ST EDMUND HALL UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD AULARIANTHE THE RAKE’S PROGRESS: DAVID HOCKNEY & JOHN COX Refurbishingp06 the Besse Building Thep18Letters of Catherine the Great againHallp26together ISSUE 29. 2022
Contributors Samira Ahmed, Sakaria Ali, Anna Botting, Philip Broadley, Xin Hui Chan, John Cox, Jessica Hatcher, Professor Andrew Kahn, Principal, Eve McMullen, Dr Callum Munday, Dr Claire Nichols, Melody Njoki, Andrew Vivian, Laura Zampini
Front cover: David Hockney (left) and John Cox (1955, English), Honorary Fellow, (right) during rehearsals of the 1975 production of the opera ‘The Rake’s Progress’ (Credit: Guy Gravett / Glyndebourne Productions Ltd).
Claire Parfitt, Communications Manager
Visit seh.ox.ac.uk/blog
for insights into the latest research by our Fellows and to read about interesting artefacts from our archive and library. Recent posts have included:
Chief Editors David Priestland, Professor of Modern History
Celebrating International Day of Women and Girls in Science 2022 Heather Barr, Graduate Trainee Library Assistant
Rewiring the Brain Professor Heidi Johansen-Berg, Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience A bug’s life: a route to sustainability
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The Aularian was printed using paper from sustainable sources
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Kate Payne, Alumni Relations Manager
Teddy Hall’s self-proclaimed Bishop of Dorchester Rob Petre, Hall Archivist
THE AULARIAN03Contents 04 From the Principal 05 Forged by the Hall 06 Refurbishing the Besse Building 08 John Cox: The Rake’s Progress 10 Dr Claire Nichols: Ancient magnetic fields and life on Earth 12 Dr Callum Munday: An atmospheric journey in the Cradle of Humankind 14 Access and outreach 16 Introducing Melody Njoki 17 New Teddy Hall wine label 18 Professor Andrew Kahn: The Letters of Catherine the Great and the CatCor Pilot 20 Aularians in journalism 21 Working towards a sustainable Hall 22 News from the Fellowship 24 From the Director of Development 25 Get to know your Aularian Community 26 Hall together again 28 Spirit of the Hall Podcast 30 The Aularian Room100820
Professor Robert Whittaker, Vice-Principal, writes “This is a deserved and exciting appointment, boosting the scientific expertise available in the House of Lords on issues of biodiversity, natural capital and environmental sustainability. I am delighted to offer congratulations to Professor Willis on behalf of the governing body of St Edmund Hall.”
From the Principal
Professor Willis appointed to House of Lords
Professor Baroness Willis CBE
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It has been a momentous year for Teddy Hall for two reasons. Firstly, our students, Fellows, and staff returned to study and work onsite, navigating this new post-covid world, and it has been wonderful to see the Hall community coming together again. We have also welcomed Aularians back to the Hall for the 40th, 50th and 60thanniversary dinners and I have had the pleasure of being reunited with alumni in the USA for the Annual New York Dinner and a drinks reception in Los Secondly,Angeles.in
The House of Lords Appointment Commission announced that Professor Katherine J. Willis CBE, was appointed to the House of Lords as a non-party-political life peer, on Tuesday 17 May 2022.
April this year, we successfully launched the Hall’s largest and most ambitious fundraising campaign: ‘HALLmarks: Forged by the Hall’. This is a £50m campaign to deliver vital and visionary investment in the physical, intellectual, pastoral, and cultural aspects of the 800-year-old college. We have raised 20% of its total to date and are now reaching out to our alumni and friends to help us achieve our £50m goal over the next five Thisyears.campaign is critical to the Hall’s future prosperity and financial security. We aim to build a new and sustainable 126-bedroom building at 17 and 19 Norham Gardens which will allow us to house all our undergraduates for the first time. We want to increase our Early Career Fellowships and maximise opportunities to study and research in the College’s twelfthcentury library. We want to build upon student support, graduate scholarships, and welfare provision. And finally, we will further support the Hall’s creative spirit and sporting success with additional funds and sustain the Hall’s hugely important Access & Outreach programme. The support of our alumni community will be crucial to the campaign’s success, and I thank you for all your generous support to date. In other news, we have taken significant steps forward along the road to achieving zero net energy by 2030. We have published our environmental sustainability strategy, created a digital dashboard where you can track our energy consumption (available on the Hall website), and commissioned a decarbonisation plan for the entire college site. The culmination of these steps is to guide us forward as we strive to enhance and conserve the Hall’s estate against future climate change and other environmental issues. Thanks to alumni donations, we have completed the refurbishment of the Besse Building and significantly improved the sustainable credentials of this grade II listed building through a newly built and insulated roof, double glazing, and a wastewater system that reduces the hot water demand by approximately 25%. On a final note, Aularians are very welcome to visit the Hall at any time and I do hope you consider reconnecting with the Hall by attending one of the many events available to you.
