Summer 2013 Issue 34
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COME BACK TO DURHAM What’s on this summer and autumn THE MAN WHO JOINED THE SUPREMES A profile of Lord Justice Hughes
THE ADVENTURES OF A ‘FRESHMONNE’ FROM THE 1840s Cartoons of student life Durham First – the magazine for alumni and friends of Durham University
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Vice-Chancellor’s Questions Q:Will the plan to put student-choice before the college’s choice in collegeadmissions affect the Durham difference?
offer and so attract those students who will contribute most to developing that specific community.
A: Yes, although it is not understood by all and is in a pilot phase. This is a system devised by the colleges themselves in order to strengthen the individuality of each of our 16 colleges. First, it puts studentchoice first, ensuring a higher proportion of students get admitted to their first choice college, the one that suits them as individuals. Secondly, it will ensure all colleges have a suitably diverse community with all the cultural and educational advantages that this offers to students. Thirdly, it will free senior tutors from a lot of paperwork and enable them to focus more time on the students and on creating their individual college community. Finally, it means the colleges have the opportunity to better define what they each have to
Q:The governance of the University is currently being reviewed. Why is this?
From the Guest Editor Welcome to the summer issue of Durham First, in which we invite you to return to Durham. Four months after graduating from Durham with a Master’s degree in evolutionary anthropology, I returned to the University in a professional capacity to take on the role of Managing Editor of this magazine. It has been insightful to see the University from a different perspective, and I feel fortunate to have this opportunity to develop a more rounded assessment of my Durham experience. This is why I support the message of this issue: change.
A: The University’s governance structures provide a framework within which our governing body or Trustees (University Council) ensures effective decision-making. These governance structures were last reviewed 30 years ago and since that time our operating environment has changed substantially. There is now global competition between the best universities for the most able students as well as for research funding. At the same time, the funding of UK universities has moved from the financial stability offered by a five-year publicly-funded block grant into a situation where less than 5 per cent of our teaching
It is not only me and my viewpoint that have changed, but so too has the architecture of Durham City, which has evolved into a more modernised landscape even in the few years that I have been here. The University has played a major part in the regeneration: from the glass-fronted extension built onto the Bill Bryson Library, to the adjacent eco-friendly, glued-laminate timber design of the new Palatine Centre. And as this magazine goes to print, Durham University Business School is also undergoing a redevelopment to allow more space for staff and students to work and study (see www.durham.ac.uk/business/about/ development for more information). Durham is also turning into a real cultural hub of activity, as this year the City will play host to a number of events (as described on pages 18 and 19). In brief, these include the Lindisfarne Gospels exhibition, Durham Book Festival and BRASS, Durham’s international festival of brass instruments. I am very much looking forward to this festival as the streets will be brought to life
income now comes from the government. The vast majority of our income must now be competitively won on a recurrent basis. The University is not a public-sector body, as some still imagine, but an independently governed, charitable organisation. We must be swift, flexible and business-like in our decision making in order to compete in a way that we have never had to in the past. The governance review recognises these external changes. It aims to put a modernised framework in place to ensure the University can continue to flourish in the new competitive environment, while maintaining our core character and academic standards.
Professor Chris Higgins Vice-Chancellor and Warden
with the sound of music from all over the globe: from jazz and funk to classical and folk. As a contrast to the festival of sound, Durham will be transformed in November by Lumiere: a collection of light installations at various locations. This will be the third time the ‘light show’ has been to Durham and it has grown, exponentially, in popularity with each visit. My favourite installation of 2011 was the colourful, illuminated waterfall off the Kingsgate Bridge (‘Splash’ by Peter Lewis). So with all the change and rejuvenation going on in old Durham town, I encourage you to return to Durham, as the Lindisfarne Gospels are also doing, to see the City through new eyes and to reacquaint yourself with the smallest but prettiest city in the North East. Welcome home.
Josephine Francis, Managing Editor
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FEATURES 06 The New Supreme Court Justice A profile of Lord Justice Hughes
08 The Fracking Debate Research changes the agenda
10 Beer Goggles, Man Flu and Other Profound Mysteries of the Mind
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REGULARS 18 Come Back to Durham What’s on this summer and autumn
20 Ships’ Logs and Icebergs The Climate Impacts Research Centre
22 Ruth First Scholarships Celebrating 50 years
Neuroscience reveals the secrets
02 VCQs Questions to the Vice-Chancellor
02 From the Guest Editor Josephine Francis
04 News in Brief Alumni and University news
24 Experience Durham
13 The Adventures of a ‘Freshmonne’ from the 1840s
Student achievement in sport, music, the arts and volunteering
Cartoons of student life
26 Alumni Events 27 Calendar
EDITOR David Williams Development Communications Manager
IMAGES Cover: Jaipur Kawa Brass Band, BRASS festival
DESIGN Crombie www.crombiecreative.com
MANAGING EDITOR Josephine Francis
Ship painting and Lieutenant’s logbook (page 20-21): © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London
PRINT Linney www.linney.com
DEPUTY EDITOR Tim Guinan Alumni Relations Officer
Durham Alumni Events (page 26): 5th Avenue Digital (New York), Dan Popko (Boston), Michael Hudson Photography (Chicago)
CONTACT US Alumni enquiries/Letters to the Editor Development and Alumni Relations Durham University, The Palatine Centre, Stockton Road, Durham DH1 3LE T: +44 (0) 191 334 6305 F: +44 (0) 191 334 6073 E: alumni.office@durham.ac.uk durham.editor@durham.ac.uk W: www.dunelm.org.uk © Durham University 2013
Opinions expressed are those of individual writers. Requests for reproducing material should be made to the Alumni Relations Office, where permission will usually be given. CROM/05/13/014
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News in Brief Honorary Graduates
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1. LYNNE BRINDLEY, HONORARY DOCTOR OF CIVIL LAW Dame Lynne Brindley was Chief Executive of the British Library from 2000 to 2012. Under her leadership, the Library went through a major strategic overhaul and modernisation programme, thus ensuring its position as one of the world’s great national libraries. 2. EAMON DUFFY, HONORARY DOCTOR OF DIVINITY Professor Eamon Duffy is a leading historian of Catholicism in the English Reformation and a founding member of the Catholic Theological Association of Great Britain. He was a member of the Pontifical Historical Commission and sits on numerous editorial boards and advisory panels, including the Fabric Commission of Westminster Abbey. 3. PETER WARE HIGGS, HONORARY DOCTOR OF SCIENCE Professor Peter Higgs is a theoretical physicist whose landmark research theorised the existence of the Higgs boson. Born in Newcastle upon Tyne, he studied Physics at King’s College London, before joining the University of Edinburgh as a Senior Research Fellow. In 1996 he became Professor Emeritus at the University of Edinburgh.
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4. ATIFETE JAHJAGA, HONORARY DOCTOR OF CIVIL LAW Atifete Jahjaga is President of the Republic of Kosovo. Born in the former Yugoslavia, she studied law at the University of Prishtina. She worked with the UN Mission in Kosovo as an interpreter and adviser, before joining the Kosovo police service in 2000. She was promoted through the ranks to Deputy General Director with responsibility for border policing. In 2011 she was elected President. 5. PETER LAMPL, HONORARY DOCTOR OF CIVIL LAW Sir Peter Lampl is acknowledged as the UK’s leading educational philanthropist. He is the founder and Chairman of the Sutton Trust, which aims to improve social mobility through strategic philanthropy. He is also Chairman of the Education Endowment Foundation, set up in 2011 to improve the performance of the poorest children in the most challenging schools. 6. ADETOKUNBO OLUWOLE LUCAS, HONORARY DOCTOR OF SCIENCE Professor Adetokunbo Lucas is a medical doctor and former professor of international health at the Harvard School of Public Health. Born in Nigeria, he studied medicine at King’s College, Durham, followed by postgraduate training in internal medicine and public health. He directed the World Health Organization’s Tropical Diseases Research Programme from 1976 to 1986.
