield College as part of a project involving Mansfield and the Booker Prize Foundation. 24th February David Edgar Internationally renowned playwright and author whose play Written on the Heart has just premiered at the RSC, Stratford. 2nd March Caroline Lucas, MP Leader of the Green Party and MP for Brighton Pavilion; MEP for South East of England 1999-2010. 9th March Lord (Roy) Hattersley Former Cabinet Minister, author and journalist.
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news
FondFarewells In 2011 Mansfield said goodbye to three people who have been at the heart of Mansfield for a combined total of three quarters of a century. They will be very sadly missed.
Diana Walford
A
fter nine years as Principal, during which Mansfield has gone from strength to strength, Dr Diana Walford retired in June 2011.
is that her building project will be consummated under her successor’s leadership, providing Mansfield with a significant and sustainable income.
The College celebrated by holding a farewell garden party at the end of June, in the company of the Vice Chancellor, Andrew Hamilton, and many other Oxford luminaries. The occasion also saw the unveiling of Diana’s portrait, which now hangs in the dining hall.
What makes me proud of Mansfield is that it is a college for students of all backgrounds. It has always distinguished itself through its openness and diversity, and this has been something dear to Diana’s heart. Diana has driven our Access programme throughout her tenure and has built tremendously on the College’s reputation, laying great foundations for the next ten years. She has also been brilliant not only at getting alumni to re-engage with the College but also at attracting some very interesting visitors, not least of whom is President Jimmy Carter, now an Honorary Fellow.
Alumni gathered to celebrate Diana’s time at Mansfield at a drinks reception in London in early July, where Development Board member and Bancroft Fellow, Paul Ruddock (Law, 1977), paid the following tribute:
‘
Over the last decade Diana has built tremendously on the College’s reputation and has laid great
’
foundations for the next ten years.
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‘We are all here tonight to celebrate Diana, and the end of her nine years of hard work as Principal of Mansfield. It is the end of a great decade for the College. Ten years ago Mansfield was in a precarious financial position, and whilst today we are not in the position of Christ Church or St John’s, it is fair to say that the College, thanks to Diana’s unceasing efforts, is probably on the soundest financial footing in a generation. But there is much still to do and I know that one of Diana’s hopes
Diana has been an inspirational force, a tireless advocate for Mansfield, and I am sure that her next venture will be a huge beneficiary of this wonderful energy. Diana, we wish you the very best of luck and continued success in your future endeavours.’
Michael Freeden
M
ichael came to Mansfield in 1978 as our first Politics Fellow and has been one of the most important and influential figures in the recent history of the College. He had studied for his DPhil at St Antony’s from 1969-72, and returned to Oxford after a spell as a lecturer at the University of Haifa in Israel. When Michael arrived, Philosophy, Politics and Economics was in its infancy at Mansfield with around four students per year. Michael was our only PPE tutor and found himself with what he has described as the ‘terrifying responsibility’ for organizing tuition for all three subjects. Under his careful, if terrified, watch, PPE flourished and grew and, with the addition of History and Politics, the College now has around ten Politics undergraduates in each year. Aside from being a tireless and hugely admired College tutor, Michael has had a distinguished career as a researcher. His early books The New Liberalism: An Ideology of Social Reform (Oxford, 1978) and Liberalism Divided: A Study in British Political Thought 1914-1939 (Oxford, 1986) established him as the pre-eminent historian of British Liberalism. More recently, he has done ground-breaking theoretical work, developing a novel framework for the study of political ideologies in his 1996 book Ideologies
and Political Theory (Oxford, 1996). He founded (and still edits) the Journal of Political Ideologies and established the Centre for Political Ideologies at the Oxford Department of Politics and International Relations. And he has brought his ideas to a wider readership by contributing the volume Ideology to the popular Oxford University Press series Very Short Introductions. Michael’s research is soon to be recognized through the publication of a collection of new essays discussing his work, Liberalism as Ideology: Essays in Honour of Michael Freeden. The book is edited by two of Michael’s former graduate students, Ben Jackson and Marc Steers, both of whom are now Fellows of University College. Michael was the deserving recipient of two retirement dinners. The first (joint with Librarian Alma Jenner) was a little early, at the end of Trinity Term, and attended by senior members of the College; at the second, in October, were Michael’s students past and present. Dorron Otter (PPE, 1977), one of Michael’s first students, attended the October dinner and offered this tribute: ‘Oxford was at its glorious best on a golden sunny evening in October as
I walked to my hotel to meet up with my longstanding College friend Indra Bhose (PPE, 1977). We had been in the first cohort of four students admitted by Mansfield to read PPE and were returning to attend Michael Freeden’s retirement dinner in college. Indra and I matriculated in 1977 and spent a frenetic if slightly chaotic year steering the course through Prelims. Michael’s arrival as Mansfield’s first Politics Fellow provided us with a calm and re-assuring steer as well as encouraging us to adopt a more applied focus to our studies! It was great to see Michael surrounded by successive generations of former students and I think all present will agree that the atmosphere of the evening reflected the affection and respect that we all have for the opportunity that we had to study at Mansfield and for his contribution to our experience. It was a particular honour for Indra and myself to be sitting next to Michael and share with him his thoughts about the changing face of Oxford over the last thirty-three years. Not surprisingly, Michael’s plans for retirement do not exactly sound as if he will be hanging up his thinking cap and keyboard, and on behalf of all those present I would once again like to wish him well for that future.’
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news
Alma Jenner
A
lma retired in 2011 after thirty- five years service to the College, twenty-nine of which were as College Librarian. In times when many college libraries came to look as untidy as students’ and tutors’ rooms, Alma’s tireless efforts and loving devotion has ensured that Mansfield’s library preserved its stunning beauty. However, library provision did not stand still under her watchful eye. Indeed, she skillfully oversaw a period of unprecedented modernisation to meet the needs of an
expanding and technologically advancing College population. The fruits of these labours included two additional and handsomely furnished rooms (the Theology and Law libraries), the computerisation of the library catalogue, and the creation of a College archive with official records and a host of photographs, many of which she digitised for the 125th Anniversary Book during her final months in post. Alma was honoured by the College at a retirement dinner at the end of Trinity Term.
Other Arrivals and Departures Irreplaceable though they are, Michael and Alma have been succeeded. David Leopold, a political theorist who specialises, among other things, in the work of Karl Marx is our new Tutorial Fellow in Politics. Sally Jones, formerly Assistant Librarian at St Catherine’s College, is our new College Librarian. In September, the College Office said goodbye to Admissions and Tutorial Administrator Lotty Spurrell (English, 2006), who is going back to university to undertake a Master’s in Creative Advertising. Jenny Medland, a recent graduate of St Catherine’s College, has arrived to take up this position.
Clockwise from top left: Sally Jones, Jenny Medland, Justin B. Jacobs, Karen Cowley, Bob Trafford.
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There were also some changes in the Alumni and Development Office. Development Director Susannah Forkun has left Mansfield to spend more time with her young family, whilst Kathryn Davies and Helen Popescu have moved on to London and St Hugh’s College respectively. They have been replaced by Justin B. Jacobs, formerly of the Development Offices at King’s College, Cambridge and Magdalen and Jesus Colleges, Oxford, and Bob Trafford, a recent graduate from Jesus College. Karen Cowley has also joined the College in a part-time capacity to work in development and to manage conference visits.
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Q&A
DaringtoBe
Different Alumni Relations Officer Bob Trafford talks to our new Principal about what drew her to Mansfield and her hopes for the future of the College.
Q To start with: How are you settling in? A I have had a wonderful first term and feel very much at home at Mansfield. This is largely because Mansfield has been so welcoming. It is not at all stuffy; its size makes it possible to know almost everyone very quickly; the Fellows and staff are fantastic; and the students are a delight – clever, full of curiosity and funny. Altogether it has been a great start – though I did get freshers’ flu, the dreaded lurgy that hits most newcomers and stole my voice for almost two weeks!
Q The big question: Why Mansfield?
A I was drawn to Mansfield because of its ethos – equality, non-discrimination, justice, mutual respect, liberalism, dissent. The thread that runs through all
my work in law and in public service is social justice. I am often teased that I have become part of the British Establishment – the Bar, the House of Lords and Oxford are hardly known for their radicalism. However, although I am immersed in these great institutions, I like to keep one foot out. I think it is important not to go native and lose the ability to see these grand bastions in a clear light. Mansfield College has academics and students as brilliant as in the rest of Oxford: some more so. Our alumni are as successful. However, our history as a college, providing education for students who refused to conform, who refused to sign up to the articles of faith required by the rest of Oxford, appeals to me. I like people to stand up and be counted. Those non-conformist origins have seeped into the stones of Mansfield and have meant
that modern Mansfield has kept its gates wide open. Our student body is therefore highly representative of our wider society and our commitment to access is second to none. Mansfield is also open to new ideas and doing things in more open ways. Our motto should be: ‘Daring to Be Different’.
Q Is there anything about Mansfield that has surprised you?
A The surprise was that within weeks I felt I belonged and started saying ‘we’ and ‘us’ as though I had been here forever. I think Oxford colleges summon up immense loyalty in their students and Fellows; Mansfield imbues this commitment even more because it is so intimate, because it is so unaffected, and because its history makes it different. Difference is a great bonding mechanism.
Q You were the Chancellor of Oxford Brookes between 1994 and 2001. How do you see your role at Mansfield as compared to your role at Brookes?
A When I became the first Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University in 1994, it had just become a university, having been a very successful polytechnic, and we took it to the top of the League Tables of the new universities. This was my first taste of an educational institution and I loved it. I was there for seven years and then became President of the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at London University, where I remained for ten years. That is an amazing place – probably the most multicultural college in the world. Both were largely ceremonial and ambassadorial roles, whereas being Principal at Mansfield involves a deeper engagement. Here I am in both a leadership and chairing position; it is much more hands on. Q What are your aspirations for Mansfield?
‘
I want Mansfield to have a crisper identity as the
’
A I want Mansfield to have a crisper identity as the college that is different, and for there to be a proud self-confidence about being different. I want it to be loudly serenaded as the place where academic excellence lives comfortably alongside genuine equal opportunity and wider access, where education
is embraced in its widest sense, and where depth of knowledge and scholarship are not discomfited by the shock of the new. I want ‘Why?’ to be our byword in everything we do – in Scotland that was called ‘developing the democratic intellect.’ Democracies and workplaces need people who question the verities. Leadership requires fresh thinkers and Mansfield has to be in the business of producing leaders in every field of endeavour. I like certain traditions and a bit of ritual but some of it can operate like treacle underfoot. We have to know the difference. I want being at Mansfield to be fun for everyone as well as demanding. I want us to be compassionate and highly competitive. I want our students to know what makes the world tick and to be determined that when they finish they will go out there and make a difference.
Q Do you have any special message for Mansfield’s alumni? Mansfield’s current students?
A I want the experience of being a Mansfield student at Oxford to be the best – not the richest or most indulged but the best. I want our alumni to stay involved. And I want our students to leave Mansfield saying that it changed their lives.
college that is different.
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125th anniversary
Accessto 125 years of
Excellence
In 2011 the College celebrated its 125th Anniversary. We commemorated this milestone by organizing four events for our alumni and friends and commissioning Mansfield: Portrait of an Oxford College, which will be published in 2012.
The Mega-Bop The Mega-Bop in March gave our more recent graduates the opportunity to dress up in costume and relive this quintessential social event in the company of current students. Tracy Baker (Maths, 1998) lived to tell the tale: ‘It was always the bops that were the highlight of any term during my time at Mansfield – dancing around your handbag to cheesy music – so whilst I’ve had one or two trips back to College since I graduated, when I saw the invite to the Mega-Bop I couldn’t resist! The first surprise of the evening was that bops now start at 9pm – I’m sure it was much earlier in our day! We soon settled back into the lavishly deckedout JCR, and, later on, experienced a real first, dancing in the chapel! It was great to catch up with old friends (there was a fantastic turn out from the girls of the 1998 matriculation), and we also got to chat to some of the current students over a hog roast, and compare our experiences of Mansfield. A very enjoyable evening, and hopefully something that can be repeated in the future!’
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125th anniversary
Mansfield in Manhattan
Family Fun Day
In April we held a special 125th Anniversary Reception in New York, which included talks by Professor Michael Freeden, and Alumnus and Development Board Chair Guy Hands. A good time was had by all, as two of those present report:
Current students welcomed our alumni, current academics and staff and their children (in some cases, grandchildren) to College for family fun in May.
Jason Klein (Law, 1988)
Becky Friedman (VSP, 2008)
New York-based alumni came out to support Mansfield, to spend time with friends old and new, and to learn from the beloved Professor Michael Freeden. Diana Walford welcomed former students and friends, all of whom appreciated the opportunity to reconnect meaningfully with the College in the University’s North American offices. Though far from the College geographically, Mansfield’s US-based alumni and friends across multiple generations are close in spirit.
The lecture and drinks reception at the University’s North American Offices presented an opportunity to re-connect with New York alumni and to get to know Mansfield students from previous years. It was exciting to recall favourite spots on High Street, the Bodleian Library, or Cowley House with people who left years ago but share the same fondness for time spent at Mansfield.
Following Diana’s opening words, University ViceChancellor Professor Andrew Hamilton shared warm remarks, noting Mansfield’s uniqueness. Professor Freeden lectured on ‘That Thing Called Politics’, evidencing the intellectual leadership of the faculty and reminding us to appreciate the impact that it has had on our academic and personal development. The evening ended with thoughts shared by Guy Hands, who spoke eloquently, and further emphasised the connection between Mansfield and its alumni. The event was by all accounts a resounding success, leaving one question prominent in the minds of those who attended: ‘When’s the next one?’
