Univ Record 2018

Language and Literature. This will ensure that Czech studies continue to feature in the
University’s modern languages curriculum and that Univ – which has taught Russian
since 1964 – consolidates its position as a leading college for Slavonic studies by offering
a second Slavonic language. In partnership with the Rothermere American Institute the
College jointly endowed the Edward Orsborn Chair in US History and Politics, tenable
at the College, as a result of major benefactions to both institutions. The holder of the
Chair will combine teaching undergraduates with directing the Institute, and, as our
fourth Fellow in History, reinforce Univ’s strength in the subject.
The College also secured the permanent endowment of a second tutorial fellowship in
computer science, relieving Dr Andrew Ker of the burden of being our sole tutorial fellow
in the subject. In this case Mr Raymond Ting of Hong Kong has provided the critical
funding; he has also given significant financial backing to a new research centre at Univ
– the University College Oxford Blockchain Research Centre, directed by Professor
Bill Roscoe. Blockchain is a rapidly developing technology, with many commercial and
practical applications; the College’s research centre will focus particularly on ethical
and environmental applications and will initially be housed close to the College’s north
Oxford site.
After some years of expansion and modernisation on the main site, the concrete mixers
fell silent and scaffolding disappeared. It has been a quiet period for building projects,
but not without activity. The old Law Library on Logic Lane was converted into the
new JCR which, being on the ground floor, is for the first time accessible to wheelchair
users. Although slightly smaller than its predecessor above the Senior Common Room,
it has proved more popular. It spills out onto the Goodhart Lawn, which is being redesigned
with railings (for security) along Logic Lane but with more open access from
the renovated Goodhart Building, the Durham Buildings and the houses on 83 to 85
High Street. Building works and an exceptionally hot summer has scraped and parched
the grass but it will be landscaped in time for much fuller use and enjoyment next year.
There are plans in the coming year to create a new and tranquil space in the south east
corner of the College, by merging the small gardens behind Nos 9 and 10 Merton Street,
but this depends on our persuading the Oxford planning office to let us take down the
old but unremarkable wall that currently divides them.
The College has quietly and efficiently busied itself in its preparations for the
development of its expanded north Oxford site – potentially Univ’s most ambitious
construction project since the building of the main quad, chapel and hall in the mid
seventeenth century. It is a baptism of fire for our new Finance Bursar, Andrew Grant,
but fortunately one that, with over thirty years’ experience in financial and project
management for BP, he is ideally equipped to deliver. The competition for the appointment
of an architect for our expanded site was won by Niall McLaughlin Architects Ltd, whose
buildings in both Oxford and Cambridge have earned critical acclaim, most notably and
recently the Sultan Nazrin Shah Centre, in Worcester College. Their concept – a series of
low rise student residences, academic and research rooms, and social facilities, enclosing
garden courts, that echo the quads of the historic main High Street site – appears to fit
well with a style appropriate for the late Victorian north Oxford setting. There has been
and will continue to be much testing and iterating of these ideas over the coming year,
along with work to capture the detailed costings, financing and seeking of permissions
to enable us to move forward with confidence.
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