The appointment recognises Professor Willis’ contribution to biodiversity science and to policy formulation in roles such as her membership of the government’s Natural Capital Committee and in scrutiny of the scientific evidence base underpinning the Government’s 25-year environment plan. Professor Willis will be taking up this role alongside her continuing duties as Principal.
“I don’t think I fully appreciated at the time the rigorous academic training and personalised mentorship I was getting through the tutorial system. Years later, as I sit down to write on the other side of the world, the patient guidance I received in those Emden rooms still resonates.”
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“It was the intimacy of the Hall’s architecture that first drew me to it. I felt at home in the Buttery and under the eaves of my tutor Chris Wells’ stoop-inducing study. Late in Michaelmas, Chris would offer me a sherry and we would sit as he talked and cracked medieval-literature jokes in German. I would try to follow but mostly sit back and marvel at the esoteric bubble we inhabited.”
“I look back on my tutorials with John Dunbabin, John Knight and Martin Slater with fondness and gratitude. Gratitude for their patience in listening to arguments that were surely anything other than original; gratitude also for the opportunity afforded by their time to practise skills of discussion and debate that have been critically important in my subsequent career.”
“My time at the Hall was marked by late night readings in the intimate Hall library, discussions in the MCR, some of the best Formals at Oxford and many friends idly hanging out by the Front Quad. It is all these wonderful experiences and the lifelong friends I made there that I will always be grateful for.”
Sakaria Ali 2017, Public Policy Philip Broadley 1980, PPE Dr Xin Hui Chan 2004, Medicine Jessica Hatcher 2001, Modern Languages
Forged by the Hall
This year we launched our HALLmarks campaign. As part of this, we asked Aularians to share with us how the Hall shaped their lives. Please visit the website to share with us your own stories and reflections of your time at the College: hallmarkscampaign.seh.ox.ac.uk/forged-by-the-hall
With the generous support of Aularians, the Hall has transformed the grade II listed Besse Building (49 - 56 High Street) into six self-contained student apartments, offices and teaching spaces.
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Refurbishing the Besse Building
We have made significant efforts to improve the sustainable credentials of the building by installing a new roof, double glazing to the rear and substantially increasing the amounts of insulation in the building. New technology has also been installed that recovers heat from the wastewater produced by the en-suite showers and this in turn reduces the hot water demand by approximately 25%. The energy efficiency rating of the property was rated as B with a numerical score of 47 (the B range being 26-50). Comparing this to other properties, a newly built property of similar size might also achieve a B rating but with a numerical value of 33. The design of these rooms was created by the architects Original Field. There are 54 rooms with over 70% of them en-suite.
A kitchen and student bedroom in the Besse building (Credit: Dan Paton).
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Last October 2021, in advance of the next festival season, Glyndebourne presented the celebrated and longlived The Rake’s Progress with its touring company. It had not been seen at its home base for 10 years.