One of the greatest benefits of the night, though, was the intellectual engagement fostered by Profesor Freeden’s lecture. Listening to him talk reminded me of the conversations I used to have with tutors while studying at Mansfield and the kind of thinking they inspired. Tutorials are what I miss most about the academic life I experienced during my ‘junior year abroad’, and it was genuinely refreshing to engage in that kind of discourse, even though I no longer inhabit the quintessential scholarly environment that typifies Oxford life. The event was a wonderful way to mark 125 years, and a fitting prelude to Mansfield’s future. I hope this is one of many more to come!
Paul Jackson (Geography, 1992) was among those who came: ‘Mansfield’s 2011 Family Fun Day was a terrific success. The college provided picnic blankets, allowing everyone to enjoy a hog roast in the quad, and the heartier souls (who planned better for the weather than my Californian wife) successfully stuck it out. The rest of us enjoyed lunch in the warm and dry Chapel. After lunch, the skies cleared and the college pulled out all the stops for the kids: the current students were fantastic with the little ones, painting their faces and playing twister, whilst the big kids got stuck into some very competitive croquet. There was a full sports day agenda: egg and spoon races, sprinting and a bean bag race, and – most importantly – everyone got prizes. A real highlight was meeting the angelic little offspring of friends who we still remember for their lessthan-angelic behaviour at College – we are very much looking forward to next year’s outing!’
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125th anniversary
The Gala Dinner The final event of the year, in late June, was our 125th Anniversary Gala Dinner and Auction accompanied by music from Opera Interludes (www.operainterludes.co.uk). Assisted by professional auctioneer Simon Pott, the College raised over £70,000 through the kind generosity of those who provided lots and those who bid. Lots ranged from medical assessments to Old Bailey visits to Varsity Match hospitality tickets to luxury holidays in Thailand and Tuscany, and were snapped up by those in attendance. Attendees were also treated to a sneak preview of the portrait of Principal Diana Walford. One of the succesful bidders, Jonathan Steinberg (History, 1988), won the opportunity to take a tennis lesson from former UK number one Katie O’Brien. For more on his day, see the facing page.
Mansfield Portrait of an Oxford College Editors: Stephen Blundell and Michael Freeden Photography by Keiko Ikeuchi Published by Third Millenium Ltd.
From various perspectives, this book tells the interwoven stories of Mansfield’s past and present, its extraordinary growth and development. It will feature stunning new photographs by Keiko Ikeuchi, as well as never-before published pictures from Mansfield’s archive.
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A Day with Katie O’Brien Jonathan Steinberg (History, 1988) tells us about the fruits of his Gala Dinner bidding success.
I
was thrilled to be the winning bidder on an hour of tennis with former British number one woman’s player Katie O’Brien.
My family and I, at Katie’s invitation, travelled on a windy mid-September Saturday to the National Tennis Centre in Roehampton, London. This site, where Britain’s top professional and youth players train, was a wonderful and impressive place to host what would be a unique opportunity to hit the court with one of this country’s recent best. Katie met us – my wife Elizabeth Barrekette plus my children Erin (8) and Sam (6) – in the lobby and immediately asked what type of court we would prefer. The centre has grass, clay and hard surfaces including indoor courts. We opted for fresh air and a hard court, and within minutes the covers were off and the balls were flying all over the place … sometimes even in bounds.
Photos: Jonathan Steinberg
Katie was lovely, giving each family member one-on-one time with the former World Top 100 star. We all had some good rallies and, in my case, a chance to return some professional serves, with Katie showing great charm and patience with her not-soadvanced playing partners. Afterwards Katie gave us a full tour of the site including the various indoor and outdoor courts as well as some of the other facilities. We then treated Katie to lunch in the centre’s rather good café, learning more about Katie’s life as a tennis pro and enjoying her stories about a now unfortunately completed career. The auction was an excellent event, and our winning bid provided us even more pleasure than we could have hoped. As the saying goes, a good time was had by all … and all for the benefit of Mansfield.
‘
As the saying goes, a good time was had by all … and all for the benefit of Mansfield.
’
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annual reports
bursar’s report Steve Waterman
N
ot only was 2011 Mansfield’s 125th anniversary, but also (a lesser known fact) the year that we stopped being an ‘exempt’ charity. On 20th September, in line with all other Oxford colleges, Mansfield became a full-blown charity. This means that our 2010-11 accounts will be presented in a new and revised format so that we can now be monitored by the Charity Commission. The last time we changed our form of accounts was in 2003. With other milestones having just passed (a new
16
Principal), or nearly upon us (the tuition fee rise), I thought it might be interesting to take from the accounts just a few key figures [below] to highlight some of the finance-related changes that have happened to Mansfield over the last seven financial years. The story is one of quite remarkable change. There has been an almost 50% increase in income and a doubling in the size of endowment (although the more recent figures will unfortunately show that what goes up can also go down). Within the overall total, the individual
2002-03
2009-2010
Income
£2.7m
£4.25m
Expenditure
£2.8m
£3.7m
Deficit/Surplus
£100k
£545k
HEFCE Grant and Fees
£1.1m
£1.6m
Endowment Total
£5.1m
£10m
Residential Income
£527k
£902k
Conference Income
£291k
£527k
Grants and Donations
£279k
£706k
Total Net Assets
£8.4m
£15m
Staff Cost
£1.7m
£2.3m
figures also illustrate to some extent how the internal economics of Mansfield have changed and I am sure will continue to do so. The amount received from fee income and government grants as a percentage of income has been slowly declining, to be replaced by significant increases in conference income and rents and charges. The increase in support from alumni has not only been impressive but also crucial, with the 2009-10 donations ‘snapshot’ at almost three times the 2002-03 amount. Staff cost as a proportion of expenditure has remained steady at around the 60% mark. One particular irony of the last few years, and possibly the next few, is that not having such a reliance on dividend income from investments in comparison with our income from ‘trading’ has actually given us a slight edge in the current economic climate. What is not shown by these figures is the growth in the amount of student accommodation provided by the College, the significant increase in expenditure on student bursaries, and the improvements to College facilities that have taken place, especially in relation to IT and refurbished rooms. Mansfield will never be among the wealthiest of Oxford colleges, at least not for a few centuries. But it is encouraging to see how it continues to respond well to the changing financial circumstances presented to it in order to deliver its academic mission. The next seven years will bring many further financial and other challenges, particularly from the yet unknown detailed implications for higher education generally, and Mansfield in particular, of the move from public purse funding to student fees. But there is every reason to believe that Mansfield will continue to respond well to whatever these may be.
annual reports
Senior Tutor’s Report Lucinda Rumsey
I
n 2011 Mansfield came twelfth in the Norrington Table. It is particularly pleasing to see that we reached this position with our students achieving firsts across such a wide range of subjects. There was one first in Engineering, one in Engineering, Economics and Management, one in Human Sciences, two in Maths, one in Maths and Statistics, one in Materials, one in Physics, two in English, one in Geography, one in History, two in PPE, one in Theology, and, perhaps most impressively, all three of our finalists in the joint school of History and English were awarded first class degrees.
award our first Teach First bursaries this year, supporting our finalists taking this route into teaching. It was also good to see some of our former students who are now teachers coming back to Mansfield with their pupils, encouraging the next generation to apply to Oxford.
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University prizes went to Mansfield students in English, History and Theology. In addition, of last year’s first year students, twenty were awarded scholarships and exhibitions, including one of our students in Physics, David MacDougal, who was awarded the best Prelims result in Physics across the whole university. Our graduates have also done particularly well, with eight distinctions this year. Among the very varied careers into which our students go after finishing their degrees, we have noticed a particular interest in careers in teaching. Five of our recent graduates are training with Teach First, which recruits graduates to work in challenging schools, and we were very pleased to
This year’s success seems an appropriate finale for our outgoing Principal, Diana Walford, who was very proud of our students’ achievements.
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You will have heard of the rise in fees for students coming to Oxford, from £3000 a year to £9000. The budget for higher education has been fiercely cut and most of the new fee will be used to cover those losses in funding. However, allowing Oxford to charge the higher fee is dependent on the University working to widen participation to Oxford. Mansfield is already making a significant contribution to these access targets. For many years we have been one of the colleges with a significantly higher than average state intake, around 65% when the all college average is about 55%.
This year, of our offers to UK candidates, more than 80% were from the state sector, which is a great testimony to our access work. Central to our access work is outreach. As well as our ongoing work with the Further Education sector we have run about forty events for schools, working with students from year 9 to year 12 along with their teachers, particularly schools in the East Riding of Yorkshire, Hull, Bromley, and Croydon. Activities give a taste of the courses we offer, and range from handling hissing cockroaches in the Museum of Natural History to learning to read Old English poetry. We are very grateful to those donors who help fund our work and who give financial support to our current students; including Sarah and Peter Harkness who have established a bursary and prize for Mansfield students from Yorkshire and the North East of England; and Alison Brimelow who has donated to our access work, and established a prize for women students studying sciences at Mansfield. This year’s successes are an appropriate finale for our outgoing Principal, Diana Walford, who was very proud of our students’ achievements and supportive of our access work. It also strikes a perfect note on which to welcome in our new Principal, Helena Kennedy.
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Annual Reports
development report Justin B. Jacobs, Development Officer
125th Anniversary Campaign
Alumni Events
Looking to the Past and Future
I am happy to write that the College has just completed a very significant and successful 125th Anniversary Campaign that was launched in 2007. Soon we will be producing a Campaign Report explaining how the generosity of our alumni and friends has helped us overcome some of the challenges associated with being one of Oxford’s newest and smallest colleges. In total, just over 375 people, or around 10% of our alumni, made a contribution to the Campaign, and membership in our Patrons, Mansfield 500 and Supporter giving clubs continues to increase. We are also delighted to see so many of our initial Campaign Supporters help us build on this momentum by renewing their original pledges for another four years.
The 125th Anniversary Campaign has been about more than just fundraising, however, and thanks to a variety of alumni events, in Oxford and beyond, we’ve been able to reconnect with many alumni with whom we had lost touch and welcome back many others.
Let me close by mentioning something that the College and Development Office intend to focus on more over the next few years: protecting and refurbishing the fabric of our wonderful buildings. The 125th Anniversary gave us reason to pause and take stock of the progress we have made, first as a theological college, then as a Permanent Private Hall, and now as one of Oxford’s newest colleges. This wonderful heritage is all around us and it is essential that we do what we can to preserve it so that future generations of students and visitors continue to get a sense of where Mansfield has come from.
Of particular note during our Anniversary year was the success of the Gala Dinner and Auction, which raised over £70,000 for Mansfield’s Annual Fund thanks to the generosity of both friends and alumni of the College. Further, this year’s Telethon demonstrated the willingness of the wider Mansfield alumni community to get involved as well: 2011 was our most successful Telethon yet, with nearly £36,000 pledged over two weeks and £18,000 pledged in matched funding beforehand.
As you have already seen on the previous pages, 2011 was a particularly busy and exciting year for us in Alumni Relations and this has emboldened us to aim higher in 2012. Taking on board your feedback, we will be putting on events that we hope will appeal to as many of our alumni as possible: We plan to reintroduce year-group Gaudies, host subject-specific lectures and dinners, and arrange a few sports events at which alumni will play against or alongside current Mansfield students. We also hope you will feel free to visit the College in your own time to show friends and family around or to join a former tutor for dinner at High Table. Starting this past year, some of our alumni have also used their visits back to Mansfield to meet with students, and indeed we would encourage you to follow in their footsteps and come back to College and speak about your post-Mansfield career.
2011 Leavers’ Gift Mansfield’s newest group of alumni, the 2011 Leavers, have already given some thought to how they might like to spend their time back in Oxford. Over 100 undergraduates, graduates and Visiting Students donated £10 each towards the purchase of a College punt. We are currently in discussions with the river-based colleges about mooring arrangements and hope to have the punt available for use by students and alumni by this summer. Relishing a challenge, I am also pleased to say that the 2012 Leavers have already started to think about what their own Gift to Mansfield will be.
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This autumn we began applying to trusts to begin carrying out muchneeded restoration and repair work on the Chapel roof and our original Vowles organ. We have also begun to identify other priorities, which include: replacing the benches in the Quad with replicas of the originals, restoring the fixtures and fittings throughout the Main Building, framing and displaying parts of the College’s photographic archive and – perhaps the grandest and most ambitious of them all – looking into replacing the four gas lamps that illuminated the Quad for so many of our earliest students and visitors. Mansfield is a beautiful place to study and, indeed, a beautiful place to work. Generating support for these areas will help us ensure it stays that way. It is often said that Mansfield has a strong sense of community, perhaps the strongest in Oxford. Since my arrival in March, this has undoubtedly been my experience as well. I look forward to meeting many more of you in the months ahead and hearing about your time here, and if you happen to find yourself back in College please feel free to drop in to the Development Office to say hello – our door is always open.
September 2011
Telethon Andrew Grey (Theology, 2009)
Like most of Mansfield’s Telethon team I have never liked the idea of cold calling, and asking for money is not my idea of fun. Indeed, I can’t imagine many jobs I’d be less suited to than telesales.
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Luckily, participating in the Telethon was nothing like working in a call centre. Whilst the telesales rep is usually obliged to speak to people with whom they have no connection and about whom they know nothing except their telephone number, a caller in the annual Mansfield Telethon phones someone with whom they share the benefit of an education at Mansfield, and, in some cases, a passion for the same subject. Indeed, the Telethon is not just about raising money. The most enjoyable part is, without doubt, sharing experiences with alumni, hearing about Mansfield’s past and discussing Mansfield’s future.
The most enjoyable part is, without doubt, sharing experiences with alumni, hearing about Mansfield’s past and discussing Mansfield’s future.
Why I Donate to Mansfield
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As students at Mansfield we always had a sense that we were the underdogs and that when it came to representing our college we would do everything (and anything!) to get it on the map. Thankfully Mansfield has a knack for punching above its weight on all fronts, most recently securing a competitive place on the revered Norrington Table.