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7. DAVID PHILLIPS, HONORARY DOCTOR OF SCIENCE Professor David Phillips is Senior Science Ambassador, Professor Emeritus and Senior Research Investigator at Imperial College. Born in South Shields, he gained his PhD from Birmingham University. From 1980 to 1989 he was Wolfson Professor of Natural Philosophy at the Royal Institution. He was President of the Royal Society of Chemistry until 2012. 8. WOLFGANG SCHOMBURG, HONORARY DOCTOR OF CIVIL LAW Judge Wolfgang Schomburg was born in Berlin. Having studied law at the Freie Universität Berlin, he worked as Senior Public Prosecutor and Undersecretary of State at the Senate Justice Department. He was a judge at the German Federal Court of Justice and at the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). In 2003 he became a judge of the Appeals Chambers of ICTY and the UN International Tribunal for Rwanda. 9. GILLIAN CONSTANCE WEIR, HONORARY DOCTOR OF MUSIC Dame Gillian Weir is an internationally renowned musician who is at the forefront of her profession. Since winning the St Albans International Organ Competition in 1964, she has built a career as a virtuoso concert organist. She is also acclaimed as a pre-eminent scholar and interpreter of the music of Olivier Messiaen.
Queen’s New Year Honours 2013 Our very best wishes go out to all Durham alumni who were honoured by The Queen in January 2013: Moses O Anibaba, OBE (Business Administration, 2001); John Arnold, MBE (Education, St Hild & St Bede, 1960-63); Michael B Cunningham, QPM (Theology, University College, 1981-84); William J Evans, OBE (History, Collingwood, 1989-92); Sophie H Hosking, MBE (Natural Sciences, Trevelyan, 2004-07); Vice Admiral Charles A Johnstone-Burt, CB (Anthropology & Psychology, Van Mildert, 1977-80); Prof. Francis P Kelly, CBE (Mathematics, Van Mildert, 1971); Brigadier John C Lawrence, CBE (Engineering, University College, 1983-86); Jill B Love, MBE (MA Counselling, Graduate Society, 2001); Douglas Matthews, MBE (General Arts, St Cuthbert’s Society, 1948-51); Dr Robert McManners, OBE (PG Dip. GP Training, 1998); Paul D Newman, OBE (History, Van Mildert, 1975-78); Colonel Matthew E Porter, CBE (Biological Sciences, Van Mildert, 1986-89); Major Fabian A Roberts, MBE (Theology, St John’s, 1991-94); Carolyn P Robson, CBE (Geography, Trevelyan, 1972-75); Hannah F Seakins, MBE (History, St Hild & St Bede, 2001-03); Mark A Sealy, MBE (MA Photographic Image, 2008); Michael J Terrett, CBE (Engineering, Collingwood, 1975-78); Prof. Sarah Thompson, MBE (Physics, Trevelyan, 1984-87).
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Professor Andrew Deeks (right) and Simon Pendlebury, Vice-President of IBM UK
Durham University and IBM sign Memorandum of Understanding On 2 May 2013 Durham University and IBM deepened their relationship by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU). This is significant, as it is one of only 14 strategic partnerships between IBM and UK universities. The two institutions’ shared values in terms of attaining the highest levels of excellence in education and research and a common
culture of innovation have led to the creation of this formal framework for their ongoing working relationships. The MoU will enable ongoing, broad engagement between the University and IBM, characterised by links at different levels across both organisations and multidisciplinary interaction across research, teaching and learning, student experience and employability,
and also public engagement. The areas of specialised research will include: highperformance computing; Smarter Cities (the innovative use of city data to deliver a sustainable high quality of life); digital humanities (combination of computing and humanities topics); and big data analytics (extracting knowledge from the analysis of large complex datasets).
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The New Supreme Lord Justice Hughes (Law, Van Mildert, 1969) has just joined the UK’s new Supreme Court. Durham First met him on his first week in the job. The Supreme Court sits opposite the Houses of Parliament in Parliament Square, a quadrangle that has Westminster Abbey and the Treasury on its remaining sides. It is about as conspicuous a London location as you can get, but our taxi driver had no idea it is there. Perhaps this means nothing, but while most people could easily name many parliamentarians, prelates and chancellors of the exchequer, there won’t be many who will be able to name a single justice of the Supreme Court. However, Lord Hughes, a Durham alumnus and one of three new appointees to its 12-strong panel, quite likes it that way. ‘We are not like the Supreme Court in the US,’ he says from his new chambers at the centre of the building. ‘That Court has a very specific constitutional role and is highly political. In the last 20 years, the appointments that presidents have chosen to make have been designed to alter the political complexion of the Court. I don’t think anybody makes an appointment to any English court with a view to altering the make-up of the court, certainly not the political complexion.’
Supreme Court that we do not have this opportunity to reach individual decisions. Lawyers have various virtues, but running the world isn’t one of them.’
Despite the complexity of many of the cases that come before the Supreme Court, for Lord Hughes, one of the guiding principles of the Court should be simplification.
The UK’s Supreme Court came into existence in October 2009 in order to end the potential confusion between the judicial and the legislative functions of the House of Lords. It is the final court of appeal in the UK for civil cases and for criminal cases from England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Court took over this remit from the Law Lords (more properly the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords) whose role had itself evolved over more than 600 years from the work of the Curia Regis, the royal court that advised the sovereign, passed laws and dispensed justice at the highest level.
‘Of course, you have to be careful when you explain complex concepts in very simple terms that you don’t destroy the essence of them,’ he says. ‘But the aim of simplification is surely sensible. If law doesn’t work for people, there is not much use in it. Law is about regulating the behaviour and conduct of individual people; it is not for lawyers.’
While not constitutionally inconspicuous, the Supreme Court has limited impact on the public mind. One of its most visible decisions came in October 2010, when it ruled that the pre-nuptial agreement between the paper-company heiress Katrin Radmacher and her ex-husband, investment banker and Oxford researcher Nicolas Granatino, was applicable in English law. This was the first time that the legal status of ‘pre-nups’ had been clarified.
He points out that US presidents act like this because their Supreme Court has effective charge of a good deal of the content of This then is the role of the Court: to hear legislation, as it is the body asked to determine ‘cases of the greatest public or constitutional whether federal or state laws are constitutional. importance affecting the whole population’. ‘In the US there is a hugely polarised debate about the correct method of interpreting the constitution’, he explains, ‘between originalists who hold that what the founding fathers said was true for all time and those who approach the constitution as what in Europe would be known as a “living instrument” theory: as a body of work that can be developed as times change. There is therefore enormous scope for judges to reach individual decisions. It is probably a very good thing with regard to the UK
‘Appeal courts have two functions,’ Lord Hughes explains. ‘First there are the individual cases in which something has been alleged to have gone wrong and we have to say whether it has or it hasn’t. That is the function for litigants. But quite often what we are doing is also trying to work out what the rule of practice or law ought to be for the future, reaching beyond these two litigants to all the other people who might run into similar problems in their lives.’