In 1959, Teddy Hall alumnus and Honorary Fellow, John Cox left Oxford and began his professional career as an assistant stage director at Glyndebourne, the summer opera festival. For the next ten years he freelanced in opera, plays and tv before becoming Director of Productions at Glyndebourne, a position which he held for the next decade. During John’s time there he directed six romantic comedies by Richard Strauss as well as operas by Mozart, Rossini, Haydn and others. His interpretation of Capriccio, Strauss’ last opera, has since been seen worldwide in collaboration with different leading designers and Mostsopranos.pertinently, he also directed Igor Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress in 1975, conducted by Bernard Haitink and designed by David Hockney, which continues to be performed in opera houses across the globe and is due for another revival at Glyndebourne next Fromsummer.1981-86, John was steering Scottish Opera through some existential rough water, but its work managed to include the British premiere of Alban Berg’s completed Lulu and a production of Weber’s rarely performed Oberon, for which he commissioned a completely new libretto by novelist Anthony Burgess, himself also a composer, which was given a masterful production by Graham Vick, who by this time, John had appointed Director of Productions. From 1988-94, John was Principal Stage Director at The Royal Opera, Covent Garden, working on several pieces, including Die Fledermaus in a new English translation by John Mortimer. As a freelance, John has been active worldwide in houses as large as La Scala, Milan, and the New York Metropolitan and as small as Monte Carlo and Drottningholm, Sweden; in places as unlikely as Tehran and Honolulu; in standard repertoire Verdi’s La Traviata in Salzburg and in rarities Pizetti’s Murder in the Cathedral in Turin, Barber’s Vanessa in Strasbourg and Los Angeles. He had a long running and happy relationship with Opera Australia at the awe-inspiring Sydney Opera House and he also did a number of productions for the Santa Fe Opera, New Mexico. Shortly before retiring, John developed a fruitful and happy relationship with Garsington Opera where distinguished productions of Le Nozze di Figaro and Fidelio were crowned by last summer’s Così fan tutte, an opera which John says has continued to delight and perplex him throughout his career.
John Cox, (1955, English), born 1935, alumnus and Honorary Fellow, recently revived his much-loved 1975 production of the opera ‘The Rake’s Progress’ featuring artist David Hockney’s famous designs.
The Arts Desk called it “a feast for the eye as well as ear, heart as well as mind.” “If any opera production stays in the repertoire for 46 years”, wrote Geoff Brown in The Times “and shows every sign of delighting audiences for at least another 50, then it must have very special Whilstqualities.”at the Hall, John was very active with the John Oldham Society, notably with a production of Ibsen’s Ghosts, starring Patrick Garland as Oswald. The Hall won OUDS (Oxford University Dramatic Society) cuppers
The drop curtain for ‘The Rake’s Progress’ in 2021
The Rake’s Progress
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THE AULARIAN09in 1957 with Upon the King, making a viable one act play from the night scene before Agincourt in Henry V. This featured Patrick Garland in the title role and led to OUDS selecting the whole play for its next summer major. The Hall had five actors in major roles, a record for any college, doing something to soften its reputation as “all for sport”. However, it was for the OU Opera Club at the Town Hall that John did his most noteworthy work, staging Verdi’s Ernani in 1958 and, the following year, the British premieres of Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex and Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortilèges. So, in a very real sense, his opera career began here at Oxford.
(Credit: Richard Hubert Smith / Glyndebourne Productions Ltd).
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Ancient magnetic fields and life on Earth
Dr Claire Nichols joined the Department of Earth Sciences in Oxford in the summer of 2020 and became a Tutorial Fellow at Teddy Hall at the end of 2021. After initially aspiring to be a theoretical physicist, Claire quickly discovered the practical side of Earth Sciences was a much better fit and particularly enjoyed field trips and the opportunities to travel to remote places. After completing an MSci in Earth Sciences, Claire remained at Cambridge for a PhD studying ‘tiny space magnets’, a type of nanoscale iron-nickel microstructure in meteorites which allows records of early solar system magnetic fields to be recovered.
All of us have pondered whether there are little green men living elsewhere in the Universe, and how and why life first emerged on Earth. These are fundamental questions to which we may never have concrete answers. However, we are beginning to have an idea of the ‘must have’ qualities for a habitable planet. Liquid water and the correct assortment of chemical elements are certainly key, but what controls whether a planet will host such conditions? And for how long can these favourable conditions be sustained? My research focusses on one very specific question: whether a magnetic field is an essential criterion on the habitability checklist. First, we need to consider how planets generate magnetic fields in the first place, how common they are, and how long-lived. When planets first form, dense metallic iron sinks to the planetary centre to form a core. While these cores are at least partially molten, the liquid part can be vigorously stirred. Since metallic iron is electrically conductive, this stirring is a little like applying a current through a coil of wire; it will generate a magnetic field. Earth’s core has generated a magnetic field, known as the geodynamo, for at least 3.5 billion years. Mars’s core, on the other hand, stopped generating a magnetic field more than 4 billion years ago. This has led scientists to ponder whether the cessation of the Martian magnetic field led the planet to evolve to its present cold, arid and hostile state while Earth remained warm, wet and habitable.
