University College Oxford Record 2020

to the many Old Members who have already
pledged substantial gifts, despite the financially
uncertain times. It was a pleasure to meet a good
number of them on my visits to the United States
in November, and to Singapore and Hong Kong in
December, and to accompany many around the
Univ North site before visits necessarily came to
a halt in March.
The advances in information technology
that sustained the College in lockdown were
a salvation, but cannot compensate for the
experience of immersion in College life, or for
the pleasures of belonging to a community of likeminded
peers. They provide an efficient means of
imparting information and opinions, but these fall
far short of the knowledge and understanding
that can only be the product of close and regular
interactions with tutors and fellow students.
For these reasons the University decided in
June that, subject to Government guidelines, it
would re-open for Michaelmas Term, in contrast
to Yale, Harvard and other leading American
universities who opted to offer only online
teaching until at least the end of the calendar year.
It was the right decision, however challenging
the logistics of arranging for a close-knit college
community to live and study together at a social
distance. These challenges became even more
formidable, once the University agreed to admit
all applicants who had been offered a place on
the basis of their “Centre-assessed grades”. In
October, Univ will welcome the largest number
of freshers in its history – about 125, compared
with the annual cohort of 105-110 it took in until
a few years ago.
The College spent much of the long vacation
planning the new arrangements for College
residence that social distancing requires. These
included limiting numbers in the Library and
finding additional space for reading rooms,
dispersed seating in Hall and the provision of
takeaway meals from the buttery, allocating
every resident student into staircase or corridor
“households” of six to eight, for purposes of selfisolation
in cases of infection and, most urgent and
difficult of all, securing additional accommodation
for the bumper intake of freshers. It also involved
fresh thinking about how best to integrate
freshers into the College and create a community,
when so many of the events that bring students
together, from Freshers Week to drama “cuppers”
to novice boats on the river, will not be possible.
Univ’s new Master, Valerie Amos arrives at
a uniquely difficult and uncertain time for the
College and the University at large. But she
is fortunate to be taking over a college that is
resilient, resourceful and united, and that will
respond with energy to her leadership. All floods
recede; all epidemics subside. Univ remains, as
always, in good heart, comfortable in its own skin
but serious in its academic endeavours, and will
continue to flourish.
SIR IVOR CREWE
Master
6 University College Record | October 2020