The young Anthony Hughes began his legal life when he came up to Durham for interview on a wet day in December 1965. Not only was the tarmac still wet outside his college, the newly-built Van Mildert, he also became one of the first students on the single honours law programme. He remembers Durham as a rich mixture of a mining and a University town, and he remains grateful to all his tutors for the profound, inspirational effect they had on his life: David Gilmour, Peter Langan, Frank Dowrick, John Miller, Charles Drake and Leo Blair, father of Tony. However, his abiding memory of his time here comes from the other half of Durham life, when he saw two other Labour Party luminaries – Barbara Castle and George Brown – doing a jig on the balcony of the County Hotel during the Miners’ Gala. Following graduation he spent 27 years in Birmingham and he feels he was lucky to get a wide breadth of experience across crime, landlord and tenant, personal injury, divorce and consumer credit law. He was a junior barrister for 19 years and then a Queen’s Counsel (a senior lawyer) for a further seven. His main specialism became crime, but when he was made a judge in 1997, he was put in the family division by the Lord Chancellor, who wanted to move people around the profession.
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Court Justice One of the contemporary challenges faced by the judiciary is the emphasis that society places today on diversity and on having public bodies that are representative of their public. Indeed, all 12 current Supreme Court justices are white and only one of them is female. ‘I am not sure it is accurate to say that a court should represent its public,’ Lord Hughes argues. ‘It serves its public, but, as long as you want lawyers to do the job, they won’t simply be a cross-section of the public, they can’t be. However, given that you need lawyers, and that you appoint strictly on merit, you must do what you can to have as good a mixture as you can achieve, men and women obviously and there is rightly a lot of work done which is aimed at making possible appointments from minority ethnicities.’
‘Lawyers have various virtues, but running the world isn’t one of them.’ It is moot, however, whether increased diversity would change the way legal decisions are reached. For Lord Hughes, the act of judging is largely a depersonalised function, at least in the UK. ‘The litmus test of nominees to the Supreme Court in the US is often thought to be abortion,’ he says. ‘Now I may have a simple view on that matter, but it is irrelevant to my work. The question of whether and how abortion should be legal is not for the courts, but for Parliament.’ Here he nods to the famous building across the square. ‘And while the boundary between the courts and Parliament is always going to be debated, the fundamental questions in the UK don’t lie across that boundary. Here judging is not about your personal view. We expect other people to obey the law, so we should do it ourselves as well.’ Text by David Williams, Durham First Editor. Interview by David Williams and Sarah Griffiths (Law, Hatfield, 2011-).
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DURHAM CHANGES THE FRACKING DEBATE Professor Richard Davies’ new research has substantially altered the fracking debate. He reports here on his findings and the reaction they caused.
In the twentieth century, oil and gas explorers commonly had to drill through layers of shale to reach deeper oil and gas reservoirs. As they penetrated these layers, gas sometimes leaked out of the rock into the wellbore at low rates – but the yield was too low to generate a financial return. So the gas was a nuisance rather than a resource. This changed during the 1990s, when, in order to make the gas flow at rates that would turn a profit, George Mitchell and Mitchell Energy decided to ‘stimulate’ their wells in Texas. Well-stimulation was not a new concept. In the 1940s and 1950s, nitroglycerine had been used down old oil wells to crack rocks and get the wells to flow again. However, by the time Mitchell was using the approach, high-pressure gels and eventually water with chemical additives were used in a process that became known as hydraulic fracturing or ‘fracking’.
09 Illustration of the hydraulic fracturing process Land surface Aquifer
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Shale reservoir Hydraulic fractures
For years Mitchell barely made money, until it was realised that carrying out multiple fracking operations along horizontal boreholes meant the wells would start to produce at sufficient rates to make significant profits. The shale gas and oil revolution had begun. Today, hundreds of thousands of wells have now been fracked and the USA is looking to be a gas exporter again. In Europe, the authorities appear to have more of a love–hate relationship with shale gas. Concerns over water contamination, triggering of earthquakes and, of course, the potential impact on climate change of producing and burning methane have been raised and moratoria have been imposed in many European countries. When the entry of the UK into the shale gas business in April 2011 was marked by a magnitude 2.3 earthquake, which was felt by some in Lancashire, a ban was put in place while investigations were carried out. My interest in what can go wrong with any type of petroleum drilling stemmed from working on a well blowout in Indonesia, which ended up displacing 40,000 people. The company that drilled the Indonesian well blamed an earthquake for the disaster, but our research showed it was an exploration well that went wrong that was the trigger. If we had not intervened, it is doubtful whether a full consideration of the data and evidence would have taken place. At around the time of the Lancashire quake, I had started to read relevant scientific literature on the risks that had been raised on fracking. My literature search on scientific publications did not take long – there was a surprising gap in peer-reviewed papers. So it was no wonder that moratoria were being put
in place – there simply was not enough information out there. Indeed, the conclusions of the small number of papers that were published were generating a vigorous debate with claim and counterclaim from the pro- and anti-frackers. With the help of the University, I put together a Durham-led British and Norwegian team to pull together new databases on hydraulic fracturing, and we published our first paper in the spring of 2012 entitled ‘Hydraulic fractures: how far can they go?’. The work was picked up by the UK government’s Department of Energy and Climate Change and quoted by the former Energy Minister John Hayes as part of the evidence that the UK used when deciding to lift its ban. Interestingly, the same paper was also being used to oppose fracking in some parts of the UK. More recently, we published a compilation document looking at all man-made earthquakes since 1929. The 198 examples demonstrated that fracking does not make it into the premier league as a mechanism of triggering felt seismicity. There are genuine risks – but I would question whether they are the ones we should worry about. Have we been distracted from the key issues? Perhaps a more important issue might be the drilling of thousands of wells that cause water contamination. Could the hundreds of truckloads of fracking fluid be a more substantial risk to the environment than the fracking process itself? And, of course, what are the climatic impacts? This second, induced seismicity paper generated significant press interest, including from the Today Programme, BBC Breakfast, ITV, The Financial Times,
The Telegraph and The Wall Street Journal among others. Jonathan Brown, writing for The Independent under the headline ‘My fracking study was fully independent says Professor’, raised the important question of the independence of the research, particularly as Durham has had significant funding from the oil and gas industry. Did this not cause a conflict of interest? The answer was easy – there was no industry funding for the research. But we do intend to scale up our investigations of the risks of fracking to fill the literature gap. The detailed investigations, potentially involving experimentation and monitoring, do not come cheap. Industry collaboration and funding will be key to this. But in taking this forward, we have sought advice from the Faculty of Science Ethics Committee in Durham University as well as the UK Research Integrity Office. We have adopted several ethical measures, such as ensuring contractually that the oil and gas industry cannot interfere with the research results and asking Sir David King to chair an Independent Science Board where the research priorities for the research team are set. The highest levels of scientific integrity will be needed, but even with all the possible measures in place – accusations of bias are inevitable.
THE DURHAM VISION Durham University has a critical role to play here. Durham Energy Institute has differentiated itself in carrying out research that links the technical and the social. Fracking, like nuclear or wind technologies, causes concern on many fronts and we should not shy away from tackling them. Issues of trusting academics, politicians and energy companies raise their heads. We will not solve the fracking question for Europe but we have a clear role to play in triggering an honest and open debate, so that European governments can make better decisions based upon a solid evidence-base. Professor Richard Davies Dean of Knowledge Exchange and Impact, and Non-Executive Chair of Durham Energy Institute.