Astronaut Harrison ‘Jack’ Schmitt collecting samples from the Moon during the Apollo 17 mission (Credit NASA).
A perhaps even larger conundrum is the Moon’s magnetic field. The Moon has a tiny metallic core, which is just one seventh of its radius (Earth’s core is half its radius), suggesting it would only ever have generated a weak, short-lived magnetic field.
Collecting samples in Isua, Greenland to investigate Earth’s magentic field 3.7 billion years ago.
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However, laboratory studies on returned samples from the Apollo missions have revealed the Moon had an intense magnetic field for at least 2 billion years. In my recent research with collaborators at MIT and Apollo 17 astronaut Harrison ‘Jack’ Schmitt, we have investigated the shape of the ancient lunar magnetic field to see if this provides clues to how the ancient field was so strong. We found that the magnetic field around the Moon looked much like that around Earth today, with North and South magnetic poles aligned along the spin axis. This was unexpected – we know that the lunar magnetic field couldn’t be generated by the same processes driving Earth’s magnetic field today –this highlights the huge body of work ahead of us to understand even the basics of how planetary magnetic fields are generated and sustained. Similarly, there is debate as to how Earth’s early magnetic field was generated – particularly at the time when liquid water and life first emerged on the planet almost 4 billion years ago. Today, Earth has a solid inner core. As the inner core grows, it releases light elements such as sulfur into the overlying liquid outer core. These light elements are buoyant and rise up to the top of the core, driving vigorous compositional convection. However, prior to inner core solidification (the timing of which is still debated) it is unclear how convection was sustained. For the last few years I have been working in Isua, a rocky region of southwest Greenland nestled up against the ice sheet. These rocks are some of the oldest anywhere in the world, with a staggering age of 3.7 billion years. We have been trying to untangle their complex geological history to see if these rocks may hold the oldest record of Earth’s magnetic field to-date. Using the approaches developed in this research, we hope to be able to ‘fill in the gaps’ in Earth’s magnetic field history to try and spot trends which may be related to events such as the solidification of the inner core. As we understand more about ancient planetary magnetic fields we can assess their influence on the evolution of a planetary surface. For example, models of atmospheric escape for charged particles, or ‘ions’, are highly sensitive to magnetic field strength and shape. Surprisingly, results suggest that a planetary magnetic field may enhance atmospheric escape rather than shield from it. Earth’s surface became oxidised around 2.5 billion years ago during the ‘Great Oxidation Event’, which may have been triggered by the loss of hydrogen along polar magnetic field lines. Our next target is to look for changes in Earth’s magnetic field strength leading up to this event, to truly determine whether Earth’s magnetic field protects or harms our planetary surface, and therefore its role in building a habitable planet.
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An atmospheric journey in the Cradle of Humankind
Our earliest ancestors roamed around Africa 6 million years ago. Much of what we know of these early humans comes from a remote part of northwest Kenya called the Turkana Basin. There, scientists, including the late great Richard Leakey, have uncovered a sequence of fossils, which tell the story of our evolutionary history. The emerging agreement is that the idiosyncrasies of African climate shaped our evolutionary trajectory.
Dr Callum Munday completed his DPhil (2014-2019) at St Edmund Hall and was a college lecturer at Keble College and Teddy Hall from 2017-2021, before joining the Hall as a Fellow by Special Election in Geography. Callum is a climate scientist specialising in African climate and climate change. He is currently working on a NERCfunded project in southern Africa and is a visiting scientist at the UK Met Office.
Masters students from University of Nairobi (Rose and Clinton) get to grips with tracking balloons.
Scientists studying changing climate through ancient lake deposits, the diet of long extinct mammals and layers of mud on the floor of the oceans, describe important changes in environmental conditions coinciding with our divergence from apes. However, this climate record is incomplete: depending where you look, you can find different versions of how the climate of the deep past shimmied and shifted. So how can we set the story straight? One place to look for evidence is in the present day. The Turkana Basin is one of the driest places on the planet, and is home to the world’s lowest latitude desert. If we can find out what controls the climate there today, then we have a better chance of understanding the past. Unfortunately, the cradle of humankind is one of the most data sparse regions of the world. We have more weather stations in Tyneside compared to Turkana. The biggest data void is in the layer of the atmosphere above the surface. The temperature, humidity and winds in this layer control the formation of clouds and rain but, up until recently, we had no data to guide us on what they might be. In 2021, scientists from University of Oxford, University of Nairobi and the Kenya Meteorological Department
The whole team from Uni of Oxford, Uni of Nairobi and the Kenya Met Department gather for a final balloon.
