Development Director’s Report

SARA KALIM

Before sharing news of another memorable year at Somerville, I would like first to thank you. The stories you read in the following pages are there for many reasons – but most of all they are there because, once again, you trusted Somerville with your support.

No matter how many times we say it, it is impossible to overstate our gratitude for that trust. However small or large your gift, whatever form it takes, the bond of trust that gift confers is what drives us and guides us as we move forwards. We have certainly all needed guidance at times this year. It was a period of great uncertainty in the world, from which Somerville was not, unfortunately, immune. The humanitarian tragedies in Afghanistan and Ukraine, as well as the inflationary crisis in the UK economy, have cast long shadows, impacting us all.

For our team, therefore, this year has been very much ‘A Tale of Two Somervilles’. My team and I have balanced our time between bright and joyful moments of community and celebration with the imperative to safeguard College as far as possible against the hard times that are coming.

Fortunately, the last two years of pandemic taught us to cope with uncertainty and turn on a dime from in-person events to virtual ones. The year began, then, with our first ever virtual telethon, which saw our telethon organisers manage students’ training and calls entirely via a dedicated online platform. This exciting new technology suggested intriguing opportunities for the future, while the excellent total of £250,000 will help recoup some of the losses suffered during the pandemic. In December, responding to the rise of the Omicron variant, we decided to take our much-loved carol concert online. Moving readings from actors Calam Lynch (2013, Classics) and Sir Simon Russell Beale, as well as renditions of favourite carols from the Choir, ensured this event did not merely substitute for a lost engagement, but provided a unique opportunity to reconnect with College.

Dame Dr June Raine and Dame Kate Bingham at the Somerville Spring Meeting

Of course, as wonderful as they are, these new technologies can never quite replace the experience of being together in-person. We were so grateful, then, that our Supporters’ Lunch was able to go ahead in February. Current and former students Sarafina Otis (2020, Medicine) and Louise O’Rourke (2014, Mathematics) spoke movingly to our supporters about their journeys to Oxford and experience on arriving. These speeches highlighted how vital your support is, not only in bringing students from under-represented backgrounds to Somerville, but enabling them to thrive once here.

Our next big event was the Spring Meeting – and this was certainly one to remember, as we welcomed alumna Dame June Raine and Dame Kate Bingham to deliver joint keynote addresses. Hearing two of the

The last two years taught us to cope with adversity and turn on a dime.

most important figures in the UK’s pandemic response reflect upon the agencies they led (the MHRA and Vaccine Task Force, respectively) was both a privilege and an eloquent reminder of Oxford’s seminal contribution to medical science.

Kate Bingham did not attend Somerville, but her mother Elizabeth did, and the entire Bingham family has long-established ties with the University. As such, we were honoured this year to help build on those connections with the announcement of the new Bingham Law Scholarship. On page 18, you can read an interview with the inaugural recipient of this scholarship, Alastair Ahamed (2016, Law), as he reflects on the dedicatee of the Scholarship, Lord Bingham, its patron and our Foundation Fellow, Gopal Subramanium, and Oxford law more generally.

We have said goodbye to several cherished Somervillians this year. One of these was Shirley Williams, whose towering legacy we are commemorating through our newly endowed Shirley Williams Fellowship in Politics (see p16). We also lost the pioneering educator Professor Lalage Bown, whose kindness and humour will be as deeply missed as her advocacy for women’s educational rights (see p30). One of the most profoundly felt losses to our community was that of Dame Fiona Caldicott, Somerville’s Principal from 1996-2010. It is difficult to do justice to a woman of such accomplishments. Dame June Raine perhaps said it best when she ended her tribute to Dame Fiona by saying, ‘We all wear a number of “hats” in our lives. Of my “hats”, the one I am proudest to wear is when I say today, “I am a Caldicott Guardian.”’ We cannot all claim that title, but such is surely the respect and admiration she commanded from all of us.

A significant act of fundraising for Somerville sports occurred in Trinity term. Following significant damage to their boat during Hilary Torpids, the Somerville Women Boat Club were reduced to borrowing the men’s boat

Somerville Women's Boat Club celebrating their success in Summer Eights

for the foreseeable future. This was a sorry state of affairs in the SCBC Women's centenary year, so we are very grateful to Caroline Lytton (1999, Physics) for generously donating the necessary funds to purchase a new boat.

As the year drew to a close, several events articulated the warm regard between College and its supporters. In early September, we held a Will Power Concert to thank those alumni who have elected to remember Somerville in their wills, with a wonderful piano concerto from the Somerville Music Society.

That same month the Somerville Association, led by new President Dr Nermeen Varawalla (1989, DPhil Clinical Medicine), hosted its inaugural dinner. We also held the inaugural meeting of the Somerville College Cedar Circle, a new group established to recognise the loyalty of our regular donors, whose continued support enables College to plan effectively for the future and respond to urgent need in a timely manner. The founding members of the Cedar Circle met in September for a garden party with a talk by our Tutorial Fellow in English, Professor Fiona Stafford.

The one thing I haven’t mentioned here, because I know Jan is writing about it in her introduction, is the overwhelming support you have

Our regular donors' support enabled College to plan for the future and respond to urgent need.

shown for our sanctuary work. The exponential growth of the sanctuary scholarship programme and the amazing students now studying under them, make for perhaps my proudest memory of the past year.

To bring these brilliant young people to Somerville out of the trauma of war and prolonged statelessness offers new hope to us all, even as it fulfils a very old promise: Somerville College is here to include the excluded, offering the promise of an Oxford education to those who need it most.

Thank you for enabling us to keep that promise.

DAN MOBLEY, SOMERVILLE DEVELOPMENT BOARD MEMBER

All those involved with Somerville should be proud of its accreditation as one of the UK’s first University Colleges of Sanctuary. Supporting brilliant young scholars displaced by conflict is an exciting way of building on the College’s long history of expanding access to a brilliant education. As a new member of the Campaign Board, I am equally excited by the potential of the RISE programme to ensure we deepen our ability to attract and support the brightest students from every background, so College can remain a pioneer in tackling educational inequality and widening access to the amazing education and community so many of us have enjoyed.