Somerville College Ë Report for Donors

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Transforming Lives: Investing in Student Support Somerville was founded to educate talented women otherwise unable to gain access to a university education. Throughout Somerville’s history, alumni, friends and fellows of the College have demonstrated special generosity towards helping students in every possible way. This tradition was established by the founding Principal, Miss Madeleine Shaw Lefevre, who raised funds for the first Indian woman to study here in the 1880s. Daphne Park, another remarkable Principal, was able to come to Somerville with the help of a scholarship, and did everything she could during her tenure (1980-1989) to attract further funding for gifted students in need. The funding of higher education in England has undergone dramatic changes in the last year, with undergraduate tuition fees tripling in 2012. At postgraduate level, up to 75% of students in the humanities and social sciences must fund themselves. Against this backdrop, Somerville is committed to doing everything it can to attract the very brightest minds by increasing support for bursaries and scholarships. 8
Fundraising target £4M How your gift has made a difference to our students In the first phase of the Campaign, a target of £2 million was set to increase the funding available to students. Somerville’s alumni and friends have helped us exceed this initial target with more than £2.1 million raised toward student bursaries, scholarships, hardship grants and travel grants. Generous benefactors have endowed named bursaries and scholarship funds, and the tireless efforts of families, friends and colleagues have made it possible to establish programmes such as the Caldicott Fund for medical students and the Michala Butterfield Fund for law students. Generous travel grants have enabled over 50 students to travel to countries as far afield as India, Ghana, Morocco and South Africa, in order to attend conferences, volunteer in third world initiatives, and study at overseas universities. The College’s Bursary Fund now holds more than £1 million for undergraduate support. The annual yield of this fund enables the College to provide close to 100 students from low income backgrounds with a bursary to assist with their living costs. This places Somerville in the top five Oxford colleges for bursary support. We also continue to attract generous funding for talented postgraduate students who would otherwise not be able to complete their course, with the first history graduate awarded a Vanessa Brand Graduate Scholarship this year. Looking to the future: investing in student support Changes to government funding of higher education mean that, from 2012, undergraduate tuition fees will triple. There are widespread concerns that talented applicants may be deterred from applying to universities like Oxford out of fear of incurring increased debt. Somerville must do all it can to attract additional funding and publicise these opportunities for support widely. Against this backdrop, support from alumni and friends will become increasingly vital in coming years to sustain our level of excellence and to ensure fair access for the brightest students on a needs blind basis. The work of our recently appointed Access and Communications Officer, Amy Crosweller, will strengthen our access provision significantly and ensure that Somerville is reaching out to talented applicants from all backgrounds. As we look to the future, we seek to address increase the support available to both undergraduate and postgraduate students in coming years by raising a total of £4 million. We appeal to all our alumni, friends and other funding partners to assist with creative solutions to enable us to reach this ambitious target. Find out more: www.some.ox.ac.uk/studentsupport The Michala Butterfield fund In January 2008, Michala Butterfield (Emmett, 1995) and her husband Sam died tragically whilst on their honeymoon in India, just a month after they were married. Jane Loader, Michala’s close friend from Somerville, asked us to establish a bursary in her name. Michala's family and friends have undertaken many activities to raise money for the fund, including the 25-mile Yorkshire Three Peaks Challenge, the 90-mile Toad Thames Run, and Manchester 10K run. They have raised over £90,000 to date, which will be used to fund two Michala Butterfield bursaries. "Since starting this appeal a few years ago we have been overwhelmed by the generous gifts, amazing hard work and imaginative fundraising ideas of so many of Michala's family and friends. I never dreamt that so much money could be raised in such a short time. It is testament both to the impact that Michala had on so many people during her life and to the worthiness of the cause – helping to support students at her much-loved college.” Jane Loader (Aspell, 1995) Daphne Park Bursary Fund In 2010 we mourned the loss of our great Principal, Daphne Park. Daphne knew what it was to be poor. It would have been impossible for her to come to Somerville if she had not won a scholarship. As Principal of Somerville forty years on, Daphne was always acutely aware of the financial difficulties faced by students. She left Somerville a generous legacy to set up a bursary fund, which the College is honoured to name in her memory. “I consider myself to have been doubly fortunate in my time at Somerville – firstly, because I came up with the benefit of a full grant, lived in college throughout and was able to emerge debt-free, and secondly because the Principal was the inspirational Daphne Park. I am proud to support her legacy, both in memory of an exceptional individual who brought s much to my life at Somerville and long after, and to help ensure that others can benefit from the same opportunities I enjoyed.” Jo Magan (Ward, 1984) 9
Page 1 and 2: Somerville College ˜ Report for Do
Page 3 and 4: From the Principal This was a very
Page 5 and 6: The Somerville College Development
Page 7: “Somerville stands for values I e
Page 11 and 12: Fundraising target £8M The interna
Page 13 and 14: Fundraising target £13M Dr Trudy W
Page 15 and 16: The 2010 Telethon The annual teleth
Page 17 and 18: Legacies Legacies are the most impo
Page 19 and 20: Mrs Susan Anthony (Farrow) 1961 Pro
Page 21 and 22: Ms Katy Smawfield (Pittman) 1995 Dr
Page 23 and 24: Funding sources in 2010-11 Expendit

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