For more information about Durham University Research, visit: breakthrough.durham.ac.uk
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Beer Goggles, Man Flu and Other Profound Mysteries of the Mind Dr Amanda Ellison shows how neuroscience is revealing the secrets of everything from sexual desire to pain control
Our brain accounts for everything that we do: the things we are not conscious of, such as breathing and controlling our heart rate, and the things that we are conscious of, like decision-making and planning. Indeed, all of our hopes and fears, dreams and emotions, ambitions and affections come from that 1.8kg, enigmatic organ in our head. This seems second nature now but it wasn’t always thus. Until relatively recently, people still thought that this explanation was astonishing and even impossible. Now, through the interdisciplinary co-operation of physiologists, psychologists, neurologists, biochemists, physicists and all sorts of other people in between, we are in a happy place where it is well accepted that the brain creates all of our behaviours. Equally important is the recognition of the fact that from the workings of the brain comes what most people call ‘the mind’. The ways in which this motley group of people investigates behaviour and how the brain creates it are varied. Some investigate the cellular structure of the brain and how neurons communicate with each other. Some relate behaviours that are lost to the damaged regions of the brains of neuropsychologial patients. Others use neuroimaging to take lovely pictures of the active brain, while still more neuroscientists eavesdrop on the electrical activity of the brain using electroencephalography. Neuroscience can help to explain folk phenomena such as ‘beer goggles’ and ‘man flu’. As everyone probably knows, ‘beer goggles’ is the name given to the idea that potential mates become more attractive the more alcohol that a person consumes. Research shows, however, that the part of the brain that makes us want to mate keeps functioning no matter
how much we drink, while it shuts down the bit of the brain that stops us acting on impulse. Potential partners don’t look any different; the drink just over-rides signals that usually put the brakes on our behaviour. Of course, the more drink we have, the worse our co-ordination, so acting on this loss of inhibition might be a bit tricky.
to the processing of a task. So performance is a little bit slower, telling me that that area is critically involved in the activity required. I investigate vision, attention, language, movement, decision-making and emotion this way. Incidentally, hearts have nothing to do with love; it’s the limbic system in your brain. Love songs have it so wrong.
When it comes to coughs and colds, it does seem likely that men and women experience the symptoms differently. This can explain the phenomenon known as ‘man flu’, the idea that men either suffer more (or complain more) when they have an infection. What happens when you have a cold is that your body temperature is increased to fight off the bugs, which cannot survive the hotter environment. However, men have a bigger area in their brain devoted to temperature regulation than women. This might explain why men complain more, but of course the opposite may also be true; it might be that they should cope better!
Why is understanding neural communication in the normal brain so important? Well, ultimately we want to have the wherewithal to restore lost behaviours after brain damage. At the Cognitive Neuroscience Research Unit, which is part of the Psychology Department here at Durham University, this reason informs our ethos of approach. Using the techniques mentioned above and more, we can carry out the multidisciplinary experimentation required to understand the machinations of the neurotypical brain. For example, we have recently taken delivery of our new 3-Tesla functional magnetic resonance scanner, situated at James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough, and a state-of-the-art neurostimulator that is approved for patient use.
My ideas about ‘beer goggles’ and ‘man flu’ are based on what is generally known about the brain, but my own area of research relates to how different parts of the brain interact to bring about normal function. In my scientific enquiries, I mostly use magnetic neurostimulation, which actually switches on a bit of the brain for a very brief period of time. Because it is active in response to my stimulation, that area cannot respond
We routinely use the evidence that we acquire from investigating normal function to design rehabilitation treatments for patients who have various forms of brain damage leading to visual impairments, so this is basic science translated to clinical implementation. There already exists good support in the NHS to
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restore movement and speech following stroke. However, there is no such intervention available for visual disorders. The knock-on effects to society are vast. These patients drop out of the workplace, as they have serious trouble navigating their world safely; they cannot drive any more, they have trouble reading, they lose their confidence and ultimately become housebound. Therefore, such deficits can be just as debilitating as speech and mobility issues, and the long-term ramifications for social care are immense.
‘men have a bigger area in the brain devoted to temperature regulation than women. This might explain why men complain more’ My colleagues, Dr Dan Smith and Dr Alison Lane, and I have been using our neuroscientific expertise in order to devise an inexpensive, accessible and portable training paradigm called DREX (Durham Reading and Exploration) training (for more information, visit www.durham.ac.uk/psychology/ research/drex/), which can be carried out by patients in their own homes, significantly improving their visual abilities. In addition
to rolling it out to the NHS in the near future, we will also begin to use neurostimulation to boost the activity of the spared parts of these patients’ brains in order to potentiate learning and speed recovery. This function of neurostimulation can also help patients with chronic pain. The brain changes its activity following a period of pain, to the point where even though the issue causing pain has been resolved, the brain still perceives the pain. By resetting the rhythm of how different regions involved talk to each other using neurostimulation, we can ameliorate these effects. Of course, we could not do this unless we had a good understanding of both normal and abnormal pain pathways in the brain, and so this is just another example of how important basic research is. That and the chance to sate every human being’s curiosity as to what makes them tick. Dr Amanda Ellison is a Senior Lecturer in the Psychology Department and author of Getting your Head around the Brain (Palgrave Macmillan).
For more information about Durham University Research, visit: breakthrough.durham.ac.uk
Four dazzling winter evenings Durham · 14–17 November 2013 Lumiere returns to transform the city into a winter wonderland. Dozens of artists will use light as their medium and the city as their canvas... Plan your visit now.
‘I cannot remember the last time I was in a British city so full of cheerful, excited people, and of every generation. … The throng was charmed and amazed, and it kept saying so, sometimes in reverent whispers, and sometimes with a joyful shout.’ Rachel Cooke, The Observer
lumiere-durham.com
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The Adventures of a ‘Freshmonne’ from the 1840s Alex Morgan (Philosophy and Theology, Hild & Bede, 2011-) is a current student and the writer and presenter of a new documentary film, The Durham Story. Here he tells the story of Edward Bradley, the 19th-century student cartoonist featured in the film, and how his work was saved from oblivion. Edward Bradley was one of the first Durham students to step off the train and make a nervous journey through Durham’s winding streets. Unlike many of us who would retrace his steps over the next 175 years, Bradley left a record: a series of sketches, cartoons and watercolours charting the routine, antics and mischief of Durham’s early students. His unique collection of highly observant artwork presents an unrivalled account of what their life was really like, and sheds light not only on the history of our University, but also on the roots of our best-loved traditions. Nearly two centuries later, Bradley’s little-known work invites us to join his characters and become a fresher once again, this time against the backdrop of 1840s Durham: a strikingly different setting in many ways, yet reassuringly similar in others. Better known by his distinctive pen-name ‘Cuthbert Bede’, Edward Bradley had the wit and artistic eye that would later see his work featured in some of the 19th-century’s most celebrated publications, including Punch and The Illustrated London News. His most famous work is no doubt the Victorian comic novel The Adventures of Mr Verdant Green, originally set in Durham but adapted to Oxford University after debate with the publisher. Nevertheless, Bradley was a Durham man through and through, and it is the sketches he composed while living and studying here that afford a unique glimpse into the world of the early students. Joining 12 years into the life of the fledgling University, Bradley arrived at a highly formative time in Durham’s history. Student life was just starting to get under way, as suggested through Bradley’s
semi-autobiographical 18-frame cartoon strip ‘Ye Freshmonne: His Adventures at University College Durham’. It was this work that was to provide the template for his later Verdant Green novels, and it charts the activity of an undergraduate protagonist in his nervous first few days. As you cast your eyes over the frames, you cannot help but recognise the striking continuity and yet notable differences between life then and now. New students were known as ‘Freshmonne’ and so the concept of the fresher is by no means a recent one. Unfortunately, Bradley did not have a handy team of freshers’ reps on hand to help him with his bags, as do new arrivals today. But, like the many students who attend the modern post-application residential open days, Bradley’s character first arrives in the City via the railway. Once his heavy luggage was hauled off the train, we next see Bradley’s character taking a horse-drawn taxi through the winding streets, in search of a local inn to spend the night. The cobbles today leave many feeling a little shaken up, and one can imagine how poorly the suspension in those early taxis would have fared; not the smoothest of journeys for our cartoonist! We should withhold our sympathy for Bradley, however, as unlike the vast majority of current students, he depicts that those early undergraduates were able to choose a University room for themselves. Joining in the 1840s, Bradley was afforded an even greater choice, as, following the death of Bishop Van Mildert, the University had gained ownership of the Castle and reconstructed the ruinous keep for new accommodation. And so we witness the cartoon undergraduate taking one look
at Durham’s first accommodation block (what is now the Institute of Advanced Study on Palace Green), before beating a hasty retreat to pick a room in the Keep. If his sketches are to be believed, it seems hard to blame the character for this choice. It would appear that 12 years of student wear and tear had left the accommodation on Palace Green shabby and tired, while the thought of securing a spacious room in the Castle must have caught Bradley’s imagination, just as it does for students today. According to the drawings, it would seem that Bradley was overwhelmed by the sheer number of steps leading up to his room; a thought that still troubles residents of the Keep to this day. While many of us look back with fond memories at the vast matriculation ceremonies held in the Cathedral, which formally commenced our time as a Durham student, Bradley would certainly not have enjoyed such a momentous occasion. With low student numbers a perennial problem throughout the 19th-century, Bradley’s cartoon suggests that matriculation in the 1840s was somewhat of a low-key affair, as the mighty Cathedral would certainly have dwarfed the small number of new undergraduates. Similar to today, however, gowns were mandatory at matriculation, and upon scribing his name Bradley’s character grows convinced that this new look becomes him. As any young man assured of his fashion credentials would do, he decides that a walk by the river would provide the ideal opportunity to show off; much to the amusement of the local young ladies, while the nurses with small children seem altogether less impressed. Continued on page 16…
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Edward Bradley’s semi-autobiographical cartoon strip.