Andrew Walker (Geography, 2001)
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n leaving Oxford I could not escape the fact that I was forever indebted to a tremendous institution, but most of all to my beloved college, Mansfield. When I talk to people about my time spent amongst the dreaming spires I cannot help but advocate the virtues of our little college. I am the first to admit that I did not specifically apply to Mansfield, but knowing what I do now I would always recommend it to Oxbridge applicants, and would not have entertained the thought of a certain neoGothic college on Parks Road!
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I cannot help but advocate the virtues of our little college.
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We all know that Mansfield operates on a shoestring, but I can honestly say that I did not miss out on anything during my time and do not feel that peers at the likes of Christ Church, St John’s, or Trinity gained anything extra (apart from perhaps the occasional shiny Empacher rowing boat). However, it should be noted that this was due to the efforts of the tireless staff juggling the finances
I think I can speak on behalf of every student caller when I say that I am grateful to the Alumni and Development Office for the opportunity to take part in the Telethon and to every person who took the time to talk to me over the phone. At the end of the period I felt immensely satisfied: I had learnt an awful lot about Mansfield and its history; I had been part of a team that raised £36,000 for Mansfield College – money that can help support struggling students, provide resources, or help improve college life. And I had had an enormous amount of fun along the way.
and keeping down the bottom line. On joining the working world and ridding myself of the ball and chain that is a student loan, I felt I was in a position to give something back. I opted to make monthly contributions to Mansfield’s Annual Fund. Whilst this may be less satisfying than making a one-off endowment or donating a physical object, it does provide a tax efficient and (most importantly) predictable cash flow that enables the College to meet its greatest area of need. It is 10 years since I matriculated at Mansfield and we are in the midst of several reunions that are attracting the attendance of the majority of my year. It is a testament to the immeasurable value of our time at Mansfield that these relationships were forged and still exist. With communal spirit like this, I honestly believe that Mansfield could (and should) have the highest proportion of alumni benefactors of any college in Oxford. To help make this a reality, follow me and set up a monthly contribution, no matter the amount!
If you would like to join Andrew and our other alumni who are giving regularly to Mansfield, please see the enclosed donation form or visit http://bit.ly/mansfielddonationsonline
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annual reports
JCR President’s report Maia Muir Wood (Human Sciences, 2009)
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It has been an absolute joy to head such a proactive group of people, all with a shared commitment to Mansfield and a constant desire to improve.
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y experience as JCR President has without a doubt been overwhelmingly positive. As I write, with a term left to go however, and the words of my predecessor that “every President is really put to the test at least once” looming over me, I can only hope that things continue to go so smoothly. For this ease of progress to date I have the tireless work of previous benches to thank, but also every member of the current bench that I’ve had the pleasure of working with for the past two terms. It has been an absolute joy to head such a proactive group of people, all with a shared commitment to Mansfield and a constant desire to improve. The bench has this year, amongst numerous other things, run an extremely successful trip to the Aston-Mansfield charity, begun work on an alternative prospectus for the College, hosted its first ‘Mega-Bop’, set in motion the purchasing of a punt by the leavers of 2011 and even finally replaced the JCR’s well-worn sofas.
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JCR Bench 2010-2011
Presidency, despite how some may perceive it, has certainly not been glamorous. The late nights spent organising spreadsheets, the stream of emails and the infamous bureaucracy of lengthy OUSU meetings are however all very easily forgotten when I think back over my time. It has been such a pleasure to be able to represent the JCR in such a wide range of forums and to have been given an insight into the workings of so many different aspects of College life. I was proud to represent the JCR’s diverse views on the changing of the Grace and didn’t expect myself to become so passionately involved in preparing my rent proposal for the College. Most of all however, it has been an honour in this role to have met so many other people also committed to Mansfield – dedicated College staff, Fellows of all different subjects and so many students (both those already very much involved and new ones who so quickly become as enamored with the place as any nostalgic finalist).
I have always been proud of Mansfield, but at a time when our academic achievements are finally being recognised and with all the excitement surrounding the arrival of Helena Kennedy, I couldn’t be more so! I only hope that when my time comes to step down I’m able, without too much sadness, to relinquish my duties and let go of the responsibility for projects that will no doubt still be progressing. JCR Presidency has become an important part of my life and although I won’t say no to having more time on my hands, I will certainly miss being so involved in both the College and the JCR.
annual reports
MCR President’s report Aled Davies (History, 2009)
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ver the past year, the MCR has seen students from around the globe come and go, successfully completing a wide range of postgraduate degrees, whilst still finding more than enough time to enjoy the social side of Mansfield life. With the MCR gaining a deserved reputation for arranging some of the best parties in Oxford, our members have continued to make a major contribution to the life of our college. Graduates have represented Mansfield in almost every sport, as well as giving regular research presentations to students and Fellows alike. Furthermore, many of our graduates have continued to excel in the wider University – we count amongst our members Rhodes Scholars, sporting Blues, and academic journal editors! Beginning my Presidential tenure at the start of Michaelmas 2011, I have been fortunate enough to welcome a brilliant new group of graduates
who have continued the traditions of friendliness, openness, and intelligence which characterise Mansfield. It has been especially good to see the MCR and JCR joining forces, not only on the sports fields and in the bar, but also in co-ordinating the fantastic charity events which haven taken place over recent months – including the Aston-Mansfield College Fête, the annual Auction of Promises, and a very successful World Aids Day awareness event. Alongside the newly elected MCR bench, I hope that the MCR will continue to play a central role in the life of our college. Hopefully this goal will be further realised during Hilary term as the whole college embarks on Oxford’s first ‘College Book Club’, a series of events focussed around the Man Booker Prizenominated novel In the Country of Men by Hisham Matar, in preparation for a visit by the author himself.
Having recently welcomed a number of prospective graduates during an openday earlier this term, we are working hard to continue raising our profile in order to attract future students to study at Mansfield. We are particularly keen to develop new sources of financial support which might attract highcalibre postgraduate applications, as well as seeking to enable individuals who, despite excellent academic achievement, are deterred from postgraduate study by increasing financial costs. We believe that this goal strongly accords with the traditions of Mansfield as a college committed to widening access to education, and promoting academic excellence for all. For many years Mansfield has provided a welcoming and supportive environment which has allowed our graduate community to flourish. I hope that the year to come will, through a combination of hard work and fun, be equally successful!
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We count amongst our members Rhodes Scholars, sporting Blues, and academic journal editors.
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Graduate Students Dimitris Katsikis (Law, 2010) and Michael Enright (Politics, 2010) relax in the MCR.
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Student life
Cricket Danny Rey (Theology, 2009) In an enthralling season, the MertonMansfield CC 1st XI retained the University League title, beating New-St Hilda’s in the decider on the final day. Character and individual quality were central to the success, the team having to recover from seemingly hopeless positions against Balliol, Worcester and Keble. There were many performances of note, but particular mention should go to Chris Goodman’s bowling at the death against Balliol and Worcester, whilst his 2-17 versus New-St Hilda’s was outstanding. Tom Young took 9 wickets in his first two games after injury against Somerville, and when needed most against Keble. Captain Danny Rey scored some useful lower-middle order runs, had an economy rate of 3.3 and took a diving one-hander from cover against Jesus. Meanwhile, his successor Ollie Wood showed glimpses of his prodigious talent, especially in a classy 80 against Somerville. We were also
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grateful to Blues’ skipper Raj Sharma for taking time out of a hectic schedule to play against New-St Hilda’s, his brutal 95 from 65 balls being integral to the victory. A great team spirit was fostered within the club (with the 2nds also winning their league) and we very much look forward to various socials in the off-season, particularly with the Oxford Cheerleaders!
Student life
Football Eddie Finch (PPE, 2008) 2011 saw the M&Ms finish runaway champions of the JCR Premier Division and reach the semi-final of the Cup, the most successful season in the history of the club. From the first kick off to the final whistle of the season, every player was united in self-belief. The ingredients were there: the team work ethic cultivated over previous years and the combination of players (dominated by Mansfielders – Merton provide the facilities, we provide the talent). It has been an epic journey from the bottom of the bottom division in 2007 transforming the club from underdogs into a college football powerhouse. To pinpoint one factor does a disservice to the others, but it is well-recognised this period coincided with the time spent at the club by Robbie Coleman. The part he played was crucial, instilling the discipline and drive into the players characteristic of the M&Ms today. Unquestionably, the team could not have won the Premier Division without his influence over the years.
Squash
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It has been an epic journey from the bottom of the bottom division in 2007.
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The achievements of this season were made possible by consistently strong individual performances and an immense team ethic displayed by every member of the 1st and 2nd squads on the pitch, training ground, dressing room, and bar. No pithy sentence can sum up the season. Instead, something has to be said of the pride, privilege, and pleasure felt by everyone involved over the past three years both on and off the pitch. Long may the success continue!
Danny Rey (Theology, 2009) Mansfield SRC rode the crest of a wave last season, with excellent showings from the Men’s 1sts in all competitions. An agonising defeat in the cup semi against St John’s followed 2nd and 3rd place finishes in the Michaelmas and Hilary leagues. Former club captains Henry Carter and Andrew Green represented the university, and with those two at the top, Chris Roe, Danny Rey and Melvin Chen were able to record very high win percentages. The club also expanded this year, with the men’s 2nds winning promotion to the 1st Division of the Reserve League, preparing many of them for 1st team squash this season, with only Rey remaining from last year’s side. Off the court, socials were also introduced, proving that camaraderie can play a part in an individual sport. Maintaining the success of the previous two campaigns will be a tough ask, but we’re hopeful this can be achieved!
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Student life
Rowing Freddie Overton (Geography, 2009) The last year was a very successful season for MCBC – both on and off the river. As well as achieving some of the highest river positions in recent memory for both Men and Women, we had a great intake from Freshers and arranged several successful sponsorship deals with local and national companies. In Torpids, the Men achieved a rise in river position of two places, giving them a solid platform in the middle of Division 3 for the coming year. The Women also performed incredibly strongly, bumping up three positions, reaching the highest place a Mansfield Crew has ever attained: 5th in Division 2. Summer VIIIs gave more success for the Women,
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bumping three places and missing out on blades only by a controversial klaxon on the first day. New sponsorship deals with Wahoo, Angels and Overton Recycling allowed us to invest in several pieces of much-needed equipment such as a new Cox Box, tool kit and lifejacket. The first MCBC Christmas drinks also proved highly successful and gave a profit of over £1000. All in all, a highly successful year – we are very excited for the coming one!
Student life
Music John Oxlade, Director of Music Music at Mansfield has flourished this year with the Choir performing a wide variety of music from Bach Cantatas to Rossini’s last work, the Petite Messe Solennelle. The rarely-performed youthful Gloria of Bellini received its first performance in Oxford as did Rossini’s first opera on November 3rd – the exact 200th anniversary of its premiere.
from operas by Mozart, Nicolai and Berlioz with a wonderful solo from Mansfield former student Rosalind West from Sullivan’s Golden Legend, actually composed in the year of the College’s foundation. Many of the items were in tribute to Diana Walford, retiring Principal, who has been a great inspiration for so much of the College’s music-making.
On February 27th the Choir sang Fauré’s Requiem given in memory of Gillian Muddiman who died on the previous October 31st and who, with John Muddiman, had offered great support to the Choir at our regular services and concerts. The 125th Anniversary Summer Concert included lighter works by Noel Coward and Tom Springfield as well as excerpts
Wednesday recitals have continued apace with notable performances by members of the College including Bethany Whalley (clarinet), Matthew Hitchings (piano), and visiting student Julia Hamilton playing a superb Bach Cello Suite. Outstanding visiting musicians have included Nick Pritchard (New), Richard Moore (St John’s), Kath Cooper and James McKelvey.
We were sorry to lose Emma Hancox (to London University) and William Guast (to the USA). However the other regular members of the choir, Bethany Whalley, Emily Feltham, and alumnus Rory Morrison, Bruce Forman (Balliol) and Alex Beard (Merton), have been joined by David Lee and Hugo Janacek from Christ Church and Lucy Matheson (Lincoln) on a regular basis. Amongst many highlights of the year was the wonderfully atmospheric candle-lit Carol Service led by our talented singers.
Editors’ Note
As mentioned in our news section, John Oxlade was elected to an Honorary Fellowship in 2011 in recognition of his extraordinary contribution to the life of the College. We are immeasurably grateful to him for his efforts.
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Student life
PledgingourTime Mansfield was ninth in Oxford Hub’s 2011 Jebb table – a ranking of Colleges based on the number of students who are active in the local Oxford community. Some of the charitable work that earned us this position is described below. Aston-Mansfield
www.aston-mansfield.org.uk In 2011 JCR Charities Rep, Andrew Campbell-Black (Human Sciences, 2009) and College Chaplain, Revd Tanya Stormo Rasmussen have been leading our efforts to cultivate an old, and recently reforged, connection between Aston-Mansfield and Mansfield College. Aston-Mansfield was formed in October 2000 through the merger of Aston Charities Trust and Mansfield Settlement, two organisations which played a major role in east London for over 100 years where they opened boy’s and men’s clubs at the end of the 19th century. It comprises two community centres, the Froud Centre in Manor Park and Durning Hall in Forest Gate. The centres provide services for a staggering 50 faith groups, as well as rape victims, asylum seekers, youth groups, mentally and physically disabled children, and local businesses. Early in 2011, a successful workshop was held in the JCR to educate and challenge preconceptions of young people. Following on from this, in Trinity Term, over twenty members of the JCR volunteered at the Froud Centre in Manor Park. Students designed and built an outdoor game for a summer fair and cleaned and painted the courtyard. A third group were given the task of removing years of weeds and cat droppings from the peripheries of the playground. In the evening the centre generously provided a barbeque before Mansfield students and a youth group played games in mixed teams, ending the evening with a tug of war.
