Part III: Antarctica and Academe - Scott Polar Research Institute

esignation. I hoped that I would be able to dispell most of the residual concerns. St
Edmund's was a small, close-knit, friendly community - both an academic
community and a social grouping, with a broad ecumenical base, a special part of
which was the Roman Catholic tradition. I did not wish by my actions to diminish
this tradition and fully concurred in the decision of the Fellowship to make special
provision for maintaining it. One of my first functions as Master had been to chair
the committee that recommended the appointment of the new Bursar and I
welcomed John Holifield to the College in that post. At this, my first service in the
College Chapel, the Dean, Michael Winter did not welcome me. I could not help but
think he disappproved of my election.
Why had I stood for election to the Mastership of a small college, and why, as an
agnostic for many years, had I accepted the headship of a catholic college? Knowing
that there were potentially serious problems? And for a derisory stipend? Well -
among the reasons were that at the time my retirement from government service, as
Director of BAS, was approaching; I did not want to become a nuisance to my
successor, whoever that might be, by hanging around BAS. I had been too long in
full-time in administration with little time for research and I felt that I was unlikely to
make further major contributions to biology. I had been too long away from
personal research, owing to the adminstrative burdens and it would be difficult to
get back into serious research, either in BAS or attached to a University department.
This was reinforced by the fact that my research interests had always been in field
work in remote environments, and there would be practical problems in pursuing it
seriously; it was not like taking up research in a laboratory again. I was not
interested in doing superficial research. I knew that I was a very good administrator
and committee chairman and could probably achieve what I set out to do for the
College. It was a challenge to bring the Collgege out of the backwater it was in, and
into the mainstream of the University.
Another factor influencing my decision was that I had been on the fringes of the
University since the days in Africa, without really understanding how it worked,
and I thought I would like to see both its collegiate and departmental aspects from
the inside. It was one of the leading Universities in the world, a real centre of
excellence, a concept which had always attracted me. As a Head of House I would
have access at a high level to the centre of the University. Several things in particular
attracted me to a graduate college and to St Edmund's in particular: its international
flavour, the relative maturity of its students, the friendly social life and the
personalities of the Fellows in general, its new primary objective of developing
academic excellence and the challenge of developing it, from a relatively low
baseline,to become a force to be reckoned within the University. It could only go up!
Also, when our youngest son Andrew graduated from Oxford and took up a job,
Maureen and I would be "rattling around" in our home and the additional social life
of a College, with dinners and other events, would not be amiss, particularly for her.
St Edmund's is one of the few Cambridge Colleges where "spouses" or "partners" are
encouraged to participate in college life. - another attraction for both of us. (Even in
St Catharine's, another very friendly college, spouses are not able to take part). I felt
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