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Image captions clockwise from top left: Reclining in the Norman Gallery; Preparing for Richards’ breakfast party; Revising for June exams; Sketch of Durham Castle.
After causing a stir along the Wear, our fresher character appears to have worked up an appetite, and makes his way to Castle’s great hall for a spot of dinner. Being rather eager and excited, surrounded as he would have been by a boisterous cohort of young men, it would seem he got rather carried away, over-estimating his ability to handle the wine. The evening ends with him being carried to his room by concerned friends, who look a little worse for wear themselves, where the cleaner discovers him the next morning; his face buried deep in the rug. One wonders whether a restless night left him there, or whether this was simply where his peers had chosen to deposit him. Either way, it clearly can’t be said that undergraduate antics in the 1840s were dull. Bradley also amassed a collection of original watercolours during his Durham years. One depicts Bradley’s friend, Frederick John Richards, as he reclines in his room
on Castle’s Norman Gallery. Interesting to note is the roaring fire, large table and luxurious sofa, adding a touch of class to the proceedings. Richards’ academic record was shaky to say the least; upon dropping out of Merton College Oxford, he scraped a seventh-class degree from Durham. It would seem that a habit of forgetting about work is not the preserve of the modern student. He seems to have been a useful friend to have had, however, as a second watercolour depicts a lavish breakfast party thrown by Richards. Complete with a manservant in a red waistcoat, a table set with teapots and silver goblets, the scene smacks of opulence. With most students strapped for cash today, a bowl of cereal and a banana often suffice. Over the many years since Richards moved out, these rooms have been occupied by members of Castle’s Student Executive Committee. It seems appropriate to ask whether you or anyone
you know could well have occupied either of the rooms immortalised in these charming watercolours. Bradley graduated alongside his good friend Richards in 1848, and was later to be ordained an Anglican priest. Going on to nationwide notoriety through his Victorian comic novels, and becoming one of the first to publish Christmas cards, Bradley is an alumnus to cherish. His undergraduate cartoons, watercolours and sketches provide a priceless piece of the student story here in Durham. This work could well have been lost to us following Bradley’s death in 1889, had it not been for the far-sighted actions of the Durham Union Society’s librarian. Purchasing the sketches for a meagre £12, this individual preserved a window on history, enabling us over 160 years later to enjoy the adventures of ‘Ye Freshmonne’, while reflecting on our own mischievous undergraduate antics.
For more information on the DVD release and how you can view the The Durham Story, please visit www.durhamworldheritagesite.com
Lindisfarne Gospels Durham One amazing book One incredible journey 1 July to 30 September 2013 Palace Green Library, Durham This once in a lifetime exhibition tells the tale of St Cuthbert and this beautiful 1300 year old manuscript – its creation, its journey and its special symbolism for the people of the North. Visitors will also see stunning Anglo-Saxon treasures and some of Britain’s most significant medieval manuscripts. Around the region will be an action packed programme of celebratory events.
Tickets on sale now at www.lindisfarnegospels.com Presented on the UNESCO World Heritage Site by:
With:
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Come back to Durham What’s on this summer and autumn Whether you graduated in 1961 or 2011, you might think of the City and the University as essentially timeless. But, while the skyline of the peninsula remains unchanged, Durham is evolving. There are breathtaking new buildings and a range of high-profile, must-see events that are reconfirming Durham as a significant cultural destination for a modern audience. So why not come back to Durham this summer and autumn to see how it has changed?
Palatine Centre
You could come and see the new Palatine Centre, which stretches along Stockton Road from the recently renamed Bill Bryson Library to the entrance to the old science site. Apart from bringing together all student services and the Law School, this eye-catching new building is home to a significant part of the University’s impressive modern art collection, perhaps the best in the country in a university context. The collection includes a metal relief sculpture of Elvet Colliery (originally on the site), a mural of crystal forms based on an original design by John Tunnard, The Sphere of Redemption by Fay Pomerance, a collection of African art and works by many renowned artists including Sandra Blow, Alexander Calder, Andy Warhol, Henry Moore, Damien Hirst and Pablo Picasso. Guided art tours are available throughout the summer every Wednesday at 2pm, and the café will be open to welcome alumni and members of the public. The tours are free, but places are limited and must be pre-booked at www.durham.ac.uk/conference.booking Please email conferenceadministration.service@durham.ac.uk for more information.
Launch of the Lindisfarne Gospels 2013
The centrepiece event this summer is ‘Lindisfarne Gospels – Durham’: a spectacular three-month exhibition that represents a return of the Gospels, both to the City that cherished them for more than half a millennium and to the inheritors of the scholarly and religious community that first created the book at a time before the dawn of England. Visitors to the exhibition will also see some of Britain’s most significant manuscripts and books alongside stunningly beautiful artefacts from Anglo-Saxon England that have been drawn from national and regional collections. The University would like to take this opportunity to thank our alumni for their support in refurbishing Palace Green Library to create a home for the exhibition. Without the quality of exhibition space you helped us to create, we could not have brought the Gospels back to Durham.
BRASS: Durham International Festival
The Lindisfarne Gospels Exhibition is the centrepiece of a range of events that are taking place in and around Durham over the summer and autumn. These are the highlights, and remember that alumni can get an exclusive discount on accommodation in the City (see page 28 for details).
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Andrew Motion at Durham Book Festival 2009
LINDISFARNE GOSPELS – DURHAM 1 July – 30 September Palace Green Library BRASS: INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL 5–21 July Durham City Our cover image (page 1) tells the story. International acts bring Durham to life this summer with the sound of brass. Bands perform jazz, funk, classical, ska and traditional music during a packed programme of live entertainment.