“Why this happens is a puzzle the team are still figuring out.”
The team found remarkable climate processes at play. A few hundred metres above our heads, a massive stream of water vapour snakes its way from the Indian Ocean through the Chalbi Desert. The amount of water shifted is equivalent to two times the discharge of the Amazon River. But this water vapour does not fall as rain. Instead, the skyborne river passes silently through the desert, like a train past a defunct station, providing the moisture for its final destination in the Congo Whyrainforest.this happens is a puzzle the team are still figuring out. The rugged geography of the Great Rift Valley is one possible cause: steep mountains may act as a funnel, ensuring no water spills as rain on its journey inland through Turkana. If this is so, then details of the moving mountains over millions of years could hold the key to understanding the region’s climate and, possibly, our Whathistory.wedo know, is that the climate in the place where it all started for humans is truly unique. With more observations, we can build a better picture of how the climate works now, to inform how it worked then and to find out how it will change in the future.
THE AULARIAN13travelled to northwest Kenya to embark on a programme of scientific observations. Over a month-long expedition, the team released over 200 weather balloons to tune into the rhythm of the atmosphere through the day and night.
I started as Access & Outreach Coordinator at the Hall in August, relocating the short distance down the High Street after completing my undergraduate degree in History and Politics at Magdalen in 2021. I’m responsible for the day to day running of the College’s outreach programme, aimed at raising aspirations among state-school pupils. The Hall is linked primarily with schools in the Leicestershire and Derbyshire regions so, as someone originally from Nottingham, I was keen to return to my East Midlands Myroots.time is split between hosting school visits to the College, where students get to meet our wonderful student ambassadors, and visiting schools in the region to run talks and workshops about Oxbridge. Recently, we were able to get out on the road again and complete our annual ‘roadshow’ around North Derbyshire, running sessions in some of our most rural schools (and traversing a snowstorm in the Peak District!). Every school I work with is different, and our days can involve everything from Oxbridge mythbusting to hands-on Chemistry workshops, to rare book-handling Eve presenting during one of her school visits.
Eve McMullen works in the Admissions Office and is responsible for the day to day running of the College’s access and outreach programmes. Primarily, this involves working with schools and colleges in St Edmund Hall’s link areas: Leicester, Leicestershire, Derby, Derbyshire and Rutland. Alongside this outreach work, I have also enjoyed getting involved with some ‘in-reach’ at the Hall too. I sit on the College committee for Culture, Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion, where we look at ways to make Teddy Hall an even more welcoming environment for students of all backgrounds. As part of this I have contributed to the College’s event calendar: marking occasions such as Black History Month, International Women’s Day and Pride Month. In February, to mark the latter, we invited Gay Liberation Front activist Dan Glass and Russian LGBTQ+ advocate and journalist Sergey Khazov-Cassia to speak at the Hall. It was fascinating to hear their reflections on ‘50 years of Pride’ in the UK, as well as in Russia, and they really imprinted on us how much further the UK still has to go towards equality. with our librarians. I love meeting students with so much potential and seeing them realise over the course of their visit that a university like Oxford is actually accessible to Overthem. the last few months I have been working with Fellows across the College to develop our first ever competition: The Big Think. Stateschool students from across the UK are invited to submit a video entry answering one of our tutors’ ‘big’ questions. The contributions from our Fellows have been fantastic, with questions ranging from ‘Is the brain a supercomputer?’ to ‘Should governments be allowed to violate civil liberties when imposing lockdowns?’. Entries are already rolling in and I’m very excited to watch them all. I hope the competition will encourage students to get thinking about their subject beyond what they study at school.