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In the wake of this success, an Autumn Fête held on Saturday, 12th November at Mansfield College, was universally deemed a success. Around 200 people attended the two-and-a-half-hour event – a mix of Londoners connected with the Aston-Mansfield Association, students, Fellows, and people who were just wandering past College and saw the bunting and posters! Among our visitors were our new Principal, and Bianca Jagger, who had spoken at the Mansfield Lecture Series the night before. The Chapel was filled with stalls and activities, including face painting, mug-decorating and badge-making, a wandering lucky dip, and a ball toss to win a cuddly toy. Of course, there was also a popular cake stall! Entertainment was provided by dance group Fatality (five boys, aged 10-13, from one of Aston-Mansfield’s youth clubs) and the student acapella group the Oxford Belles. At the end of the afternoon, many of the young people went to the Merton playing fields for games. The Fête raised over £300 for the AstonMansfield Association’s work in London and another charity, Young Horizons. But we also achieved a sense of identification and cooperation between two very different communities that share a history and a joint desire to do more together.
Student life
KEEN (Kids Enjoy Exercise Now) www.keenoxford.org KEEN relies on student volunteers to provide recreational activities for young people with special needs in Oxford. Nathan Webster (Maths, 2009) was initially attracted by a Saturday afternoon sports session in Blackbird Leys. Since then he has become more and more involved, and he is now a part of the organising committee and acts as the Mansfield rep for the charity. He has also organised an sponsored walk along with two other Mansfield KEEN members to the Houses of Parliament and back which raised nearly £1500 for the charity.
OUAS Row to London Alex Ford (Material Science, 2009) was among twelve members of the Oxford University Air Squadron who set off on a three day rowing challenge from Oxford to London in September. The crew battled over 170km of river, rowing from the Oxford Colleges’ Boat House Island to the Imperial College Boat club in Putney. They were rowing in support of Decaid, which is a scheme providing help for current and ex-servicemen and women, and their families, who have been affected by the conflict in Afghanistan. The event was a great success and the crew have so far raised in excess of £1,300 which will go to the military charities BLESMA and SSAFA.
The Mondo Challenge Foundation
http://mondochallengefoundation.org
Charity does not, of course, stop when students leave Mansfield. As we have reported before, Anthony Lunch (Geography, 1964) runs an international charity, the Mondo Challenge Foundation. One example of its continuing succes is the Livelihoods Programme. Set up five years ago, it enables women affected by HIV to set up small businesses. The programme has provided over four hundred startup grants of around £100 for ventures such as tailoring, vegetable and fruit stalls and small cafes. It recently expanded the programme to provide short-term loans to the most successful businesses. Anthony welcomes visitors to the projects who can mentor or support recipients. Contact him at anthony@mondofoundation.org.
Oxford Hub
http://oxfordhub.org Sarah Hourahane (English, 2009) has been volunteering with Oxford Hub since Michaelmas 2010. Founded in 2007, Oxford Hub has put £80,000 into Oxford’s local community, with an aim to inform, inspire, connect and support students to create social change. As Events Coordinator, Sarah has enjoyed everything from booking venues and designing (and hand-delivering!) invitations for the Christmas party at The Mitre, to writing a pub quiz held at St.Hilda’s. Oxford Hub has just moved into new premises on the corner of Turl and Ship Streets. The building, which also houses the Turl Street Kitchen, will provide space for OxHub’s events, a home for several Oxford charities and a place to get together.
O LES
http://oules.lightentertainment.org During the last academic year Jenni Goodchild (Philosophy and Theology, 2009) was president of the Oxford Light Entertainment Society (O LES), a group dedicated to putting on shows for those who cannot normally travel to the theatre. Mansfield provided the twiceweekly venue for its rehearsals resulting in three shows - Peter Pan, Batman the Panto and Tragedy: A Comedy - which raised over £1600 for charity. The group also took their production of Peter Pan to two schools, for free.
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Student articles
A Pinch of A Student’s experience of Bonneville Speed Week In Hilary Term 2010 we had the pleasure of a visit from Rick Pearson (Engineering, 1988) who spoke to students about his experiences since leaving Mansfield. Rick also offered a prize for an Engineering or Materials Science student from Mansfield to spend a week at Bonneville Speedway in Utah in August 2010 with him and his team and participate in their attempt to break the 1000cc land speed record. Anna Ploszajski was that lucky student. This is her story:
Left to right: Rick Pearson, Flower of Scotland, Anna Ploszajski
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The speck on the horizon you spotted becomes a nearby blur before it speeds past and back into the void. There is nowhere on Earth quite like Bonneville.
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unrise on the Utah Salt Flats. 6:30am. The pale blue sky is scattered with short-lived orange clouds and the rocky, bare mountains in the distance glow pink with the sun’s first rays. The damp salt sticks to the bottom of your shoes in a thick layer and you can already feel the imminent, oppressive heat prickling at your skin. All is silent except for a distant hum which gradually crescendos until it reaches a roar, as the speck on the horizon you spotted becomes a nearby blur before it speeds past and back into the void. There is nowhere on Earth quite like Bonneville. Every year thousands of participants make the pilgrimage to this dried-out lake with one mission: to go fast. More specifically, to go faster than those who came before. From dawn until dusk, engineers, mechanics, drivers and enthusiasts work tirelessly in the scorching heat to claim records. Team Scotland was no exception. The aim was to make The Flower of Scotland, a green streamliner car with a turbo-charged one litre motorcycle engine, go faster than 313mph.
Our initial attempts yielded little joy. Electrical failures and stripped gears required a time-consuming engine change, so progress was slow for the first two days. While the team vigilantly attended to the car, I was taught all about the internal workings and was able to offer suggestions as to why the gear cogs had failed. A beautiful and terrifying electrical storm caused unsuitable conditions for racing the next morning. Frustration was building in the pits and it was becoming clear that every attempt was going to be crucial. When the second engine broke on day four, morale hit an all-time low and the team began to question the feasibility of the task in hand. Our final hope was to construct an engine from the remaining pieces of motor not yet destroyed and run on the final day of racing. The Flower made two fantastic final runs; the first at 251.3mph and the second at 270.0mph – the fastest the car has ever gone. I spent an afternoon with Lee Kennedy, Chief Safety Marshal and ex-nuclear engineer, who took me on his patrol of
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the race courses and to the timing tower to see how the all-important speed and weather measurements are recorded. I was invited to dinner with a racing team from The Ohio State University, learnt all about their electric streamliner project and received a preliminary offer for a paid internship with them next summer. I met Rick Yacoucci, the driver and current holder of our record. In trying to discover how he achieved 313mph, I learnt about a fascinating materials phenomenon involving the cryogenic treating of metals which is still not fully understood. Although we didn’t make it over 300mph and into the record books, I feel truly privileged to have been part of the team and to have had the opportunity to spend a week with so many interesting and inspiring individuals. When I arrived I was adamant that I didn’t want to pursue a career in Materials Science, but experiencing its applications has left such an impression that I’m now seriously considering a PhD! Thank you, Rick, for making it possible.
If you would like to share your professional experience with current students, please get in touch with the Alumni and Development Office. We’d love to hear from you.
Photo:Shutterstock.com
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student articles
Living the
Blues Rajiv Sharma (Geography, 2008) tells us about his experiences as Captain of Oxford University Cricket Club.
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had aspired to come to Oxford since reading a local newspaper article while at high school. It was about a fellow Auckland Grammar School old boy, Fraser Gemmell, being the first New Zealander to captain the Oxford Blues rugby team against Cambridge in their annual match at Twickenham. I was fortunate to receive a Clarendon Scholarship to read towards a DPhil in Economic Geography at Mansfield College. For my thesis, supervised by Professor Gordon Clark, I have been looking at the role of private institutional investors in developing urban infrastructure assets. With its strong Geography traditions and close proximity to both the Geography department and University Parks, it was logical for me to end up at Mansfield College, and I can definitely say that I have had a truly amazing experience at Oxford. The university has lived up to all expectations: beautiful, challenging, and inspirational. I vividly remember walking around in amazement at the architecture, taking photos
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like a tourist, aware that most departments were founded well before my own country of New Zealand! Cricket has always played a large role in my life, having played at my local club in Auckland ever since I was five and throughout my schooling years. While at Oxford, I have been fortunate to represent the Oxford MCC Universities and Blues team as well as the Combined British Universities team. After my first university season in 2008-2009, I was elected as captain of the Oxford University Blues team, only the second New Zealander to have done so after the great NZ test batsman, Martin Donnelly. With the history and traditions of cricket at Oxford dating back nearly 200 years, being made captain of the Oxford Blues cricket team was a huge privilege. There have been a number of highlights during my time as captain. In the first year of captaincy, it was very rewarding to lead the team to Varsity victories in both the Twenty20 and the four-day first class match, which is
the oldest first class cricket fixture. The four-day match in particular was won in recordbreaking style, beating the old rivals by an innings and 28 runs, which included the highest team total ever recorded in the Varsity match of 611-5 declared. It was particularly special to win the four-day match with my brother, Avinash, who scored the highest score by any batsman on first class debut in the Varsity match of 185 not out. Being captain of the University Blues cricket team provided the opportunity to really shape the direction of the cricket club and make an impact on how cricket at Oxford was run. Along with the student committee a new identity for the club was formed, in order to provide a platform for the best cricketers at Oxford to progress within the game while also maintaining the proud traditions of cricket at Oxford. Part of this vision has included increasing the awareness of OUCC within and beyond the university community.
‘
The opportunity to combine my academic and sporting pursuits at the highest level at Oxford really has been a dream come true. I am very grateful to Mansfield College.
’
In line with this mission, a committee was set up to help organize the first ever OUCC Blues tour of India. It aimed to provide pre-season preparation for the squad as well as help promote Oxford in a country that has been at the forefront of the commercialization of the game of cricket over the last five years and that has proud historical links with the university, in both education and sport. After many months of planning, the OUCC Blues team arrived in India in March. Beginning in Mumbai, the tour consisted of six matches in ten days against some of the best club and professional sides in India (Bombay Gymkhana, Cricket Club of India, Global Cricket School, Rajasthan Royals and Delhi University). The fierce heat and the slow, turning wickets were certainly a long way away from the rain and indoor nets that the squad had been practising in during the winter. With my own Indian heritage being very important to me, it was an honour to captain the team on the tour and in particular score an unbeaten century in the first match. The squad was extremely fortunate to be hosted throughout by the Rajasthan Royals IPL franchise, attending a number of functions with them and
their Bollywood star owner Shilpa Shetty, as well as a dinner at the British High Commission with the Oxford and Cambridge Club of India. All-in-all it was an incredibly successful tour which would not have been possible without the tireless work of the organising committee and the support received from the Vice Chancellor, Nomura Investment Bank and the Rajasthan Royals. Although in 2011 a much younger Blues side was unable to repeat the recordbreaking Varsity victories of the previous year, I was able to take some consolation from scoring a century in my final innings as the Blues captain and almost taking the side to an unlikely victory in the four-day match. Nevertheless, the team will be able to build on the experiences of the last two years and the club is in a good position to continue to prosper both on and off the field. The opportunity to combine my academic and sporting pursuits at the highest level at Oxford really has been a dream come true. I am very grateful to Mansfield College for the academic and personal support, which has enabled me to perform the honour of captaining a Blues sport to the best of my ability.
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focus
Investing
in the Next Generation of
Scholars
Large increases in undergraduate fees have made the recruitment of world class research scholars and the funding of their study at postgraduate level even more challenging. Mansfield has recently been able to provide funding support for two of its postgraduates through the generosity of its donors: the John Hodgson Theatre Research Fellowship and the Adam Von Trott Scholarship. The John Hodgson Theatre Research Fellowship The John Hodgson Fellowship is for ‘the promotion of theatre studies and the performing arts at Mansfield College’. Candidates must have ‘academic merit and have demonstrated suitability for the post’. John Hodgson (1927-97) came to Mansfield in 1960 to read English, after leaving his teaching career. He formed a group of players at Mansfield and staged popular plays in the College chapel, and went on to a distinguished career directing, teaching and publishing on theatre and the teaching of theatre. He stressed the importance of immersion and improvisation in the teaching of performance. He was also a specialist in the work of the German choreographer, Rudolf Laban. The Fellowship at Mansfield is endowed by a legacy from his estate and
contributes £6,000 per annum toward the cost of fees and/or maintenance for research at Oxford. The first ever John Hodgson Theatre Research Fellowship has been awarded to Anna Cairns, who arrived in October 2011. She is in the second year of a doctoral degree in English at Mansfield College in which she explores the use of laughter and humour by actresses and playwrights of the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century British stage. Anna took a BA from University of Durham in Arts, an MSt in Women’s Studies at Oxford University, and is also a qualified secondary school teacher.
