Eagle Eye Magazine Issue 1 2023

The Provost at the 2023 College Garden Party | Tom Weller
FROM THE
PROVOST
It is a delight to write that the College has been celebrating the
completion of a full academic year unaffected by pandemic
restrictions: the first one for four years. And it has been a
good year. September saw the beginning of the new outreach
initiative to support disadvantaged young people in the North
West of England with work actually starting in the classrooms
of schools in Whitehaven and Darwen. This project, as well as
being an important initiative in its own right, re-invigorates the
College’s historic links to the homeland of its Founder, Robert de
Eglesfield, and is entirely due to the generosity of Old Members.
A College like Queen’s, rooted in history, often finds itself taking
the long view both backwards and forwards. We own copies of
all four of Shakespeare’s folios and in Trinity Term we took part
in the country-wide celebrations to mark 400 years since the
publication of the First Folio in 1623. Meanwhile, the Choir were
delighted to sing at a service in St James’ Palace attended by King
Charles III and the President of Portugal celebrating UK-Portugal
650. The College also celebrated 100 years of the Harmsworth
Visiting Professorship in American History, which was set up by
Lord and Lady Rothermere in memory of their son Vyvyan, who
died in the First World War. Several of the former Harmsworth
Professors came back to Oxford for a weekend of events organised
by the Rothermere American Institute, and a gala dinner
at Queen’s.
Looking forwards, we elected our very first Visiting Professor
in a wholly new scheme, again established by generous Old
Members, to mark the centenary of the introduction of the
iconic Oxford PPE degree. The first holder of this, the Centenary
Visiting Professorship in PPE, to be based at Queen’s, will
be Professor Christina Davis, who will be joining us from
Harvard in 2024. Meanwhile, the College has continued its
investment in the Tutorial system, which is the heart of what
we do here, strengthening our presence in Law from one to two
Tutorial Fellows.
The College continued to become more porous, deepening its
connections with other places of learning and leading figures
outside academia. We welcomed the first arrivals under a new
Distinguished Visitor scheme, in James Unwin, a cosmologist and
Jacky Wright, the former Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft.
At the annual Provost’s Lecture, we had the pleasure of hearing
from Honorary Fellow and founder of the World Wide Web,
Sir Tim Berners-Lee, and his co-founder at the World Wide Web
Foundation, Lady Rosemary Leith.
Student musical and sporting activity returned in full force,
perhaps with even greater energy than before the pandemic.
Recently the College echoed to the annual Eglesfield Musical
Society performances. At least partly because we were able
to remove student subscriptions, the College had a record six
crews on the river this year and, with the Chaplain, I had the
pleasure of christening two new boats donated by Old Members.
At Torpids, the College broke another record when the women’s
first boat had its best performance ever, bumping six times. Last
year the men’s first boat had their best performance since 1840 so
we hope next year they will both break records at the same time!
This year’s most visible major improvement to the College’s fabric
is the elegant new Porters’ Lodge. The new Lodge replaces the
lean-to that had been in use for several decades and now provides
level access to the College from the High Street for the first time.
Finally, I would like to pay brief tribute to my predecessor but
one, Sir Alan Budd, whose memorial service was held in the
chapel at the start of Trinity Term. Sir Alan’s eminence as an
economist was demonstrated by the fact that both the current
and past Governors of the Bank of England attended. One of his
legacies to the College is, of course, the way in which he was the
first Provost significantly to reach out to Old Members and to
begin systematically to build the relationships that have meant
so much to the College since, and which have enabled us to do so
much more for students and Fellows than we otherwise could.
Dr Claire Craig
3