CRICKET: ENGLAND V. AUSTRALIA – THE FOURTH ASHES TEST 9–13 August Emirates Durham ICG DURHAM BOOK FESTIVAL 13–30 October Durham City
Lumiere
Lindisfarne Gospels Durham includes a series of interpretive and community events that are taking place around the City and the region throughout the summer. This is just one of the highlights. IN CUTHBERT’S TIME: A SEVENTH CENTURY SOUNDSCAPE OF LINDISFARNE 5 July – 30 September Holy Cross Chapel, Durham Cathedral Throughout human history, artists have been influenced by their surroundings and the sounds of the landscape they inhabit. When Eadfrith, the Bishop of Lindisfarne, was writing and illustrating the Lindisfarne Gospels during the late seventh to early eighth century, he would have been immersed in the seasonal sounds of the island. In collaboration with the Fellows of Durham University’s Institute of Advanced Study, Chris Watson – one of the world’s leading wildlife sound-recordists – has recreated the acoustic landscape during that time. In Cuthbert’s Time is a sound installation that features the natural sounds of the island, such as the seasonal variations of the weather and the tide, the breeding and migration of the birds and the likely acoustic behaviour patterns of other animals.
The 2013 line-up is yet to be released but last year’s Festival featured Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy, Nick Robinson, Jack Straw MP, Roger McGough, Ian Rankin, PD James and Kate Mosse.
LUMIERE 2013 14–17 November For four nights in November, the City will once again be transformed by a series of light installations and projections from leading regional, national and international artists and organisers. Visitors will be able to enjoy a sense of celebration as they explore the new nocturnal landscape of the City. Familiar and forgotten features and spaces will be given new life as they become the subject or background for beautiful illuminations and projections.
Opening page of St Matthew’s Gospel in the Lindisfarne Gospels
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Ships’ Logs and Icebergs Professor Mike Bentley explains how Durham’s Climate Impacts Research Centre is using surprising sources to investigate the history and future of climate change. In the coming months, the global concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will exceed 400 parts per million, up from about 270ppm before the Industrial Revolution. The inexorable rise of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases has meant that the resultant climate change is rarely out of the news. But reporting often focuses on the facts and figures of the changes in climate – how many degrees of warming, or how much wetter or drier will our climate be. This focus on climate-change facts means that the direct and indirect consequences of climate change on natural, economic and social systems can be overlooked. These consequences are termed ‘climate impacts’
and are a focus of research in leading universities around the world, and particularly at Durham. Here we have a long history of working in climate and climate-impacts research. This probably began with Professor Gordon Manley in the 1920s who began the painstaking work necessary to compile a record of monthly temperatures for central England stretching back to 1659. This was a labour of love that took over 30 years but the results of which are still in use. Since then, Durham’s expertise has grown enormously and today we have internationally-leading strengths in climateimpact research that include a diverse
range of disciplines across the University. The departments engaged in climateimpact research include Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Earth Sciences, Geography, School of Law, School of Government and International Affairs, and the School of Applied Social Sciences, among others. The newly-established Climate Impacts Research Centre (CIRC) aims to draw together these areas of excellence such that we can use our collective strength to undertake new areas of interdisciplinary climate impacts research – particularly at the interface between social sciences and sciences – and to communicate and
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disseminate our research to a wider network of stakeholders, such as NGOs, governments and corporations, and Durham students past and present. We are developing CIRC in partnership with Van Mildert College, as part of a drive to ensure that we engage with the fullest possible range of undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as staff. Here I outline some examples of ongoing projects in climate-impacts research to give a flavour of the diversity of work at Durham. This is not an exhaustive list and there are several further emerging areas of strength that we aim to develop over the coming years. Biodiversity and ecosystems are being affected by climate change. Durham researchers are in the vanguard of efforts to try to understand and predict such changes, and recent projects have included projections of future changes in species ranges of plants and birds in southern Africa – these predictions are now being used by NGOs and National Park managers to develop their future management strategies. The work involves careful mapping of species’ ranges and climatic conditions, and collaboration with some of the world’s leading climate modellers to explore future conditions in the regions of interest.
‘Ongoing work is seeking to use the logbook archives to reconstruct some of the earliest temperature and sea-ice records in the Arctic leading up to the onset of modern satellite measurements.’ Lieutenant’s logbook for HMS Britannia (1762)
significance of these changes requires a long-term record, so that we can understand whether today’s changes are exceptional or might be partly explained by natural variability. Durham researchers are undertaking work in collaboration with other universities to extract past climate and ice information from sources such as seabed sediment and even old naval logbooks. The latter is innovative work that relies on large archives of ships’ logbooks that record frequent observations of weather and ice conditions around the ship. The coverage of these logbooks is staggering: the archives so far located include logbooks going back several centuries and for ships that were traversing large areas of the eastern Arctic for trade, whaling, exploration and the extended rescue missions for the lost ships of Sir John Franklin in the mid-19th century.
Effectively quantifying these uncertainties is vital for scientists and policymakers to be able to interpret the model results, and work at Durham is using advanced statistical techniques to do this.
Careful detective work has shown that ships that were located close to one another (but recording independently) produce remarkably consistent observations, and so we can use the logbooks as reliable records of climate. Ongoing work is seeking to use the logbook archives to reconstruct some of the earliest temperature and sea-ice records in the Arctic leading up to the onset of modern satellite measurements.
These are only a few examples, and other areas are emerging rapidly. Climate change is likely to remain one of society’s grand challenges in the coming decades. Durham University’s CIRC will contribute to the global debate through a wide range of research projects and by disseminating the findings of this work not only through the global research community but also by working with those stakeholders who need the best information in order to plan, manage and adapt to climate impacts.
Elsewhere, we are part of worldwide efforts to understand the sea-level contribution from the two great ice sheets on Earth: Greenland and Antarctica. Not only are we helping define and quantify the amount of sea level being contributed by the two ice sheets, but we also carry out work on sealevel change on UK and other coastlines. For example, we know that future sea-level change around the UK coast will differ depending on where you are: areas in Scotland will see less sea-level rise because the land is still uplifting slowly due to the unloading of the British ice sheet at the end of the ice age. In contrast, the coasts of southern England will see the opposite effect. Durham researchers published the definitive map that quantifies these effects, and the map is being used widely by UK planners as they develop coastal management strategies.
The effects of climate change in the Arctic are not restricted to physical change. As the sea ice retreats, new areas of potential mineral resources are opening up and geopolitical tensions are building. The area of climate law and governance in an Arctic context is a key area of work, and Durham has developed and published high-profile compilations of disputed regions of the Arctic.
In the Arctic, the sea ice is undergoing a major decline at the same time as the Greenland ice sheet margin and Arctic glaciers are retreating. Understanding the
The climate models being used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and others have a range of uncertainties associated with them.
Durham is a world leader in understanding vulnerability and resilience of communities to hazards and global change. Much of this work has been developed by the University’s Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience (IHRR). We are working with the IHRR to ensure that we can transfer this expertise into better understanding of vulnerability and resilience of different communities to climate impacts. Other areas of work include understanding global governance structures and how they shape the pace and progress of international climate negotiations, and projecting the impacts of climate on health and disease.
Professor Mike Bentley is Professor of Physical Geography at Durham University and is Director of the newly-established Climate Impacts Research Centre. He carries out research into the Antarctic ice sheet and its role in global sea-level change.