The Adam Von Trott Scholarship The Von Trott Scholarship is made to a German national or citizen accepted onto the two–year MPhil programme in International Relations or in Politics in any one of the following courses: European Politics & Society; Theory of Politics; Comparative Government. It is co-funded by the Adam Von Trott Memorial Fund, Oxford University’s Department of Politics and International Relations and Mansfield college, and provides full funding (fees and maintenance) for the duration of the degree. At least one further award will be
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made on the same basis from 2012-14. Adam von Trott zu Solz was a central figure in the group around Graf von Stauffenberg conspiring to kill Hitler and was put to death by the Nazi regime in Germany on August 26th, 1944. He was trained as a lawyer, and during his university course at the University of Gottingen he spent a term at Mansfield College in 1929. The Adam Von Trott Memorial Fund Committee, established in 2007, also supports an annual lecture at Mansfield College.
focus
Postcard from
Sarajevo M
y days in Oxford have flown by. Absorbed by the dazzling diversity of opportunities and distractions on offer, I failed to notice the passage of time. But when I look back now on over a year packed with new experiences, the months that have passed since I nervously climbed the stairs to the Tower Room for my first meeting with the Adam von Trott Committee feel like a lifetime. Academically, my life has revolved around researching women’s experience of post-war international intervention in Bosnia-Herzegovina – the topic of my MPhil thesis. I have been interested in the particular role of women in peace building for some time – in part because I noticed that my high-school textbooks skipped the stories of ceasefire and international administration that I grew up hearing: those of my grandmother. A Bosnian refugee in Germany suggested that this perspective might be important in her home country, too. She told me that she and her daughter dreaded returning because living there as a woman had become more and more difficult since the end of the war. When I checked some of the statistics, she seemed to have a point. In particular, international efforts to stabilise postwar Bosnia appear to have had adverse effects on women’s security. I am curious to find out how this reflects on some of the basic assumptions of international state-building. The chance to pursue this interest within the Oxford community has exceeded my high expectations. A group of diverse and gifted fellow European Politics
students challenge and support me – both in and outside the classroom. The advice and example of two outstanding supervisors has helped me push myself to do the best I can. By opening up new perspectives and research contacts, the variety of seminars and talks on offer has been just as valuable. One evening at the European Studies Centre is a case in point. Following his very helpful lecture on Dayton implementation, the former Military Advisor to the International High Representative in Bosnia answered one of my questions and the host promptly asked me to join the speaker and a number of further regional experts for dinner. Two fascinating hours and five business cards later I had not only learned a lot but also established first contacts with the International Organizations whose experience will be crucial to my research. In fact, the Military Advisor even helped me find a place to stay during my upcoming fieldwork in Bosnia. Thanks to all of this support, I am writing this from a café overlooking Sarajevo, where I am otherwise feverishly preparing four weeks worth of conversations with experts and decision makers. From the current state of my spoken Bosnian one would not guess that I have spent much of my free time in Oxford at the Language Centre. My Arabic and Spanish have improved immensely, however. I also enjoyed writing for the Oxford Globalist and used the opportunity to highlight a topic which has been particularly important to me since I spent a summer working with the IAEA Programme of Action for Cancer Therapy (PACT): the growing cancer burden in developing countries.
Photo:Nor thf
oto/Shutte
rstock.com
The first recipient of the Adam Von Trott scholarship, Diana Koester, who matriculated in October 2010, took time out of a research trip to Bosnia to give us an account of her studies and her experience at Mansfield. Thanks to its welcoming atmosphere, Mansfield quickly became my personal and academic home. Over the many magical dinners and cheerful gatherings in our cosy MCR, I have had the chance to make a diverse group of very close friends. They have taught me about Business, Geography, Immunology and Religion – and a lot about life. I deeply admire them and their company has motivated me to keep working on myself so that I can match their example. The Adam von Trott Memorial Lectures, which Sir Ian Kershaw delivered last year and Professor Michael Freeden this, are another favourite memory of the College. The biographies of Adam von Trott that the College, members of the Committee and the von Trott family gave to me that evening keep reminding me to aim for the qualities that I believe this university wants to inspire in all of its students: the courage to challenge the facts and a keen sense of responsibility for the common good. Listening attentively to my termly reports of all of these experiences, the Adam von Trott Committee has been a great source of encouragement ever since I first met them in the Tower Room. I am immensely grateful to them, as well as to the College and the Department of Politics and International Relations, whose combined support has made this fulfilling year possible. Looking back now, whilst part of me can’t wait for the challenges ahead, part of me wants to just start over and relive every moment.
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visiting student programme
Americans
Abroad For over twenty years, Mansfield has been welcoming students, mostly from the USA, to join the community through our Visiting Student Programme. Two students, spanning these decades, share their experiences.
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Home fromHome Matt Silfee (VSP, 2010) My year as a visiting student at Mansfield College was a year unlike any other. I can still remember that feeling of uncertainty as I touched down in Heathrow – I had no idea what was in store. Would the stereotypes about British culture (not to mention the traditional Oxford quirks) prove to be true? What was this ‘Porters’ Lodge’ that I needed to check into? Why was everyone referring to Ablethorpe as Dale? Were we really not allowed to walk on the grass? Between rowing and becoming a member of the JCR Bench, it didn’t take long for Mansfield to begin to feel like home, and now that I’ve returned to America, there are so many things to miss. I’ve even begun to reminisce about the weekly essay crisis with some nostalgia (and that’s really saying something!). One of the best aspects of Mansfield’s Visiting Student Programme was that the visiting students didn’t feel like ‘visitors.’ I considered myself a full member of the Mansfield community and will always cherish my time in College. The friendships that I forged – whether they were sparked in the JCR, at meals in hall, on the croquet pitch, or in the College bar – are friendships that I will never forget.
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My time at Mansfield undoubtedly helped me to grow both academically and personally.
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My time at Mansfield undoubtedly helped me to grow both academically and personally. The tutorial system sharpened my critical thinking and writing skills, and consistently pushed me outside of my comfort zone. Interacting with students and tutors of different backgrounds and perspectives challenged me to re-evaluate my own ideas and opinions. I wound up leaving the UK with a much better understanding of myself, as well as my own personal and professional goals. I would love to return to England after finishing my degree and look forward to supporting my favorite Mansfield teams – especially MCBC – for as long as I can. Until then, I’ll maintain my enthusiasm for the College from this side of the pond. Probably to the dismay of some of my American friends, I think it’s safe to say that most people in the state of Massachusetts are now aware that Mansfield has climbed to twelfth in the Norrington Table. Whether in Oxford for one year or three, Mansfield pride is clearly hard to tame.
2010 Thanksgiving Dinner
Mansfield Visiting Student Programme Our Visiting Student Programme offers participants the chance to come to Oxford as members of Mansfield College and as Registered Visiting Students of the University of Oxford. We admit 35-40 Visiting Students per year, mainly from top US institutions. They study arts, humanities, and social science subjects via the tutorial system and have access to a wide range of University facilities, including University Libraries, and lectures. We are proud to provide our Visiting Students with the unique experience of a Mansfield education while earning course credit at their home institutions.
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Another
Wonderland A
s a child growing up in America, I knew of Oxford only as the place where Alice was born. With my own long, blonde hair, I enjoyed a certain passing resemblance—and thus affection—for John Tenniel’s illustrated girl, even if I found the original text of her Wonderland adventures difficult to understand. In 1993 I received The Other Alice: The Story of Alice Liddell and Alice in Wonderland, by Christina Björk, with pictures by Inga-Karin Eriksson, as a Christmas gift from my parents. I spent hours poring over the illustrated map of Oxford captured in the endpapers and resolved to one day see Oxford with my own eyes. My chance arrived in 1999, when I was invited to spend my junior year abroad at Mansfield College. I was to continue my studies in English literature and pursue research toward my senior thesis for Haverford College, in Haverford, Pennsylvania. I was then
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Meredith Lewis (VSP, 1999) investigating the garden poetry of the seventeenth-century Metaphysical poet Andrew Marvell, and would soon become entranced by the gardens and landscapes of Oxford itself. I signed up for tutorials in Metaphysical poetry and Shakespeare and the life’s work of C.S. Lewis. I joined the C.S. Lewis Society. I had a young sister at home in America, and I began to write stories for her that captured something of the magical place I found myself living in. In an attempt to hone my skill at writing works for children, I camped out at the Bodleian, the Oxford Union Library, Blackwell’s and Waterstone’s, and began reading children’s books again. And I found gardens to be everywhere in stories for the young. The discovery would allow me to return to Oxford in 2001 as a Keasbey Scholar at Christ Church, where I studied gardens in British children’s literature as a graduate student. Gardens are with me even now, back on the other side of the pond. I recently completed a study of the use of the garden motif in
contemporary writing for children, and I am hard at work on my first children’s novel – one that employs the theme of the garden in my own way. It was thus at Oxford that I found my niche as a writer and as a scholar, and it all began at Mansfield. I shall never forget the morning I arrived at Mansfield, fresh off a British Airways evening flight from Philadelphia. When the airport bus deposited me on the High Street, I hailed a black cab that drove me and my enormous suitcases through the city streets to the College. How fitting to arrive in such a classic vehicle at the cozy Porters’ Lodge, slightly overcome by the length and breadth of my journey. I was immediately charmed by the manoresque Mansfield quad and the friendliness of its staff. But moments later, I was bumping back over the Magdalen Bridge in the same little black cab, en route to the Dale building and my own pleasant accommodations for the year.
Photo: Teresa Rowe, Everlasting Images, Illustration:Shutterstock
visiting student programme
Soon after I arrived in England, new friends invited me to spend a day touring in London. For reasons I cannot recall now, we decided to dress in rather smart attire. This decision proved critical when we chanced upon Prince William in Saint James’ Park. He was entirely alone and seemed to be enjoying a quiet and solitary walk. I was the lone female in my touring group, and it was decided that I should be the one to approach him for a photograph and an autograph. I was mortified by the suggestion, but my friends were insistent. Prince William could not have been more sweet and accommodating. I still have the photograph from that fall afternoon, as well as the page torn from a friend’s leather journal in which the young prince signed his name in fountain pen. For a young American, newly arrived in the United Kingdom, it was an incredible stroke of luck and local color to meet the future King of England face-to-face. Rowing occupied a great deal of my time at Oxford, both during my year at Mansfield and later as a graduate student at Christ Church. Although I had been in a boat a few times at my American college, I learned to row at
Oxford and at Mansfield. I treasured the early morning hours on the river, cold as they were, and my run from Dale to the boathouse and back again each morning. The feeling of a set boat, balanced against all odds on a churning river, is thrilling; so, too, is the look of the mist rising over the spires on a cool November morning. I learned to compose poetry and children’s stories in my head as we rowed, saving up the words like tokens until, safely back in my room, I would transcribe them longhand into notebooks. My year at Mansfield was punctuated by many remarkable firsts and unforgettable moments, from the grand to the mundane: ringing in the Millennium on the London Strand with my cousin Molly Greene and Mansfield students Philip Avery (Geography, 1997), Simon George (Law, 1997), and David Falkner (Geography, 1997); traveling through France, Spain, and Italy with fellow JYA students; enjoying many a black tie event; shopping in the Covered Market at Christmas time; learning how to punt and picnic on the Cherwell; and perfecting the art of the cheddar cheese toasty in my tiny Dale kitchen.
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I was immediately charmed by the manoresque Mansfield quad and the friendliness of its staff.
’
But for a young American living abroad, Oxford is far more than the sum of a set of new life experiences. Instead it is something like a storybook world come to life. To walk along the streets I had once navigated on paper in the endpapers of my book was, quite simply, magical. I will always be grateful to have enjoyed several years among the spires at Mansfield and then at Christ Church and for the friends whose paths intersected with mine along the way.
37
alumni articles
Return to
China
Giles Harrison (Geography, 1986) spent three months of his gap year between school and starting at Mansfield backpacking through China. He returned this summer with his family to find many changes.
W
hen I travelled through China in the Spring of 1986 (on the princely sum of $400) the country had just started allowing individual travelers freedom of movement, and it was an incredible time to be there. I covered more than 20,000 km overland by bus, train and boat, from Guanghzhou to Lhasa to Beijing and Shanghai, learning how to get by with extremely rudimentary Chinese. I returned in 1988 to the Ministry of Geology in Guilin to conduct my undergraduate thesis research work, living in the work unit and bringing my bowl and meal tickets into the communal kitchen area.
Then, life happened, and I didn’t return to China for over 20 years, but I thought about it often. I read about the economic growth and marvelled at the statistics. I helped Chinese companies go public on the New York Stock Exchange, and watched many businesses become larger and more valuable than the one they had been emulating. I felt - rather than saw - the rise in wealth, reflected
38
in things like property prices and the increased numbers of mainland Chinese paying to send their kids to the UK and US for private education. This summer I fulfilled a promise I had made many years ago, to take my family to China so they could see for themselves what Dad had been talking about all these years, and see in person some of the places in his photos. Unfortunately we would have to cram this into two weeks, but I was determined to see as much as possible. My crew ranges in age from five through seventeen, and all four of them are girls, so this was quite a different logistical exercise from last time. Somehow, asking everyone to bunk on the floor of the train because Dad hadn’t found a hotel didn’t seem like a winning strategy, so I booked hotels, airport transfers and guides. We started in Beijing, where the pollution is quite something (yes, they did ‘seed’ the clouds during the Olympics) and where a grey pall blankets the city for much of the year. The ‘new’ airport (completed only 6 years ago) is now too small (74 million passengers in 2010, the second busiest in the world), the traffic is a nightmare, access to the Great Wall is now via cable car, and there are almost no bicycles on the road today. In the four days we spent in Beijing, I was unable to find a single landmark (other than the Forbidden City – now relabelled as a ‘museum’ – Tiananmen Square, and a few other attractions) that I recognized,
such has been the wholesale reconstruction of the city. Skyscrapers, apartments, ring-roads and flyovers have replaced the old neighbourhoods and markets. Indeed, China has become the master of ‘new old’ – in every city we visited there were picturesque ‘old town’ quarters or hutongs (vintage 2005), hastily rebuilt to look like the old ones used to before they were bulldozed. Naturally the new ones have cell-service and wi-fi. From there, the young women go to the Lama Temple to pray for a ‘BMW boyfriend’ – you gotta love the western influence. We then traveled to the mid-country city of Xi’an, 3,100 years old and the eastern terminus of the Silk Road, now a modern technology-based city (and university town) of more than 7 million. Unfortunately due to its location it has been at the cross-roads of cultural and political change within China, and much of its history has been destroyed. Our guide helpfully pointed out that one of the former palaces now resides under the toll-booth of a six-lane highway. We visited the site of the terracotta warriors outside the city – what had been a single burial area covered by a tent the last time I saw it, is now three massive dig sites surrounded by visitor centres, luxury hotels and all the modern conveniences. That said, it is truly a spectacle to see the thousands of individual hand-made soldiers – 750,000 people spent almost 30 years (a lifetime!) creating them for Emperor Qin Shi Huang. He started work on his
mausoleum at the ripe age of 13. Of course, you can now purchase your own hand-made replica crafted from the same clay and delivered via FedEx to your home address…. I could not resist, and ‘he’ is watching me from my desk as I write this. We had originally intended to go to Lhasa (Tibet) and surrounding towns, but the Harrison family is apparently a political threat, and we were denied our entry permits a handful of days before our intended travel. We also found that my wife and I were unable to access our email servers from the hotels – which was interesting as the kids were able to, despite being on the same servers – a problem which rectified itself the first night we logged in from Hong Kong. Hmm … So instead we headed southwest to Chengdu, in Szechuan province, where there are three spicy aspects to life – the food, the drink, and the wives (according to our guide, anyhow). We can attest to the first two. On my previous trip, I had spent an exhausting two days climbing Emeishan, one of the highest mountains in the eastern foothills of the Himalayas, and where clouds cascade over the knife-edge ridges as portrayed in Chinese paintings. This time there is a cable-car (there is a theme here – I suggest you buy shares in Austrian engineering companies) and mini-vans, so the walk is now only a couple hours. Unfortunately, instead of breath-taking views, we spent the entire time shrouded in thick cloud and sideways rain, unable to see more than a few feet in front of us at a time. There was, fortunately, a large billboard showing us what the view should look like, so we took pictures in the rain with the sun behind us on the poster [left].
