OPEN DOORS
Meet the New Mistress Arabist Dr Elisabeth Kendall discusses her life and work and the impulse that drew her to step through the front door at Girton as Head of House. Interview by E. Jane Dickson
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irton’s 20th Mistress was intrigued to find newspapers unopened in the Senior Combination Room. ‘Before I came here, I’d never been in an SCR where the papers are barely leafed through. It’s because everyone here is talking. The Fellows talk at lunch, they hang around to chat after dinner, and I get the impression they really enjoy each other’s company. It’s the first thing I noticed when I arrived.’
the UN, Special Forces at home and abroad, NATO and the Pentagon. Steering tribes towards consensus is not perhaps so different from steering a College and, a year into her Mistress-ship, Kendall has ambitious plans for students and Fellows at Girton:
‘We’ve begun a couple of projects aimed at demystifying Cambridge for applicants, keeping it special – we don’t Dr Elisabeth Kendall never underestimates the ‘soft want to make it sound as if it’s like everywhere else – but power’ of conversation. ‘I’ve got a very practical spirit,’ making sure people know they have access to this special she says. ‘I like working out how to move things forward. thing. It’s important to understand But first I need to know what it is that that not everyone arrives with the people really aspire to. So, I’ve been My first thought when benefit of a privileged education, but trying to do a lot of listening and I was approached for everyone arrives with bags of potential. thinking in my first year in College, the Girton role was, Tapping into that from the get-go is while keeping up some of the great “Wow! This is my really important. I’m thrilled that last momentum I inherited.’ dream job!” And as October Girton hosted the week-long it turns out, it is induction for the inaugural Foundation Kendall, who relaxes by trail-running Year (an initiative to bridge the gap in the Alps, radiates high energy. between school and university for less She came to Girton in October 2022 advantaged students) for the whole University. We’ve also from Pembroke College, Oxford, where she was Senior been talking to our students to find out what it was that Research Fellow in Arabic and Islamic Studies. Formerly pushed them to apply here; quite often they’ll say things like Director of the Centre for the Advanced Study of the “Well, we saw a video on YouTube that talked about how Arab World (CASAW) – a collaboration across the fantastic Girton is at Law,” or whatever. So it’s about finding universities of Edinburgh, Durham and Manchester – she the right medium for the message and scaling it up.’ sits on numerous advisory boards and holds multiple trusteeships. Her field work in East Yemen, which includes Most Cambridge Colleges now offer well-developed – and working closely with desert tribes and analysing the role highly competitive – access and bursary schemes. This, says of poetry in al-Qaeda propaganda, has won the attention Kendall, is an increasingly urgent issue within and beyond of governments around the world. With privileged insight the University. But it is disingenuous, she argues, to assume into militant jihadi culture, she has advised, inter alia,
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The Year