For more information about Durham University Research, visit: breakthrough.durham.ac.uk
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FIFTY YEARS OF RUTH FIRST SCHOLARSHIPS Dr Mike Thompson of the Ruth First Educational Trust celebrates the organisation’s half-centenary. Fifty years ago, a group of students and staff at Durham University set up a fund to help combat the devastating effects of apartheid, by providing undergraduate scholarships for students from South Africa. The link was strengthened by the appointment of Ruth First, the charismatic writer, researcher and anti-apartheid campaigner, to a Lectureship in Sociology at Durham in 1973. She was on secondment to Eduardo Mondlane University in Mozambique when she was murdered by the South African police. The Durham scholarship was renamed in her memory. The name Ruth First still resonates powerfully throughout southern Africa. Apartheid has been overcome and educational opportunities for young South Africans transformed, but there is still an urgent need for international help to build knowledge, skills and leadership capacity in the region. The Ruth First Scholarship now supports one student per year taking a taught Master’s degree, and since 2007, applications have been accepted from all the countries in southern Africa. Ruth First Scholars are chosen for their active commitment to working for the benefit of their communities as well as their academic ability. They become inspiring role models for other young people in Africa and expand the international awareness of their fellow students at Durham. This year’s Ruth First Scholar is Agnes Wizi (pictured), who is taking an MA in Social Work Studies. She is from Malawi, where she has been involved in initiatives to combat corruption, promote the empowerment of girls in rural areas and support people living with HIV. As part of her MA, Agnes is writing a dissertation on sexual abuse of women with mental disabilities in sub-Saharan Africa. Agnes is following in the footsteps of talented and committed people from several countries in southern Africa. For example, one of her predecessors was Simplicio Bhebhe (LLM, Chad’s, 2009-10), who obtained a distinction for a dissertation on the applicability of universal jurisdiction to perpetrators of torture in Zimbabwe. He is now back in Zimbabwe doing courageous and dangerous work with Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, by providing legal support for dissidents and victims of injustice. He has recently been appointed Partner in the law firm of Kantor and Immerman in Harare, he acts as a tutor
This is what Agnes has to say about what the Scholarship means to her: ‘At Durham University, I am growing in more ways than I can count. The knowledge and skills that I am acquiring here are transforming me, a young but passionate African lady, into a leader of change. I feel very strongly about the importance of scholarships and other aids for higher education, as education and skills development are the keys to bringing about social and economic change and reducing inequalities and poverty, which are the major enemies to development in Africa.’ This year’s Ruth First Scholar, Agnes Wizi
in business law at the University of Zimbabwe free of charge, and gives free legal advice to indigent people via various legal organisations. Other people who have been Ruth First Scholars over the past 50 years are putting qualifications in geography, education, social work, particle physics, chemistry, computing, business administration, health and international politics to good use in teaching, business, research, public administration and community work across southern Africa. They form a very special group of Durham alumni, committed to using what they gained from Durham for the benefit of their communities. The University plays a key part in making the Ruth First Scholarship possible by covering the cost of tuition fees, while St Chad’s College generously provides subsidised accommodation and welcomes each year’s Scholar into a supportive and stimulating community. However, the cost of supporting
the Scholar’s living expenses is covered by philanthropy and comes from individual members of staff, students, alumni, local people and businesses, Durham County Council, and the Durham Miners’ Association. The Ruth First Educational Trust urgently needs additional financial support to ensure that it can continue to make its small but valuable contribution to positive change in southern Africa. If you would like to find out more about Ruth First, the Scholarship, the current Scholar and former Scholars, please visit the Trust’s website: www.durham.ac.uk/ruthfirst.trust/ or email Dr Mike Thompson (m.p.thompson@durham.ac.uk). If you would like to support the Trust’s work, please go to www.dunelm.org.uk/donate
Shaped by the past, creating the future
Putting a gift in your will enables you to remember your time at the University and leave a lasting, positive impact on future generations of students. Legacies really are essential to Durham’s advancement and they place committed alumni at the forefront of our development as a modern University, one that is responding to the world’s societal, economic and technological challenges. As you give back to the University that nurtured you, you become a vital member of the Dunelm community.
Your gift can be directed towards a variety of causes and aligned with the aspect of your time at Durham which you treasure the most. Whichever cause you choose, when the time is right to make your decision, please contact Louise McLaren, Legacies Officer on 0191 334 6313 or email louise.mclaren@durham.ac.uk.
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Experience Durham Bringing Sport, Music, the Arts and Volunteering together Vicky Ridley, Experience Durham Project Manager
TEAM DURHAM Durham looks set to retain our second place position in the British Universities and Colleges Sports (BUCS) points table after another highly successful year of winter sports. Loughborough sits clear at the top of the table, but the Palatinates have broken through the 3,000-point mark for the second time in our history. Only Bath and Loughborough have ever achieved this accolade. The Palatinates reached more BUCS championship semi-finals than ever before, and we were the most represented university at this level – a testament to the sporting excellence that Durham is now renowned for.
BUCS Championship Winners Men’s Lacrosse Men’s Rugby Rowing Women’s Futsal Women’s Hockey
BUCS Finalists Men’s Tennis Women’s Lacrosse Women’s Football Women’s Volleyball Women’s Canoe Polo
BUCS Semi-Finalists Men’s Hockey Women’s Rugby Men’s Water Polo Women’s Tennis Men’s Fencing Women’s Basketball Men’s Canoe Polo Women’s Indoor Cricket
We also picked up BUCS individual medals in Boxing, Archery, Marathon, Canoes, Fencing, Orienteering, Rifles, Tennis and Snowsports. While many of our first teams reached the final stages of the BUCS Championship league, our second, third and fourth teams also had outstanding seasons, with many of these teams coming up against the first teams of competitor institutions. Our hockey teams now play in high-performance leagues, with the women finishing second and the men third in the Northern League. The Durham Wildcats Basketball team finished in tenth place in the British Basketball League after ten wins during the season, a very respectable place to be after only their second year in the competition. Our cricketers continue to play at a county level. Finally, thousands of Durham students continue to participate in sport through the college competitions, and over 5,500 fixtures have taken place this year. Collingwood College were crowned sporting champions, after topping the College Sports Point table in 2011–12, and the fight is on for them to retain the title this year. The annual College Festival of Sport event in June will be a crucial decider for college sport champions.
Twickenham glory It was a very cold day, but the atmosphere inside the home of English Rugby could not have been warmer. Before the game even kicked off, the Palatinates’ achievements were amazing: they were back at Twickenham in the BUCS Championship finals for the third consecutive year. Their opponents were once again Cardiff Met, the team that the Palatinates beat two years ago to be crowned champions, but the memories of last year’s defeat to Hartpury reminded the squad that they would need to stay focused on the task in hand. The first half belonged to Durham and they went into half-time with a 10-5 lead. As the second half got under way, the Palatinates raced out of the blocks and took the score to 20-8. Cardiff were not going to give in without a fight and they soon began to test Durham’s defence. With just 10 minutes of injury time to play, the score stood at Durham 23, Cardiff 17. It was a nervous wait, but Durham secured the vital penalty and as the whistle blew, the celebrations began. The final score was 26-17. For team captain Josh Beaumont (Geography, St Aidan’s, 2010-), and for Harrison Collins (Sport, Hatfield, 2010-), Fred Stonell (Economics, St Cuthbert’s, 2010-) and Jack Pattinson (Sport, Hatfield, 2010-) the day was a very fitting end to their Durham rugby career. They leave this summer knowing that in three years, they have lost only one game – a remarkable accolade.
Image captions left to right: BUCS Rugby Champions; Women’s Lacrosse; Tartuffe; Calum Zuckert, Student Music Co-ordinator and Conductor; Volunteering
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Durham students continue to excel in sport, theatre, music and volunteering activities, and 2012–13 has been a year to remember for all the right reasons.
DURHAM STUDENT THEATRE
Spotlight on the Durham Revue
Durham’s theatre scene goes from strength to strength with a show on virtually every night of term. Durham University Light Opera Group started 2013 with a flashback to the 1980s with its production of Fame at the Gala Theatre.
Durham’s comedy scene has once again been on the up this year, culminating in the Durham Revue ALLSTARS show, featuring some of the best sketches of the last three years and alumni who have gone on to make waves in the world of comedy.