Photos:Giles Harrison
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China is clearly very much a work in progress: billboards everywhere show what the finished product should (will?) look like.
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We also visited the world’s only panda research centre, where they have successfully bred pandas in captivity. It is well worth the visit; while they have yet to master the successful return of the animals to the wild, you can slip some hard currency to the attendees and they will arrange for you to sit with baby pandas and feed them young bamboo, which the kids loved. After Chengdu, we went to Guilin and down the Li River to Yangshuo, which is arguably one of the most scenic parts of the country. Differential weathering of the limestone has created spectacular scenery known as karst, which had been the subject of my undergraduate dissertation (Glaciation in South-West China – Fact or Fiction? now out of print … ). Needless to say, I didn’t recognize anywhere here either, as what was a sleepy town is now a city of 1.5 million people; however to put that in perspective, Guilin ranks as the 92nd largest city in China – that’s development for you.
photographs I ever took were from here as the sun rose over the rice fields with the limestone hills in the background. Unfortunately in the ‘new old’ China, this hill is now fenced off as a park, and it requires payment to enter – and it doesn’t open until 8am … at least the kids thanked me for not dragging them up at 4am that day. In some respects, this is an appropriate analogy for China – it is clearly very much a work in progress: billboards everywhere show what the finished product should (will?) look like; brides have their pictures taken in front of idyllic background sceneries amidst the urban smog; high-speed train networks are being built that almost work; and roads are being dug up. China is facing a demographic timebomb – because of the one-child policy and rapid urbanization, fertility rates have plummeted and the population is aging faster than any other country in the world. Indeed, the biggest challenge for the country is to ‘develop’ before it gets too old. This is not helped by the fact that there is a fairly significant population imbalance - for some reason the majority of those ‘ones’ miraculously turned out to be boys. It was a unique education for our girls to hear first-hand about the social consequences of everyone growing up in single children families. I have every confidence that when it is finished, China will fulfill its ambition, but in the meantime it is very much a work in progress. And the old adage is definitely true – you can never go back.
One of my objectives for this trip had been to drag the family back up to the top of Moon Hill outside of Yangshuo to watch the sunrise; some of the best
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alumni articles
Blades to
Banking David Testa (History, 1982) reflects on his career after Mansfield.
I
started at Mansfield in September 1982, having surprised not only myself but most of the teaching staff at my Sixth Form College by being awarded an Exhibition for Modern History. The traditional nervy start in Oxford was exacerbated by the course’s arcane requirement to pass an end-offirst-term exam, the main element of which was mastering 15th Century Italian in order to study Macchiavelli. Having jumped this convoluted first hurdle, the pressure was off until the end of the third year, so there was plenty of time to catch up on the other traditional Oxford pastimes of Pimm’s and rowing. The latter provided with me with my greatest sporting achievement – I was a member of the Mansfield Second Eight that got its ‘Blades’ in the summer Bumps of 1983. Although we were a technically dreadful crew whose only merit was its daily training, our rigorous regime paid off in a division where we were surrounded by ‘Beer Eights’ that lived up to their name. Because of its small size, Mansfield’s students always seem to be the most gregarious of Oxford undergraduates, and the opportunity of getting to know students at other colleges was one of the most attractive features of Mansfield life. This was helped by the fact that, in addition to the quietly fascinating tutorials of the College’s own fondlyremembered Mike Mahoney, there were
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also rather more exotic tutors to be found at Teddy Hall and Queen’s, as well as popular lectures by Professor Norman Stone, just after he started his career at the University. He appealed to the undergraduates, mainly because he looked as if he’d enjoyed the night before even more than his hung-over audience. Having graduated in 1985 in the last year of undivided Seconds with – naturally – a Second, I worked for a year with a wine merchant, where my hard yards as a member of the Oxford Wine Circle and co-ordinating lightning raids on the Mansfield wine cellar put me in good stead. I rapidly concluded, however, that another career was required if I was going to be able to afford the wines I was selling, so my next destination was the College of Law in Chancery Lane. Before Oxford, I had thought of studying law but at a Law Society presentation a prominent QC strongly advised the audience to graduate in a subject they enjoyed – Law was too boring as a degree! I will never know the truth or not of that advice but I quickly came to understand that my ‘horribly woolly’ history essay style had to be rapidly sharpened to deal with the legal world. I duly completed the necessary conversion course and in 1988 started as a solicitor with the well-known firm of Slaughter and May in the City of London. This was one of comparatively few City law firms able to offer a truly variegated
training in corporate law, as it has always had the majority of FTSE 100 companies amongst its clients. Its main competitors were already expanding rapidly to address the requirements of their burgeoning banking clients: even in the early 1990s it was clear the ‘Big Bang’ of 1986 had let financial institutions off the leash. In 1997, I decided that having a young family was incompatible with the working hours of a banking lawyer: I was far too often in the office after midnight and at weekends as well. So what better thing to do than swap one career hugely unpopular in popular perception for another which is now seen as having slightly less merit than strangling cats for a living? I became a banker. For those of you still reading, I worked in the City for WestLB, one of the large German state banks, and my job was in their good old-fashioned lending division, covering the new democracies of the former Soviet bloc. It was fascinating to see first-hand a new generation take over from a regime which had dominated world politics for nearly fifty years. I also frequently visited the Gulf states and that led me into Islamic finance in 2003, a niche sector which has grown from almost zero in 2000 to over US$1 trillion of assets as at the end of 2010 and, in a flat-lining global economy,
continues to expand at more than 10% per annum. It is often called ‘interestfree’ finance but is more accurately described as ‘asset-based’ finance, as all structures are tied to tangible assets. This places certain restrictions on Islamic finance, and it is these restrictions which are now resonating widely in these crisis-stricken times, with both Muslims and non-Muslims. One principle is that you must own what you sell, and this means ‘short-selling’ is not permissible. Some – including, famously, the German Chancellor Angela Merkel – would like to see this particular area more strictly regulated. There are also restrictions on eligible activities, and Islamic finance does not involve itself in the gambling, alcohol, tobacco, media or defence industries – sectors also largely avoided by the investment trusts run by the Church of England and the Catholic Church. The avoidance of gambling also means that Islamic institutions cannot use derivatives for speculative purposes, only for legitimate risk mitigation. My interest in this area was to understand more about a religion which – as is well known – is subject to widespread mistrust in the West. I was stimulated, perhaps by my love of history, to understand more about a subject where I felt there was too much ignorance and I have indeed learnt a great deal in the last few years. Any misgivings I may have had about engaging with the Islamic world in the aftermath of 9/11 were then given a new twist by Tony Blair’s decision to stand ‘shoulder-to-shoulder’ with President Bush over Iraq. Future historians will spend many hours trying to understand that particular ‘Special Relationship’. My last transaction at WestLB was also the most enjoyable, as the bank financed the sale of James Bond’s favourite motor company – Aston Martin – to Islamic investors from the Gulf. The success of that transaction brought me to their attention and in 2007 I became Chief Executive Officer of a new start-up institution in the City, Gatehouse, that was to be run as a wholly Shariah-compliant bank. I leapt at the chance and spent the next two years in what was the most challenging – and rewarding – part of my career. I enjoyed the multiplicity of demands placed on me in this exacting role, from the chaos of first days (involving everything from paper clips to hedge funds) to the ‘red-letter’ day in April 2008 when
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The flexibility of approach and the constant need for an open mind inculcated during my time at Oxford has perhaps shown itself in what a friend described as my eclectic career.
we successfully obtained the banking license from the UK Financial Services Authority. The havoc caused by the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 left no part of the global financial sector unharmed. It certainly reached into the comparative safe haven of the Gulf but, mainly due to Islamic banks being unable to invest in the various toxic assets which have contaminated Western banks, the Islamic finance sector continues to grow as rapidly as ever. This expansion is both in the Muslim world and outside it, and many more countries – as diverse as Hong Kong and South Africa – are now following the UK’s lead in promoting its development. This
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forms a significant part of my current workload, where I am engaged on a variety of financing transactions from Latin America to China, as well as being involved in new start-up businesses in the UK and continental Europe. The flexibility of approach and the constant need for an open mind inculcated during my time at Oxford has perhaps shown itself in what a friend described as my eclectic career, and I am sure I will need all of that flexibility to navigate through 2012 and beyond. There is no doubt, however, that my experiences at Oxford, and Mansfield in particular, will continue to have the beneficial effect on my career they have already had to date.
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alumni articles
Mansfield Revisited In the last year, a number of our alumni have returned to Mansfield after a long absence. Invariably, they have found it an exciting and enjoyable experience. Two of them recount their experiences here.
Chris Jenkins (PPE, 1977)
A
fter many years away from Mansfield – I don’t think I had been back since graduation – I was surprised how much had changed, but the welcome was as warm as ever. When invited back for lunch with Michael Freeden, I was conscious that I met him on his first day in the College and now he was preparing to retire, and I hadn’t been back.... How guilty that made me feel! During my conversations that day with Michael, the Development team and the Bursar it struck me that some things had come full circle. When I was at Mansfield, the first Star Wars film was in the cinemas, and my children today collect Lego Star Wars models; while I was at Mansfield Abba was in the charts, and earlier this year my daughter’s birthday treat was to see Mama Mia on stage in Cardiff. In many ways these echoes from the past continue to crop up throughout life and this was why I returned to Mansfield having spent a few months in Delhi at the Commonwealth Games. Let me explain: after leaving College I had a career in the City, as I was always
42
interested in that side of business. My guess is I would probably have done that or something similar with or without Mansfield. However, during my first week at College something happened to me that changed my life. I was walking along Mansfield Road and suddenly my feet were no longer on the ground. I was being picked up, not by some alien force, but by a member of the rowing club. He said, ‘You’re quite light. Come down to the river tomorrow’. The next day I reported to Tims Boathouse, and that was the start of my coxing career, and the start of my involvement in rowing that led to me coxing Wales at the Commonwealth Games, and until just recently, being a Director of British Rowing. I had been at a sixth-form college and had never really heard of rowing. I was not involved in sport at school, much to my father’s frustration. In the sixth form I preferred student politics and thought this would continue while up at Mansfield. During my interview Richard Buckley, the Law tutor, asked me what my ambition was. I replied: ‘To be the first Prime Minister of Wales!’
‘
There I was, sitting on the bench by the chapel in the sunshine as if I had never been away.
’
As my career in the City ended I returned to Wales, where one thing led to another and I am now the CEO of Commonwealth Games Wales and was lucky enough to be Welsh Chef de Mission in Delhi 2010, and in two Commonwealth Youth Games. The last five or so years leading the team has been a fantastic privilege, and I can honestly say that none of that would have happened without Mansfield College, and its Boat Club. And there I was in 2011, sitting on the bench by the chapel in the sunshine catching up on thirty years worth of news and swapping stories as if I had never been away.
David Seymour (Law, 1973)
R
e-connecting with Mansfield after a long lapse, I was reassured to find the spirit of the place as it ever was, despite architectural additions and a substantial increase in numbers. My visit in April, prompted by a friend who was also at Mansfield in the 70s, included being introduced to Oliver Mahony, Assistant Librarian. This led, inevitably, to talk of his father (Mike – former Fellow in History), and provided me with an instant connection between the College’s past and present, as I remain ever grateful to Mike for the opportunity to study History at Mansfield. Oliver has since facilitated my access, on two further occasions this year, to the College archives to study aspects of Mansfield during the Great War. To work in that fine Library again has been a delight. Significant architectural additions since my era are, of course, the Hands and
Garden buildings, but standing at the Lodge and looking around one could be back in the seventies. However, the external familiarity of the Champneys and John Marsh buildings is deceptive as change of use characterises both. Specialist libraries occupy the former Council, Snooker and Television rooms. The old Lecture Room is now the JCR, allowing what was the JCR to become the new Council Room. Both Hall and Chapel have become more informal spaces. The Tower Lobby pigeon holes have migrated to the Lodge which has lost its public telephone and has expanded into one of the study bedrooms in A staircase whilst another, mine, has become the Bursar’s office. However, despite the changes Mansfield is, in many ways, as I remember it from the seventies and, most importantly,
the spirit of the College remains. With everyone so helpful and friendly my wife Katherine and I felt extremely welcome and once more part of the place in which I had studied and where we were married.
‘
Despite the changes the spirit of the College remains.
’
If you are interested in coming back to Mansfield to visit please see the events calendar for more details of upcoming events or just get in touch. We’d love to hear from you!
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Virtual Mansfield Mansfield has recently launched a new virtual tour of the College. Produced by i360uk.com, the tour takes you inside and outside the College in a series of panaromic views.
