College Record 2017

Alumni Relations and Development
by William Conner, the Development Director
After a very busy start to 2016 with the celebration of our fiftieth anniversary,
2016/17 was meant to be a bit calmer. That didn’t really happen and life at Wolfson
continued apace.
Alumni engagement with the College remains very important to us. Over the past
year we have held alumni events in Jerusalem, Singapore, London and Oxford. Many
thanks go to our alumna in Jerusalem, Maren Niehoff, who hosted a visit by Martin
Goodman; and to our Fellows Ben Sheldon and Vlatko Vedral, for participating in a
drinks event for Wolfsonians during the University’s Singapore reunion. Our annual
London Christmas party was hosted by the President at the Athenaeum with a record
number of London-based alumni attending. In March the annual London Lecture
was given by Ros Rickaby at the Old Hall, Lincoln’s Inn. The June Gaudy at the end
of Trinity Term was an opportunity for local alumni to say farewell to the President.
Progress in fundraising continued, highlights including further commitments by the
Augustus Trust to the Ancient World Cluster and by the Dorset Foundation to Life
Writing. Expansion of the Harrison Physics scholarships was agreed and will begin
in 2018/19. The Nicholas John Trust partially funded one of the fiftieth anniversary
events celebrating Isaiah Berlin’s association with the Russian poet Anna Akhmatova.
Gerald Chan’s commitment to support Wolfson Innovates was augmented by further
funding from Oxford Sciences Innovation. The Berggruen Institute continued its
funding for Philosophy post-docs into a second year. The new Quantum Physics
Hub received its first funding from an anonymous American donor. Fundraising
has begun in support of Indo-Iranian Philology and the Isaiah Berlin Legacy project.
Two new endowments were completed. The Aris Lectures endowment will fund
an annual lecture in Tibetan and Himalayan Studies, and the year ended with a
wonderful commitment by Lord Rothschild to endow the annual Berlin Lecture.
The Syme Legacy Society has tripled in size in the past couple of years, its members
having formally or informally declared their intention to leave a legacy to the College.
This fiscal year, the College has received legacies from two Emeritus Fellows, Glen
Dudbridge and Geoffrey Garton. The Garton legacy will endow the Creative Arts
Fellowship and an apprentice gardener.
In June the College was visited by His Holiness the Gyalwang Drukpa, spiritual
leader of one of the eight lineages of Buddhism, who through his secular charity,
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