Principal’s Report

Two years ago in this Report, I wondered whether we would look back on 2020 as a turning point. I asked whether the disruption and uncertainty of life under Covid-19 might even offer us a choice: between a world of deepening economic inequality, polarised politics and climate insecurity or a world realigned along the principles of equality, dignity and freedom.

Today, the choice of which path we’ll follow still seems to hang in the balance. Perhaps it always does. Certainly, the crises have come thick and fast since 2020, darkening the geopolitical landscape with new war and fresh assaults on our democratic values, soaring inflation, mass migration and, looming above it all, the catastrophic toll of the climate crisis.

And yet, despite the many troubles in the world, I still believe in the answer I gave to that question back in 2020. Back then, I said that our community’s undiminished energy and creativity had convinced me that, here at Somerville at least, the choice of which path to follow was clear. We were ready to help make a better world.

We are still ready to make that better world. In the fight against climate change, for example, our entire community is working hard to make Somerville a home for sustainable thinking, solutions and practice.

Our Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development saw its scholar Guarav Dubey launch the Climate Change Research Portal, a world-first platform aggregating information on climate change research around the world. Following a summer of extreme heatwaves, the OICSD’s Research Director, Professor Radhika Khosla, was one of the leading voices in The New York Times, among others, calling on governments to adopt sustainable strategies for coping with extreme heat. The OICSD also curated its second OpenAg Symposium, welcoming panellists from around the world to propose policies and interventions that will put agriculture at the heart of our path to Net Zero.

The path to Net Zero requires both small steps and big ideas. One of those small steps was the replacement of our Maintenance team’s vehicle with an electric van (pictured above). Big ideas, meanwhile, came with the appointment of Adriana Mordente as our new Sustainability Officer. A current member of the MCR reading for a PhD in freshwater ecology, Adriana is now managing the sustainability audit that will generate the campaigns and policies that transform our sustainability culture over the next five years.

Of course, sustainability is just one of the issues galvanising the Somerville community. We are fortunate, therefore, that our academics have once again led the way this year in creating knowledge with the power both to tackle today’s issues and inspire today’s students.

Somerville researchers led by Professor Daniel Anthony and Dr Fay Probert have developed a powerful new diagnostic test that has gained national media attention for its capacity to detect both cancer and MS. In response to the war in Ukraine, our Janet Vaughan Tutor in Clinical Medicine, Dr Helen Ashdown, established supply lines to doctors on the frontline to whom she is now sending vital surgical supplies.

Our Senior Research Fellow Patricia Kingori this year became the youngest Black woman to attain a full professorship in Oxford and Cambridge history, in recognition of her outstanding work on global health ethics. Another trailblazer is our Fellow in International Relations, Professor Patricia Owens, who this year published International Women’s Thought, the first ever anthology to collect and thereby codify the contributions made by women in the field of International Relations.

We also welcomed the publication of Openness in Medieval Europe, the fourth volume by the Somerville Medievalist Research Group. Conceived as a defiant response to the cultural foreclosures of Brexit and featuring fifteen essays by Somerville academics past and present, the book offers eloquent proof not only of the openness of medieval culture, but the power of the humanities to create community.

Perhaps the most dynamic example of openness at Somerville is the unprecedented work we are doing as a College of Sanctuary. This year Somerville will host five fullyfunded Sanctuary Scholars, including one undergraduate from Afghanistan, two students from Ukraine, one from Ethiopia and one from Somalia.

PROFESSOR PATRICIA KINGORI TOM HICKLING

Our Sanctuary scholars are able to be here through the titanic efforts of our Development team and Scholarships Officer – but also thanks to the amazing support you have extended towards this cause. I would like to offer my heartfelt thanks to everyone who supported sanctuary at Somerville, not least those North American alumni and friends who responded so generously to the urgent, somewhat ad hoc call to support a Ukrainian postgraduate at Somerville which I made during my recent US trip. You can learn more about our exciting work as a College of Sanctuary at our forthcoming Sanctuary Celebration this autumn (check the website for details).

Doubtless inspired by their tutors, our students seem hardly to have stopped this year. Our Finalists have achieved phenomenal academic success, securing 23 Archibald Jackson Prizes (awarded to graduate finalists who achieve a Distinction) and 47 Mary Somerville Prizes (awarded to undergraduate finalists who achieve a First or Distinction).

Of particular note is Althea Sovani (2018, Classics and Oriental Studies), who received the Gaisford Prize for Greek Verse, the Comparative Philology Prize, the Boden Prize for an outstanding performance in Sanskrit and the Craven Prize for second-best performance across Classics and Joint Honours degrees. Also of note is Chloe Green (2019, Music), who secured the Gibbs Prize for best overall performance in Music.

Aside from our Finalists, many other students continue to illustrate Somerville’s academic edge. Twenty nine Somervillians secured College Prizes for achieving a First or Distinction in the First Public Examination. Notably, Ingrid Yu (2020, Experimental Psychology) received the Susan Mary Rouse Memorial Prize for best overall performance in the Introduction to Psychology Prelim, the Weiskrantz Prize for best performance in Psychology Part I and the Braddick Prize for best overall performance in PPL Prelims. Our second year medics also turned in a stand-out performance, with Alisha Kenward (2020, Medicine) coming top in the year for Psychology, Sarafina Otis (2020, Medicine) securing proxime accessit for best overall performance and the cohort as a whole achieving 3 distinctions, 8 merits and 2 commendations.