Wander around College as it looks in 2012 by visiting the Mansfield website or http://goo.gl/9xxR1
Social Networking Mansfield has taken to social media. Alumni groups can now be found on Facebook and LinkedIn, while Twitter provide us with regular opportunities to pass on College news.
www.facebook.com/mansfieldoxford www.twitter.com/MansfieldOxford Mansfield College Alumni, University of Oxford in LinkedIn
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Alumni Events
Printemps à Paris The Oxford University European Alumni Reunion Weekend On the weekend of 6th-8th May, Oxonians and friends were invited to meet the Chancellor of the University, Lord Patten of Barnes, and ViceChancellor, Professor Andrew Hamilton, at exclusive gatherings arranged across the beautiful city of Paris. Events included drinks receptions in stunning venues, talks and discussions from leading Oxford academics, and a chance to catch up with alumni and staff from colleges and departments. Here are reports from two Mansfield alumni
Helge-Torsten Wöhlert (Law, 1990)
Daniel Seiderer (MBA, 2007)
I can recall walking down Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré with my wife one evening in 2010, when a magnificent, illuminated courtyard attracted our attention. We did not even make it past the porter, who explained that this was a private club, pretty hard to get into: the Cercle de l’Union interalliée.
Paris is wonderful at every time of the year, but in springtime it has a special flair to it. So it was a really welcome surprise to learn that the Oxford European Reunion was to take place there in May. I immediately asked my then girlfriend – now fiancée – whether she wanted to spend the weekend in Paris, and booked the tickets. The event surpassed my highest expectations. The choice of locations – the Sorbonne, Les Invalides, the British Embassy – was ‘magnifique’.
Then arrived the invitation for the Oxford European Reunion 2011 in Paris, with dinner to be held at the very same Cercle de l’Union interalliée! This alone provided a good reason to sign up, but there was much more to come: meeting old friends and making new ones, in exceptional places not normally accessible to the public, such as the Grand Salon and Grand Amphithéâtre at the Sorbonne and the École Militaire. A College Dinner had also kindly been organised in a small and cosy restaurant in the Quartier Latin. The highlight of the academic program, covering Europe’s role in a changing, globalised world, was the keynote speech from Professor Timothy Garton Ash. He focused on the role and responsibility of Germany within Europe and the Eurozone in particular and delivered a fascinatingly differentiated insight into German politics. Although I disagreed with almost all of his conclusions, we had the chance to discuss this at length during an elaborate lunch in the Parisian sun. A wonderful weekend!
One of the most memorable discussions was between a French tour guide and a group of Oxonians visiting Napoleon’s tomb after Sir Brian Unwin’s interesting talk on Napoleon’s life. Sir Biran cited recent medical evidence that Napoleon died a natural death which excluded the theory that he was poisoned by the British. This was a point argued with fervour by the group of (mostly British) Oxonians afterwards, but the French tour guide was adamant that it was the British who poisoned him. It is always fascinating how perspective influences one’s point of view. Whatever the cause of Napoleon’s death, it was not surprising that the most discussed question towards the end was where the next reunion would be held!
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Alumni Events
London Drinks 31st March 2011
Emily Davis (PPE, 2005) London Drinks were, as ever, a great chance to catch up with fellow alumni, to find out what has been going on at Mansfield since we all left and to get an update on the College’s building plans. While the venue this time may not have had the stunning views over London that have characterised previous evenings, it fostered a more intimate atmosphere as we gathered together in the top room of Potion Bar just off Tottenham Court Road. This evening was particularly memorable for being one of Diana’s last before her retirement, and it was, as always, good to see her boundless enthusiasm for all things Mansfield.
One of the great things about these drinks evenings is the range of people that attend, and this time round was no exception. Attendees ranged from those of us who graduated only a few years ago to people who graduated ... well, a few more years ago, which is testament to the lasting attachment felt towards the College by those of us who studied there. It was a perfect chance to find out what people have been doing since they left Mansfield and I was once again struck by the wide array of interesting careers and positions that Mansfield alumni have gone on to hold.
Geographers’ Wine Tasting 1st September 2011
David Falkner (Geography, 1997) Geography and Wine: to many Mansfield alumni as natural a pairing as Laurel and Hardy and Torvill and Dean. And so it was that a phalanx of dedicated former (and honorary) Geographers descended on the industrial heartland of Merton for the inaugural Tony Lemon Alumni Wine Tasting. Following an inevitably late start (surely no one remains surprised by the Geographers’ collective ability to get lost) we were treated to the delights of a brief lecture by Tony on the history of South African viticulture, described by the well known wine critic Mr David Clyde (Geography, 1997) as ‘vintage Lemon’, following which we began our intrepid voyage around some of South Africa’s finest wineries. Right from the start, the evening threw up surprises, with Bellingham estate offering a real curveball of a Chenin Blanc which none of us were expecting. Several tastings and hours later, the room was almost unanimously converted, and
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we collectively decided it was time to move on to the evening’s second wine, a similarly delicious Sauvignon Blanc from Neil Ellis’ estate. Having polished off (read as thoughtfully sipped) the whites, we moved onto the much anticipated second flight: the reds. Fortunately, these South African masters were on fine form and a further enjoyable hour was had by all. The highlight of the evening was undoubtedly the Hartenberg Pontac, which Tony had secreted many years ago in the college cellar and which, we learnt, was (until drunk) possibly the last example of its kind left in the world. All in all, a cracking night, and thanks must go to both Tony and the Development Office for their respective roles in reminding us both of the quality of wine available in South Africa but also, more importantly, of the quality of the friendships we made when at Mansfield.
Alumni news
Weddings Our warmest congratulations to Emma Teale (Law, 1999) and Scott Dowden, and to Christopher Arnold (Geography, 1994) and Elizabeth Ratcliffe who were married this year. Congratulations also Chris du Boulay (Law, 2008) who became engaged to Debi Pienaar.
‘As for many couples, our wedding day was truly fantastic. We had our ceremony in the JCR (minus the pool table, Tekken machine and old pizza boxes) and then, after drinks on the quad, had our wedding breakfast in the chapel before returning to the JCR for the party. Being back at Mansfield meant that we had the relaxed and laid back day that we were hoping for with great food and a venue that means a great deal to me (and, now, my husband!). The College made a great backdrop for some wonderful photos too.’ Emma Teale (Law, 1999)
Births Congratulations to former Mansfield Association President Gill Kirk (English, 1991) and her partner Simon, whose son Ori was born on January 2nd, 2011.
Mansfield Association Michael Hopkins (Theology, 1998) This year was not the easiest for the Mansfield Association in terms of personnel. We began the year with Gill Kirk as President and Paul Fleming and Secretary. Sadly, Gill stood down as President for family reasons, and Paul stood down for personal reasons. The committee coopted Brian Seaton to return as Secretary, and me to serve as President for the remainder of Gill’s term (until the 2011 AGM). The committee has also co-opted Hugh Stewart and Bob Porrer, whose wisdom and experience has greatly strengthened us. Over many years there has long been a desire for closer connections between the Association and the College,
through its Development Office. Currently some alumni events are organised and marketed directly by the College, and others by the Association. I am pleased to report that there have been positive developments on this front, and we expect that in the coming year there will be closer working relationship, to the mutual benefit of the College and alumni. Although it has been mentioned much elsewhere, the Association sends its best wishes to Dr Diana Walford on her retirement, and looks forward to working with Baroness Kennedy in the future.
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obituaries
We are sad to report the passing of three Mansfield alumni during 2011. Victor Bredenkamp 1928-2011
term of 1955. After his time at Mansfield, he took a Doctor of Philosophy at Princeton University.
Marie Bredenkamp
Victor Bredenkamp completed his initial degree at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa, and thereafter went up to Mansfield in the Spring
Walter Hartwell 1931-2011
Peter Moth (Theology, 1957) Walter Hartwell was born in Berlin in the early 1930s and his family moved to the UK before the outbreak of war. His father was a distinguished minister, and Walter followed him into the church. He studied at Mansfield in the early 1950s and was ordained into the Congregational Church serving initially at Grace Road, Ellesmere Port. The remainder of his ministry was exercised in the North East where he became minister of Stephenson Street Congregational Church, North Shields in
Roger Tomes 1929-2011
Jack McKelvey (Theology, 1956) Roger Tomes won an exhibition to Jesus College in 1946 and, after graduation and two years of National Service in the Intelligence Corps, he began his training for the ministry at Mansfield, where he won a research fellowship and graduated with the B.D. degree in 1956. Roger began his life as a minister in Yorkshire at Grove Congregational
Victor lectured at the University of KwaZulu/Natal for 32 years and was Head of Department of Religious Studies there for twelve years. He specialised in the various World Religions and in Bio-Medical Ethics. He served two terms as Dean of the Faculty of Arts, and took a special interest in Secondary Education, serving for many years as Chairman of the Board of Governors of two prominent Private Schools in Natal, South Africa.
1961, which later became St Columba’s United Reformed Church where he served until 1973. Walter was the first Chairman of the Newcastle District of the United Reformed Church, a post which he filled with distinction, bringing his sharp intelligence and punctilious attention to detail, coupled with a total lack of pomposity or fuss, to bear upon the issues faced by the newly-formed church. He had a keen and analytical mind, which he kept well-informed by voracious reading and constant discourse. To meet him casually in the street led one into a conversation which invariably changed the nature of the rest of the day, whether the subject was theology, Church in Gomersal in 1956. There followed ministries in King’s Weigh House in London (1963-65), Whitefields (1965-73) and Trinity, St.Albans (1973-77). Such pastoral experience was invaluable for Roger’s training of ministers. He served as a part-time Lecturer at the Yorkshire United Independent College (1957-58) and at New College in London (196367). In 1977 he was appointed Lecturer in Old Testament at Northern College (1977-93) and taught in the University of Manchester on a part-time basis (198089). He was also a widely-acknowledged scholar and published author who wrote countless articles on the Old Testament and its background. Roger’s contribution to ministerial training extended still more widely. He served as secretary for Ministerial Training in the Congregational Church in England and Wales (1970-72) and as secretary for the Supplementary Ministries committee of
n his retirement he directed a Rotary Adult Literacy Project, raising 600,000 US Dollars which was spent in training hundreds of illiterate and disadvantaged people who had been denied the opportunity of education. His prestigious achievements in the academic field and in Rotary have been rewarded with double recognition as a Paul Harris Fellow (a Paul Harris Pin in 1991, plus a Paul Harris Sapphire Pin in 1998) in addition to the unusual distinction of the Rotary ‘Service Above Self’ award which was bestowed on him in February 2001. He is survived by his wife Marie and their three children.
theatre, cinema, German culture or even the latest cheese at the local deli. He had a delightfully thoughtful and waspish manner which was the church’s loss when he decided to move full-time into a career in further education and left the Roll of Ministers. A reflective man, and a patient listener as well as a good talker, he was passionately devoted to Mansfield College and one of the most assiduous of the Mansfield Association’s members. At the last Association lunch several of us wondered at Wally’s unexpected absence. It was only when I returned to Tyneside that I discovered he had gone to sit at table with his Lord. His funeral took place at Tynemouth Priory, Holy Saviour’s Church on November 3rd, 2011.
the URC. He undertook valuable interfaith work as convenor of the Mission and Other Faiths committee. In his ‘retirement’, Roger kept up his academic work and was active in the local community. He was a founder member of Manchester Amnesty International, led worship regularly in local churches, and visited the housebound. He aimed to finish the preparation for Sunday in time to spend Saturday afternoons supporting his Broughton Park team. We cannot think of Roger without also thinking of Yvonne. Their marriage of 57 years was a mutual experience of sharing and caring. Roger is remembered for his Christian devotion and service and his personal qualities of friendliness, selfless service, lack of affectation and readiness to help others.
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academic
Fellows’ Research and Publications One of the most exciting aspects of a Mansfield education is working work closely with tutors who are world-leaders in their fields. Here we highlight the recent research of some of our academics.
Ros Ballaster
Pam Berry
Professor of Eighteenth-Century Studies and Tutorial Fellow in English
Supernumerary Fellow in Geography
Ros is continuing research into a monograph on the interaction of theatre and novel in the eighteenth century.
Pam was involved as the Lead Author on the England Synthesis chapter of The UK National Ecosystem Assessment (NEA). This provided the first analysis of the UK’s natural environment in terms of the benefits to society and continuing economic prosperity. It summarised the England-specific information on ecosystems and their services, and examined some of the drivers and consequences of the observed changes, as well as how sustainable ecosystem management could enhance ecosystem services, biodiversity and human well-being.
Recent Publications ‘The Eastern Tale and the Candid Reader: Tristram Shandy, Candide, Rasselas’, in L’attrait de l’Orient/ The Call of the East, special ed. proceedings of Colloque tenu en Sorbonne – 22-23 janvier 2010 of XVII-XVIII 67 (2010). ‘The Economics of Ethical Conversation: The Commerce of the Letter in Eliza Haywood and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’, Eighteenth-Century Life, 35 (2011).
Pam has also been busy giving lectures at: “Biodiversity Post 2010”, a conference organised by the Belgian Government as part of their EU Presidency; the British Council’s Science Programme, Madrid; the German Federation for Nature Conservation; DG Environment, Brussels; the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; UNEPWCMC, Cambridge; Oxford Alumni; and Berks., Bucks. and Oxon. Wildlife Trust’s Board of Trustees.
Mads Frandsen
Junior Research Fellow in Theoretical Physics
Peggy Morgan
Lecturer in the Study of Religion Peggy has continued to edit a major series of monographs in the Study of Religions called Advances in Religious Studies, with James Cox of the University of Edinburgh for Continuum Press. Recent Publications: ‘Buddhist Perspectives on Jesus’, in The Blackwell Companion to Jesus, ed. Delbert Burckett (Blackwell, 2010)
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Mads is a postdoctoral researcher in the Theoretical Particle Physics Department, currently funded by the STFC. His research is focused on understanding the origin of mass and the nature of dark matter.
