Welcome
FROM THE PRESIDENT Professor Dame Madeleine Atkins, 9th President of Lucy Cavendish College I do hope that you, your family and friends are keeping well during this difficult and uncertain time.
S
ome 18 months has passed since the Fellowship of the College decided that we would change our admissions policy in 2021 to accept men as well as women from the age of 18 years. We also decided that we should aim to grow our student numbers in such a way that the College becomes broadly representative of UK society and also seeks to admit outstanding international students from a diverse range of backgrounds including those from low-income families. We will, of course, continue to admit and support women of mature age, but also now students from other under-represented groups at Cambridge so that they, too, thrive academically and progress to aspirational careers in equal ratios to their more affluent and socially well-connected peers. It’s going to be busy – but exciting! At graduate level we were delighted this academic year to be in a position to offer ‘matched’ Rowan Williams’ studentships to two MPhil students who come from conflict zones and we are hugely grateful to our donors who have generously established these awards. In line with our focus at postgraduate level on interdisciplinary learning and research, we welcomed two new Junior Research Fellows to the College community. One is focusing on the complex situation of women and children caught up in camps in North Africa for migrant refugees, and the other is researching the experience of debt and its amelioration in low-income households in three local authority areas in the UK. Our postdoctoral members of the college now number 40 and are bringing great vivacity to our community with regular research seminars, social events, and mentoring schemes. We have also welcomed this year 13 new Fellows, including our first men, and are delighted with the additional range of expertise they all bring, not least in building up a full complement of Directors of Studies for the subjects that we will be recruiting to, at scale, for the first time in 2021. And there is a real sense of purpose that we will, at last, be able to admit young women to STEM Triposes where they still remain under-represented.
As we grow our student intake at undergraduate and postgraduate levels from 2021, we will need more community facilities and more student accommodation. We are therefore embarking on two new estates developments. First, at our Lady Margaret Road site, we are seeking planning permission for a new building that will provide 72 student study bedrooms and a large cafécum-social learning area on the ground floor. The building has been designed to low-carbon, Passivhaus standards which will reduce our carbon footprint and align ourselves with the Cambridge Zero initiative now established across the University. We have been delighted also to be able to work with the charity Leonard Cheshire on the details of the design so as to ensure that the building will be as accessible and inclusive as possible. The second estates project is not at this stage so far advanced but is focused on establishing a Hub for our graduates and mature-age undergraduates at the University’s Eddington site. (You may remember it as the North West Cambridge site.) This site has also been planned to achieve low carbon emissions. Here, we are working with the University on a range of design options. The plan under consideration is that the University would build the Hub which we would then occupy as tenants. So we have a rather full programme of actions ahead of us but are greatly encouraged by the significant support we are receiving from the Vice-Chancellor himself, and from other colleges, for our renewed mission and growth. And also from so many of you, our alumnae and friends, who are providing much-needed advice based on your own experiences, and demonstrating your commitment to that renewed vision through new donations and legacies. These will mean that many more outstanding students from under-represented groups with great academic and leadership potential will now get the opportunity to come to Cambridge and benefit from its world-leading education. You remain indispensable to our future and we thank you all for your on-going and considerable support.
ANNUAL REVIEW 2019/2020
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