From the MCR, I was delighted to see our doctoral candidate and Stipendiary Lecturer Tom Hickling (2018, DPhil Engineering) win the 2020 ASME Gas Turbine Award, and fellow doctoral student and current Mary De Zouche Scholar Aavika Dhanda (2019, DPhil Zoology) receive the Rufford Foundation’s Rufford Small Grant. The latter will support Aavika’s research into the effects of land use changes on forest bird communities in the eastern Himalayas.

As always, however, academic success is only half the story. Outside exam schools, our students have seemed determined to storm the barricades of both sport and the arts. They won Drama Cuppers, took silver in Dancesport Cuppers, captained the women’s fencing team to victory at the Varsity and put on a fantastic show at Summer VIIIs, where the Women’s 2nd boat came joint-second.

In music, the Somerville College Choir spent several of the hottest days of the year pretending it was snowing as they recorded their forthcoming Christmas album, The Dawn of Grace. In a nice Somerville twist, the new album – generously enabled by Virginia Ross (1966, MSt International Studies) and available to buy for Christmas – will exclusively feature works by female composers.

The Somerville Music Society also went from strength to strength this year, including the curation of a moving evening of music for Ukraine. Not wishing to miss out on the limelight, the Somerville Drama Society ended the year with a production of Twelfth Night in the Arcadian settings of Waterperry Gardens.

Of final note is the fact that student mental health has clearly become an urgent priority following the pandemic. In response, both our JCR and MCR committees have stepped up to support the excellent work being done by our Welfare Officer, College

SOMERVILLE COLLEGE CHOIR DURING RECORDING SESSIONS FOR THEIR UPCOMING CHRISTMAS ALBUM, DAWN OF GRACE

Nurse and Decanal team. Students have led wellbeing initiatives such as knitting and gaming nights, pizza-making sessions and llamas on the quad, as well as reintroducing the joint-sports day with Girton College and staging our first Humanities vs Science quiz in The Terrace (a roaring success). They also let their hair down at a beautifully organised Somerville-Jesus Ball featuring Ferris wheels, live music, circus performers and gourmet food trucks.

Our Development team has spent the past year strengthening Somerville on several key fronts, in addition to its work on sanctuary.

Over two days in March, we were privileged to welcome Professor Brenda Stevenson, the inaugural Hillary Rodham Clinton Chair in Women's History to our Foundation Day lecture, followed by Dame June Raine and Dame Kate Bingham to our Spring Meeting. After these eloquent proofs of Oxford’s seminal role in world affairs, our Foundation Fellow and former Solicitor General of India, Gopal Subramanium confirmed his intention to honour the Bingham family, who have long-standing connections at Oxford, by creating the Bingham Law Scholarship at Somerville. The scholarship will enable an outstanding law undergraduate to progress onto postgraduate study at Somerville without financial anxiety.

No conversation about Somerville’s impact on the world stage would be complete without mentioning Shirley Williams. This lion of British politics, the greatest Prime Minister we never had, was also a committed internationalist and academic who helped draft the constitutions of Ukraine and South Africa. Following her death in 2021, there seemed no better way to honour Shirley’s contribution than through a Fellowship in Politics, to ensure that the subject she loved will always be taught at Somerville. now in a position to name our current Vice-Principal, Professor Lois McNay, as the new Shirley Williams Fellow in Politics. The £450,000 required to endow this Fellowship was met through generous contributions from Westminster and Somerville, as well as an exciting crowdfunding campaign that saw us raise the final £50,000 in just ten days – with special thanks to Nicola Ralston (History, 1974) and Omar Davis (PPE, 1997) for agreeing to match the first £25,000 donated to this project.

Last but by no means least, I come to our alumni community – always a cause for great happiness. As you will know, we returned to a calendar of primarily in-person events this year. It was delightful to spend time with so many of you at these events, across everything from the 1970-71 reunion to the Supporters’ Lunch, Christmas Carol Service, Spring Meeting and our largest ever Gaudy in June.

So many memories remain from these occasions – from dancing at the Gaudy to seeing our Emeritus Fellow Lesley Brown mobbed by adoring former tutees at a lecture on the Somerville quartet of philosophers. We sipped Pimms by the river ahead of the Boat Club’s Centenary Dinner – which enabled us to raise vital funds for a new Women’s Boat – but also found time for remembrance at our annual Commemoration Service.

Next year I hope to see even more of you, as well as to take forward more of the projects which I and the College perceive as so important – mental resilience, inclusivity, sustainability and academic excellence, all four pillars of our new RISE project. I also hope to replicate my trip to North America with similar visits to India, Berlin and Asia, knowing that Somervillians are nothing if not international!

Until then, I very much hope you enjoy this record of our College’s activities.

SHIRLEY WILLIAMS IN 2015