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I also had great fun producing a Women of the Hall exhibition for International Women’s Day. I work very closely with the students, particularly with my network of over 80 ambassadors, and I am always struck by the resilience and diversity of the women I have met at the Hall. The exhibition compiled profiles of current students, staff and academics talking about their passions, backgrounds and how they feel as Women of the Hall. (This is available to view at students.prospectivediverseworkinherentlyupliftingTheseuk/women-of-the-hallwww.seh.ox.ac.).projectshavebeenincrediblytoworkon,andIthinktheycomplementouroutreachbyencouraginganevenmoreandinclusivecommunityforapplicantsandfuture
Moving over from a different college, I wasn’t really sure what to expect from Teddy Hall, but the warm welcome from staff, from my student ambassadors, from the women of the Hall, from the choir and from Teddy’s LGBTQ+ community has really helped me understand what everyone means by ‘Hall Spirit’.
“I love
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muchstudentsmeetingwithsopotentialandseeingthemrealiseoverthecourseoftheirvisitthatauniversitylikeOxfordisactuallyaccessibletothem.”
The Women of the Hall exhibition, created for International Women’s Day 2022, included profiles of current students, staff and academics.
On top of the long hours that her job demands, Melody’s mum has always found the time to support, encourage and steadily guide her and her younger brother. Beyond the calm impression they have of her, colleagues also describe Melody as giving great advice. She disagrees, “it’s probably because I’ve learned to just listen and sometimes you don’t have to give someone advice, just space to talk their issues out.” This, she recognises, is more important than ever in her current role as College Registrar. The transition to her new role has been a smooth one, thanks to the College Office team. “I’m incredibly grateful to have such a supportive team, especially in the trying times of Covid, everyone pulled in.” This was also the case across Teddy Hall, where, even remotely, Melody felt surrounded by a caring atmosphere, with extra resources available for students and online events to boost staff morale. She affectionately remembers afternoon team meetings during lockdown, when the sound of an ice cream van would always interrupt them at exactly 2pm, causing a chuckle, before they would get back to business. Now that those days seem far away, she looks forward to the never-repetitive buzz of the College Office.
From that first job, choosing not to go back to education while remaining very much immersed in that world felt like the right thing to do. She progressed quickly in the ContEd Registry Office and later became the Academic Administrator at Ripon College, Cuddesdon, moving to Teddy Hall in 2018.
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Melody was the Senior Academic Officer at Teddy Hall until December 2021, when she took on the role of College Registrar. She now manages the College Office team, ensuring all aspects of the Hall’s academic programme run smoothly and that College Officers, such as the Senior Tutor, are thoroughly supported. When she can, she enjoys sitting in the Broadbent Garden by the cherry tree, partly because in the summer it’s not as hard to get a seat in this peaceful spot behind the library. She’s also an enthusiast of the Hall’s lunches, especially when fish cakes are on the menu. Melody landed in an academic administration career almost by accident, as she describes it. After finishing her Sports Biomedicine and Nutrition degree in Cardiff and Melody is the College Registrar at St Edmund Hall and is based in the College Office. She is responsible for the administration of University examinations and assessments, mitigating circumstances applications, and student awards and prizes administration.
As soon as she got to the Hall, Melody was struck by how many women were in leadership posts. Professor Kathy Willis had just started as Principal in October 2018 and Dr Charlotte Sweeney, the Domestic Bursar, was appointed around the same time. “It was extremely encouraging to come into a new job and see these important positions filled by them.” Over three years later, now in a senior role herself, Melody feels that the source of her motivation is still the same as when she started: helping colleagues, and especially students to navigate challenging times. Thinking back on the yearly exam season, a stressful period for the College Office, the pride As she arrives in her office in the morning and goes through her long to-do list, the phone will start to ring or a worried-looking student will rush in, or sometimes both of those things will happen at once. She no longer has the luxury of a structured day but can also never complain about a monotonous routine. “Being thrown a curve ball any given day adds spice to the week.”
Introducing Melody Njoki
that arises when students start to get their results back is what she remembers most vividly. During these chaotic weeks, Melody conveys a sense of calm to her team. She says this comes from her mum, who is a mental health practitioner and her biggest source of inspiration.
Growing up in Nairobi, Melody remembers the first time that she ever heard of the University, when she was given her Oxford Dictionary and Oxford Helix Mathematical Set in her English and Maths classes. At seven years old, she could never have pictured working for a University of Oxford department and later the Teddy Hall College Office.
planning to save up for a masters, she started a summer job at Oxford’s Department for Continuing Education (ContEd). There, she found that through academic administration, she could give the guidance and support she wished she had received as a student.