Durham Drama Festival, now in its 38th year, showcased the best of student writing, with ten plays performed in a week, along with workshops and awards ceremonies. Durham University Classical Theatre Company presented The Trojan Woman; Ooook! Productions showcased Terry Pratchett’s Thief of Time; Kronos Productions produced God of Carnage; and at Queen’s Campus the Infinity Musical Theatre Company entertained audiences with Spring Awakening.
In collaboration with current students, alumni Kieran Boyd (Arts Combined, Hatfield, 2005-09), Naz Osmanoglu (English Lit., Van Mildert, 2005-08), Nick Mohammed (Geophysics, St Aidan’s, 2000-03) and The Gentlemen of Leisure (Tom Neenan (English Lit., Grey, 2004-07) and Nish Kumar (English and History, Grey, 2004-07) produced yet another highly acclaimed show.
Over the summer, Durham theatre hits the road and seven Durham shows will feature at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, while Castle Theatre Company will take its performance of As You Like It on tour around the UK and to selected venues in the USA.
DURHAM STUDENT MUSIC Throughout the year, the University Chamber Choir, Choral Society and College Chapel Choirs have sung in venues around Durham, and the Symphony Orchestra, University Big Band, Hill Orchestra, Concert Band and Palatinate Orchestra have amazed audiences with their talent and ability. Durham University Music Society presented an evening celebrating the best of Durham’s music at the Sage in Gateshead with performances from the University Chamber Choir, Light Opera Group, folk societies, college music societies, and the University string quartet. The Opera Ensemble also returned to the Great Hall in Castle with an exceptional performance of The Merry Widow.
Building on the success of an ALLSTARS show several years ago, current Durham Revue President Stefanie Jones (English Literature, Castle, 2010-13) says she ‘wanted to bring together all the best bits of the Durham Revue from the past few years’.
VOLUNTEERING AND OUTREACH Staff and students have contributed thousands of hours to North East communities through the continued success of our volunteering programmes. In a new venture, Team Durham Community utilised the fantastic facilities at Maiden Castle and the dedication of student sportcoaches and volunteers to run a series of sport and activity camps over the Easter holidays. Offering young people the opportunity to take part in new activities, including rowing camps, multi-sports camps and ‘Bounce and Shout’ activities, the events were such a success that five weeks of summer holiday sports camps are now planned.
The Durham Revue has an illustrious past, and can trace its roots back to the 1950s. But a society dedicated solely to producing sketch comedy was not established until 1973, when Durham University Sensible Thespians (DUST) was founded. In 1977, under the presidency of Arthur Bostrom, DUST took its first show to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and this inaugural Fringe show included John Inge (Bishop of Worcester) and Jennie Campbell (former BBC comedy producer). The group has continued to take a show to the Fringe every year, changing its name to the ‘Durham Revue’ in 1988. Today the Durham Revue is a small society, will only six to eight members at any one time. Auditions take place each Michaelmas term and although generally new members have little experience of sketch comedy, they learn from their ‘elders’. The Revue writes all of its material and performs at least two shows a year in Durham, one with its counterparts from Cambridge and Oxford.
To build on the Olympic and Paralympic legacy left after last summer’s Games, student volunteers planned and organised an inaugural talent-spotting event for disabled athletes. The event gave participants the opportunity to try new sports and work with coaches from national governing bodies, and we hope that we may have been able to help find the next paralympians. Alumni and friends are always welcome at any of our events and activities. For more information, visit www.durham.ac.uk/ experiencedurham
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DURHAM ALUMNI EVENTS Durham alumni have attended a variety of events over the last six months, providing an opportunity to catch up with old friends, meet with members of the University executive and build the Durham alumni network.
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Alumni in the United States attended receptions where University Chancellor Sir Thomas Allen enthralled his audience with informal operatic performances at the residences of the British Consul General in Chicago and Boston respectively. New York was also host to a stimulating debate in the elegant Yale Club Library. The eminent social scientist and Master of University College, Professor David Held, introduced the topic ‘Gridlock: Why globalisation is failing when we need it most’ and was joined on the panel by Sir Harold Evans (Economics, University College, 1949-52), former editor of The Sunday Times and currently editor-at-large of Reuters news agency.
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Events occur regularly round the world in places as far-flung as Beijing, Hong Kong and Rome to name a few, not to mention several Dunelm Society events in London. You can check out future events on our Events Calendar at www.dunelm.org.uk/events The alumni office would like to thank all volunteers for their continued support and would like to encourage anyone with ideas for an event in their city or region to email alumni.office@durham.ac.uk
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All smiles at an alumni gathering in Beijing. The magnificent view from our event venue: Michigan Avenue, Chicago. Sir Thomas Allen hits the heights in Chicago. Sir Thomas Allen enthrals the crowd in Boston. Vice-Chancellor, Professor Chris Higgins (second from left) and guests at the Yale Club. Sir Harold Evans (left) and Professor David Held at the Yale Club, New York.
EVENTS CALENDAR JULY 2013
AUGUST 2013
SUNDAY 7TH
WEDNESDAY 7TH, 14TH, 21ST, 28TH
DUBC drinks/nibbles event Henley Royal Regatta
Palatine Centre Art Tour Palatine Centre, Durham
WEDNESDAY 10TH, 17TH, 24TH, 31ST
THURSDAY 29TH
Palatine Centre Art Tour Palatine Centre, Durham
Durham After Hours in London Bounce, London
THURSDAY 11TH
SEPTEMBER 2013
D8 London – ‘Crisis Management’ with Dr Mike Nicholson Mazars, London
SUNDAY 1ST
A Celebration of Legacies Durham Castle
MONDAY 15TH
Workshop on medieval and post-medieval trade in the western Indian Ocean Durham University, Department of Archaeology SATURDAY 20TH
Durham Alumni ‘Happy Hour’ The Southern, Bucktown, Chicago WEDNESDAY 24TH
D8 Mumbai – ‘Corporate Social Responsibility Matters’ with Prof Geoff Moore Taj Lands End, Mumbai THURSDAY 25TH
Durham After Hours in London The Blues Kitchen, London FRIDAY 26TH
D8 New Delhi – ‘Corporate Social Responsibility Matters’ with Prof Geoff Moore Jaypee Vasant Continental, New Delhi
WEDNESDAY 4TH, 11TH, 18TH, 25TH
FRIDAY 20TH – SUNDAY 22ND
Trevelyan College Alumni Weekend Durham FRIDAY 20TH – SUNDAY 22ND
St Mary’s College Alumni Weekend Durham FRIDAY 20TH – SUNDAY 22ND
St John’s College ‘Five Years On’ Reunion Durham
OCTOBER 2013 FRIDAY 18TH
Palatine Centre Art Tour Palatine Centre, Durham
Hatfield Association North West Reunion Manchester
FRIDAY 6TH – SUNDAY 8TH
TUESDAY 29TH
Weekend Lecture and Visit to the Lindisfarne Gospels Exhibition St John’s College, Durham FRIDAY 6TH – SUNDAY 8TH
St Cuthbert’s Society Reunion Weekend Durham FRIDAY 20TH
Durham University Convocation & Dunelm Society Annual Dinner Ironmongers’ Hall, London THURSDAY 31ST
Durham After Hours in London The Piccadilly Institute, London
NOVEMBER 2013
The Sixth Annual Hatfield ‘Lion in London’ Reunion The Alexandra Pub, Clapham
THURSDAY 14TH
FRIDAY 20TH – SATURDAY 21ST
JUNE 2014
Association of the College of St Hild & St Bede Reunion Weekend Durham
Durham After Hours in Norwich Red Lion, Norwich
THURSDAY 26TH
Dunelm Society Reception House of Lords, London
For more information, please see www.dunelm.org.uk/events or telephone +44 (0)191 334 6305
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