5 minute read
From the Master
FROM THE MASTER
Last summer we were all keenly looking forward to a better 2021. We had just gone through an Easter Term with all teaching being done online, with most students back at home and studying and doing their exams from there, with an almost deserted College, and with none of the glorious celebration that normally comes with June in Cambridge. Surely 2021 couldn’t be as bad as this? Well, we’ve tried very hard to make it better; but it’s been a struggle. It was especially a struggle in Lent Term, when once again a national lockdown meant that most students had to study and work from home, and even for those who were still in Cambridge there was no music or sport or socialising at all. But Easter Term this year was far better, even though we still had to ask everyone to wear masks in indoor communal spaces, and to observe social distancing, and to collect food in boxes from the Servery. Just seeing our students back in College was a delight, and the place was buzzing with life and activity again, and on the sunny days of early June everyone was sitting out on the Bowling Green Lawn reading or revising or chatting.
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As we came towards the end of term we brought Formal Hall back for six nights over the final three weeks: everyone had to sit in groups of six, with space between each group, including of course the Fellows on High Table. We put the six Formal Halls up online for students to book their places; and within ten minutes every single place had been booked. It was a very good indication of how sorely missed many of the community aspects of College life have been, through these pandemic times. And then at the end of term we erected a huge marquee and were able to put on a Matriculation Dinner for our first-year students (who had never been able to matriculate properly at the start of the year); we did a barbeque for our second-year students; we gave a Barham Dinner to celebrate graduation for our third-year students; we did a lunch and graduation ceremony for the graduands; and we put on a combined Matriculation and Graduation Dinner for our postgraduates. None of these, sadly, were in Hall; they were all in the marquee with tables of six clearly separated; but it felt really special, particularly after the fifteen months we had all been living through. I’m firmly hoping that by the time we get to Michaelmas virtually all of our students will have been doubly vaccinated and we’ll be able to provide much more of a sense of life lived as a College community.
Through all of these difficult months we have been guided and led by our Senior Tutor, Dan Tucker. Dan has handled everything with astonishing patience and humanity. Whether it’s carrying out complex risk assessments for meeting rooms or events; or trying to understand the often contradictory advice and guidance from the Department for Education; or coordinating plans with the University or the City Council or Public Health England; or working with the Junior Parlour and Graduate Parlour, whose contributions to College life through the whole period have been terrific; or setting out a weekly letter to all students explaining what is happening and why; or dealing with a host of individual enquiries and special circumstances: Dan has remained calm and unflustered throughout. And he has struck exactly the right balance between keeping
everyone safe whilst ensuring that they can have some joy too. Dan is also of course a distinguished veterinary academic, a global expert on pigs, and is in high demand around the world for his knowledge and advice. He does now want to focus much more on his research and his international advisory work, and will step down as Senior Tutor when his initial five years come to an end in September. He will be much missed. We are of course delighted that he will remain a Fellow of the College.
One of the most important of all tasks for a Master is to lead the process of choosing a new Senior Tutor. We advertised, and received some very strong applications, and in late February I chaired an interview panel of Fellows to try and find the best new Senior Tutor possible. I’m very happy to say that we did in fact find a particularly outstanding candidate, whom we’ve appointed, and who joins us from 1st September. He is Robert Mayhew, Professor of Historical Geography at Bristol University, who has a formidable academic record, but now wants to focus his energies on student support and College life. For nine years he was a resident Warden at Bristol, with responsibility for the pastoral, disciplinary, social and sporting life of the undergraduates, and leading a team of Tutors. In his application he talked about ‘the centrality of personal engagement to building a successful academic environment’. For me, this precisely describes the ethos of Pembroke. Our academic success comes because of the warmth and friendliness and mutually supportive nature of our College community.
Crucial to that warmth and friendliness, of course, are the interdisciplinary engagement – and cohesiveness – of our Fellowship. Elsewhere in the Gazette you will be able to read the remarkable list of achievements, awards and publications that have been secured by our Fellows during the past year. It’s an outstanding list, and alongside it runs a commitment to the College, to our students, and to the process of education and research that forms our fundamental purpose.
We did, sadly, lose one of our most distinguished Emeritus Fellows back in February. Professor David Buckingham joined Pembroke as a Fellow in 1970, after his appointment as the first holder of the Professorship of Theoretical Chemistry at Cambridge. His work studying the optical, electric and magnetic properties of molecules and intermolecular forces shed light on the fundamental physical properties of matter. His work was acknowledged and recognised across the world. To this day, quadrupole moments of molecules are measured in buckinghams. He also found time to be a talented cricketer, serving as President of CUCC for some twenty years. Above all, David was one of the nicest, gentlest, most engaging colleagues you could possibly want to have. When we celebrated his ninetieth birthday in Parlour, his beaming smile lit up the room, and lit up our hearts.
That, too, is what Pembroke life is all about.
C.R.S.