Recent Publications: ‘Direct detection of dark matter in models with a light Z’ (with F. Kahlhoefer, S. Sarkar and K. Schmidt-Hoberg), in arXiv:1107.2118, Journal of High Energy Physics 1109, 128 (2011). ‘On the DAMA and CoGeNT Modulations’ (with F. Kahlhoefer, J. March-Russell, C. McCabe, M. McCullough and K. SchmidtHoberg), in arXiv:1105.3734, Physics Review D84 041301 (2011). ‘Light asymmetric dark matter from new strong dynamics’ (with S. Sarkar, K. Schmidt-Hoberg), Physics Review D84 051703 (2011).
academic
Paul Lodge
Michèle Mendelssohn
Paul recently signed a contract with Oxford University Press to edit a series, G.W. Leibniz: Philosophical Publications. It will consist of translations of all the philosophical writings published by Leibniz during his lifetime. Work has now begun on the first volume (The Journal Articles), which he will co-translate.
In 2010 and 2011, Michèle was awarded a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship and a short-term Research Fellowship in African American History and Culture at Emory University. These awards were for her work on a new book on Oscar Wilde. This book project focuses on Oscar Wilde’s racial trials in the United States, a lost episode in literary and cultural history.
Tutorial Fellow in Philosophy
Recent Publications: ‘Leibniz on Infinite Analysis, Lucky Proof, and Guaranteed Proof,’ (with Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra), in Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, 93 (2011). ‘The Empirical Grounds for Leibniz’s “Real Metaphysics”’, in The Leibniz Review, 20 (2010).
Tutorial Fellow in English
Tutorial Fellow in the History of Modern Christian Thought Joel continues to sit on the Editorial Board for the 11-volume critical edition of Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks, published by Princeton University Press.
Recent Publications: ‘Notes on Oscar Wilde’s Transatlantic Gender Politics’, in Journal of American Studies (forthcoming). ‘“Beautiful Souls Mixed up with Hooked Noses”: Art, Degeneration and Anti-Semitism in Trilby and The Master’, in Victorian Literature and Culture, 40. 1 (forthcoming in 2012). ‘Aestheticism and Decadence’, in Henry James in Context, ed. David McWhirter (Cambridge University Press, 2010).
Recent Publications: ‘Paul Ricoeur on Kierkegaard, the Limits of Philosophy, and the Consolation of Hope’, in Kierkegaard’s Influence on Philosophy, ed. Jon Stewart (Ashgate, forthcoming). ‘Poetry, Piety, and Paideia in Kierkegaard’s Practice in Christianity’, in Kierkegaard’s Late Writings (Kierkegaard Studies: Yearbook 2010), eds. Niels-Jørgen Cappelørn, Hermann Deuser, and K. Brian Söderquist (Walter de Gruyter, 2010).
Philip Kennedy
Senior Research Fellow in Modern Theology Last March Philip published his book Christianity: An Introduction (IB Tauris, 2011). It is an interpretation of the essence of Christianity and an account of Christianity’s origins and subsequent history. Philip is currently working on a book devoted to the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council.
Joel Rasmussen
‘Kierkegaard’s Biblical Hermeneutics’, in Kierkegaard’s Use of the Bible, eds. Lee C. Barrett and Jon Stewart (Ashgate, 2010).
Janet Dyson
Tutorial Fellow in Mathematics Application of the cell-cell adhesion model: Simulation of wound healing with varying adhesion strength parameter λ.
In 2011 Janet spent four weeks as a Visiting Professor at the University of Bordeaux 2. She was working with Professor Pierre Magal, looking at models of the direct transfer of P-glycoprotein between cells. She also gave a talk on ‘Existence and asymptotic properties of solutions of a non-local cell-cell adhesion model in N-dimensional space’.
(a) λ = 1.55
(b) λ = 13.0
(c) λ = 13.5
(d) λ = 14.0
1
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academic
2011 Exam results DOCTORATE (DPhil)
Master’s Degrees
Clinical Medicine Frances Pearson
MPhil Economics Pass Julien Labonne
MSt in Medieval History Pass Michael Villacres
English Christopher Salamone Qian Wang
MJuris Pass
MSt in Modern British & European History Pass Tom Greene
Geography & the Environment David Stainforth
MSc Applied Statistics Pass Tsz Him Chiu Kamal Wood
History Paul Minoletti Law Wai Yeung Materials Science Huichao Bi Fabio Grazioso Katie Moore Politics James Dray Statistics Anjali Mazumder
Ioannis Katsaroumpas Paul Salez
MSc Biodiversity, Conservation & Management Pass Neha Sinha Joanne Thompson MSc Clinical Embryology Pass Christodoulos Christodoulou MSc Computer Science Pass Nizar Hejazi Andreas Savvides MSc Economics for Development Pass Philip Rowan MSc Environmental Change & Management Pass Martine Verdy MSc Financial Economics Pass Guido Pagani MSc Integrated Immunology Pass Josephine Kahn MSc Mathematical & Computational Finance Pass Bo Guan MSc Nature, Society & Environmental Policy Dist Julian Cottee Pass James Beard Julia Schaefer Gomez MSc Pharmacology Dist Brian Bak Pass Mingu Kim MSc Social Science of the Internet Pass Hannah Kim MSc Water Science, Policy & Management Pass Juan Guerreiro MSt in English Pass Fleur Frederick MSt in English & American Studies Dist Alice Bamford MSt in Jewish Studies Pass Samuel Hilton
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MSt Oriental Studies Dist Kamaluddin Ahmed Pass Grace Tan MSt Study of Religion Pass Patricia Andrews MSt Theology Pass Andrew Jungclaus MSt in Women’s Studies Dist Jennifer White MBA Dist Emily Boezeman Jonathan Gill Pass Sarah Alsaif Jacob Anderson Christopher Roe Juliette Schwartz-Vartikar BCL Dist Pass
Harley Schumann Nathaniel Bird Dimitrios Katsikis Brian O’Beirne Harshula Seneviratne
MEng Engineering Science Class 1 Radoslaw Nowak Engineering, Economics & Management Class 1 Christopher Mertlitz Class 2.i Christian Dube John Kerr Materials, Economics & Management Class 2.i Melvin Chen Class 2.ii Chirag Goyate Materials Science Class 1 Robert Clough Class 2.i Jack Spawton Class 2.ii Helen Dugdale MMaths Mathematics (Parts A & B) Class 2.i Charlotte Hindley Matthew Williams MMaths & Statistics Part C Class 3 Bobby Sun MPhys Physics Class 2.i Tom Goodman Eleanor Legg Class 2.ii David Wilkinson
BACHELOR OF ARTS (BA)
UNCLASSIFIED HONOURS
PRELIMINARY EXAMINATIONS
English Language & Literature Class 1 Louis Goddard Charlotte Gorman Class 2.i Joseph Hone Bryony Makin Katherine Miller Grace Simonet Freya Smith Adina Wass
Engineering Science Part I Pass Runze Liu Sineth Weerasinghe Simon Williamson
Engineering Science Dist Samuel Knight David Wharton Pass Imogen Buchan Engineering, Economics & Management Dist Christopher Lee Evans
Geography Class 1 Yannick Young Class 2.i Andrew Campbell James Cooper Emily Hamer Heather Stephen History Class 1 Emma Sullivan Class 2.i Benjamin Featherstone Ben Wythe History & English Class 1 Nicholas de Taranto Isobel Plant Thomas Young History & Politics Class 2.i Benjamin Kindler James Nettleton Eilise Norris Human Sciences Class 1 Holly Krelle Class 2.i Laura Charles Jurisprudence Class 2.i Christopher du Boulay James Illingworth James King Mathematics Class 1 Camilla Gardner Matthew Hitchings Mathematics & Statistics Class 1 Shu Zhou Class 2.i Florence Oakley Oriental Studies Class 2.i Harriet Publicover Philosophy, Politics & Economics Class 1 Annika Froese Wiebke Junk Class 2.i Joe Chrisp Edward Finch Mark Scott Rina Soloveitchik Physics Class 1 Henry Carter Class 2.i Benjamin Hickman Class 2.ii Michael Bagshaw Theology Class 1 Thomas Mayou Class 2.i Alice Codner Elizabeth Evans Alexander Hyde Austin Jones
Materials Science/ MEM Part I Pass Daniel Camp Ryutaro Hiratsuka Helene Jones Alasdair Morrison Mathematics Part A Pass Shaan Dalwadi Mark Ellis Sean Moorhead Andrew Parker Kate Thompson Nathan Webster Mathematics & Statistics Part A Pass Ho-Joon Kim Physics Part B (4 years) Pass Jonasz Slomka Raquel Velasco Physics Part A Pass Lucy Hutchinson Part. Pass Jonathan Lipscombe
HONOUR MODERATIONS Mathematics Class 2 Lauren McFadyen Robert McPherson Robert Peck Jonathan Sykes Class 3 Fiona Murphy Mathematics & Statistics Class 1 Adrian David
MODERATIONS English Pass
Josephine Bond Dionne Farrell Katherine Humphries Juliet Knapp Charlotte Turner Emma Wilson-Black
Jurisprudence Pass Katherine Dean Katharine Gingell David Lukic Katri Piiparinen Jurisprudence (with Law Studies in Europe) Pass Emma Foubister
Geography Pass Thomas Adlam Oliver Cohen Christopher Crompton Matthew Dodd Charlotte Gibbs Leah Grint George Hasell-McCosh Connell Stewart History Pass Hugo Fearon Samuel Firman Holly Haines Saskia Hoskins Anisa Kassamali Emma Moberly Sophie Willson History & English Pass Eleanor Saunders Sophie Wilson History & Politics Dist Jia Xin Audrey Ho Human Sciences Dist Maisie Jenkinson Pass Rosemary Kanuritch Materials Science Dist George Heppel Jun Li Pass Sarah Connolly Alexander Edwards Katherine Hazelton Oriental Studies Pass Susanna Elliott Lily Fletcher Philosophy, Politics & Economics Pass Thomas Capper Sophie Cote Noam Finkelstein Joseph Holloway Oliver Wood Physics Dist David MacDougal Pass Kristiyan Ivanov Daniel Keeling Samuel Nemzer Benjamin Rothwell Theology Dist Joanna Williams Pass Jack Andrews Rose Chesterton Joshua Felberg Beth Hodgett
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academic
2011 Academic Awards The following students were recognised for their academic achievements at College or University level this year:
Scholarships
College Prizes
Samuel Knight (Engineering, Year 2) Christopher Lee Evans (EEM, Year 2) David Wharton (Engineering, Year 2) Audrey Jia Xin Ho (History & Politics, Year 2) Maisie Jenkinson (Human Sciences, Year 2) George Heppel (Materials Science, Year 2) Jun Li (Materials Science, Year 2) Adrian David (Maths & Stats, Year 2) David MacDougal (Physics, Year 2) Joanna Williams (Theology, Year 2)
Worsley Prize James King (Law Finalist 2011)
Exhibitions Dionne Farrell (English, Year 2) Emma Wilson-Black (English, Year 2) Andrew Rhodes (History & Politics, Year 3) Emma Foubister (Law, Year 2) Ian Pethick (PPE, Year 2) Katri Piiparinen (Law, Year 2) Sarah Connolly (Materials Science, Year 2) Katherine Hazelton (Materials Science, Year 2) Robert McPherson (Mathematics, Year 2) Robert Peck (Mathematics, Year 2) Susanna Elliott (Oriental Studies, Year 2) Joshua Felberg (Theology & Oriental Studies, Year 2)
Horton Davies Prize Andrew Grey (Theology, Year 3) Daniel Rey (Theology, Year 3) Mason Lowance Prize for best performance in English Finals Charlotte Gorman Mason Lowance Prize for best 2nd Year English Essay Victoria Pearce Mahony Prize William Tullett (History & Politics, Year 3) Sarah & Peter Harkness Prize David Wharton (Engineering Science, Year 2) Brimelow Prize Helene Jones (Materials Science, Year 4) Professor John Sykes Prize Daniel Camp, (Materials Science, Year 4) College Essay Prize Joseph Hone (English Finalist 2011) Henty Prize John Morrison (Geography, Year 3) Visiting Student Prize for 2010-11 Melissa Browne
University Prizes Pusey and Ellerton Senior Prize Elizabeth Evans (Theology) Gibbs Prize for outstanding performance in Finals Emma Sullivan (History) Best FHS Paper 1 Portfolio Louis Goddard (English)
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2011 Scholars and Exhibitioners’ Dinner
events
Events Calendar 2012 February 17th 24th
Mansfield Lecture Series – Hisham Matar Mansfield Lecture Series – David Edgar
March 2nd 9th 31st
Mansfield Lecture Series – Caroline Lucas MP Mansfield Lecture Series – Lord (Roy) Hattersley New York Lecture and Drinks Reception
April 21st 28th 28th
MMCC vs Old Boys Cricket Match C.H. Dodd Society Public Lecture and Lunch Law Society Annual Dinner
May 4th 5th 5th 12th Date TBC
Graduation Day Graduation Day 1887 Society Annual Dinner Graduation Day London Alumni Drinks
June 23rd 23rd
Commemoration Service and Midsummer Reunion Mansfield Association Dinner
July 14th 28th
Graduation Day Graduation Day
September 14th-16th Oxford University Alumni Weekend December Date TBC
London Alumni Drinks
Please contact our Alumni Relations Officer for more information or to reserve a place at any of these events. Bob Trafford, Alumni Relations Officer Email: alumni.officer@mansfield.ox.ac.uk Telephone: +44 (0)1865 270998 Fax: +44 (0)1865 270970 For information on Graduation Days, please visit: www.mansfield.ox.ac.uk/current/graduation or call our Access and Admissions Officer, Jenny Medland on 01865 282920
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www.mans ield.ox.ac.uk