Runner-up entry by Zhaorui Xu (2019, MMathPhil Mathematics & Philosophy)
Runner-up entry by Lavanya Sinha (2017, Medicine)
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We
Cabernet Sauvignon St Edmund Hall Design by Britany Kulka New Teddy Hall wine label
Winning design by Britany Kulka (2021, DPhil Earth Sciences)
Congratulations to St Edmund Hall student Britany Kulka (2021, DPhil Earth Sciences) who has designed the latest Teddy Hall wine label. this year’s competition, all students, staff and Fellows were invited to submit a wine label design. had over 35 designs submitted for judging. The decision was unanimous and Britany’s wine label now appears on all white, red and ruby port bottles.
A huge thank you to everyone who entered the competition.
In
The idea for this digital humanities resource came to me about seven years ago when I started supervising the doctoral dissertation of Kelsey Ruben-Detlev, a gifted young scholar who has now done distinguished work in eighteenth-century studies and is associate professor at the University of Southern California. ‘CatCor’ as a moniker came to me when I was wracking my brain well not too hard! for a catchy nickname to put in a funding application. I happened to be sitting in a café in Paris and had ordered a slice of French pound cake or Quatre Quarts and that’s all it took. Most good things begin with cake. There was then the question of dough. Funding in several phases was provided from a range of sources, all listed on CatCor, with Oxford’s John Fell Fund the largest source. The initial proof of concept was limited to 100 letters. In the last phase of the pilot, Kelsey and I managed a team of five research assistants, all of whom knew either French, Russian, or German, Catherine’s languages. Digital projects are speedy tools. The work itself is labour intensive and takes a lot of meticulous tagging and Professor Andrew Kahn FBA is Professor and Tutorial Fellow of Russian Literature and Modern Languages at St Edmund Hall, and Professor of Russian Literature in the University of Oxford. He is a Fellow of the British Andrew’sAcademy.research falls into three areas; the Russian Enlightenment in its comparative European context, the work of Alexander Pushkin and Russian poetry: the traditions.
This year saw the launch of the completed (or nearly there!) pilot of the Digital Databases of the Correspondence of Catherine the Great: https://catcor.seh.ox.ac.uk
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‘Catherine the Great Selected Letters: A new translation by Andrew Kahn and Kelsey Rubin-Detlev’. A letter with signature and corrections in the hand of the Empress about a diplomatic kerfuffle concerning a Swedish defector and spy. Bodleian MS. Montagu d. 20, fol. 3.
The letters of Catherine the Great and the CatCor Pilot
These letters have never appeared in a single edition (and for that reason are relatively underused in scholarship); the new possibilities of the digital world promise users not only a means of bringing together texts often difficult to access, but also a whole array of means of searching and manipulating a corpus of thousands of letters.
A letter with signature and corrections in the hand of the Empress about a diplomatic kerfuffle concerning a Swedish defector and spy. Bodleian MS. Montagu d. 20, fol. 3. research. Facets of a letter we take for granted salutation, closer, date and place provide the metadata that are the basic categories for description. No inventory of Catherine’s letters perhaps as many as 10,000 exists. Basic information of this kind needed to be checked carefully—no easy task given the state of the nineteenthcentury editions of her letters.
The eighteenth century was an age of global commercial expansion. Letter writing or epistolarity was the state of the art means of communication and became a literary art of its own as well as practical medium. To historians the ‘Republic of Letters’ is the term used to characterise the way knowledge circulated among scholars and scientists in the Enlightenment. Catherine II was one of the great letter writers of the age, notable among eighteenthcentury monarchs for her consuming interest in literature, ideas, and culture. Intellectual authority, in her view, was essential to marking the difference between the ruler as despot and ruler as enlightened monarch charged with enlightening her nation (or at least its bureaucratic and landowning classes). Her correspondence network extended from Madrid to Kazan and beyond: the visualisation tool in CatCor (or map) shows the range. If you want to know what this amazing woman was like I’d advise reading her letters rather than going to HBO. Kelsey and I produced a sort of life and letters that was published as an Oxford Worlds Classic. Catherine was the original micromanager and had her finger in every pie. She used her extensive (and still understudied) correspondence for pragmatic policy-making purposes and in order to try out ideas. She could turn on the charm, had a sly wit, and was a shrewd survivor on the throne. Her letters to the greatest minds, including Voltaire, Diderot, the Eulers, established her own and her nation’s formidable presence in the political life of Europe and in the intellectual life of the European Enlightenment. Her use of her epistolary network is now being seen as a means for projecting and controlling her own image and celebrity. Russia’s national identity also comes to the fore in the letters, where references to the question of what Russia is as a nation accumulate. As she wrote to Voltaire on 31 March 1770, ‘In general, our nation has the most fortunate proclivities in the world: there is nothing easier than giving them a taste for what is good and reasonable. […] When this nation becomes better known in Europe, people will recover from the many errors and prejudices that they have about Russia.’ Rather bittersweet words at the moment.
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Aularians in journalism
My advice to students is, don’t ever assume you’ll be treated fairly. At Teddy Hall I felt I was given every opportunity and encouraged and expected to do my best. I naively assumed that news organisations by the 1990s would do the same. Having now successfully sued the BBC with the backing of the NUJ for sex discrimination overpay in 2019 I would tell my younger self and students today to join their union, always ask for equal pay from the start, and to share their pay information with friends and colleagues. When we are allies, regardless of sex or gender or race, we make the world fairer for us all. In a world where 30 seconds seems a long time and every deadline is ‘yesterday’, the art of the essay crises (definitely plural in my case) is a skill set to be dreaded at the time, but much drawn upon in the future - work fast, write fluently, think clearly - with your arguments to be presented and challenged, in person, via the tutorial system.
Two other factors from SEH helped my career choice too. Firstly, the subject matter. I chose Geography. Never has it been more relevant with the climate issues the world faces (I was recently in Glasgow covering COP26), but also my finals papers on ‘Racial Geography’ and the history of Russia to the present day, (which back then was Gorbachev’s perestroika and glasnost, now all undone by Putin) gave indications to my future interests and current real-world events.
A big part of my time at Oxford was spent reporting, writing and editing magazines – my first feature for Isis was on government immigration policy and many of the NGO workers and activists I met then went on to be significant figures in the New Labour Government and running public services. I saw the long-term impact of the hard work they’d put in for so many years.
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Two of the College’s most prominent journalists discuss how their time at Teddy Hall set them up for a career in journalism.
A short-term concentrated workload, much suited to journalism.
I realised that the critical thinking skills that were nurtured by my English literature tutors were a key part of my development as a journalist. Parsing Anglo Saxon with Bruce Mitchell and de-coding poetry with Lucy Newlyn taught me to learn to trust my instincts in assessing evidence. And I received brilliant encouragement from Reggie Alton who taught me Shakespeare with such freshness and combined his academic career with authenticating news making documents, such as Kurt Cobain’s suicide note.
Secondly, TV journalism is an outgoing, sociable business. I constantly have to chat to put guests at ease. The hours spent in the buttery, or playing a multitude of team sports at Oxford’s friendliest college can’t have hurt. I had no idea I wanted to be a journalist until after I’d left College, who knew that struggling to write essays on time, drinking beer, while studying social unrest would take me there…
Samira Ahmed (1986, English) is a journalist, writer and broadcaster at the BBC. Anna Botting (1986, Geography) is a news presenter with Sky News.
Biodiversity Audit
Low Carbon Monday
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The Hall’s Biodiversity audit last year revealed: i) vegetation in the College grounds currently stores ~25 tonnes of carbon (which equates to around 92.4 tonnes CO2e); ii) the Queen’s Lane and Norham St Edmund sites support 58 trees (30 different species); iii) the College grounds provide habitat for 18 different species of bird, of which 15 are classified as of conservation concern; iv) over 500 insects were captured during a 3-day interval including 126 bees and insects known to be important for pollination and pest control; v) Sadly we appear to St Edmund Hall wants to be recognised as one of the greenest and most environmentally sustainable colleges in Oxford. Two St Edmund Hall Graduates taking part in the Biodiversity Audit in Trinity term 2021. have only one earthworm in the College grounds! In total 18 colleges took part in this biodiversity audit exercise and there are plans to repeat this on an annual basis to enable us to record trends in biodiversity, and the success of any actions that we implement to increase overall biodiversity on college sites.
Working towards a sustainable Hall
TheEcoSyncBesse building has a new interactive heating control system in every room called EcoSync. Students and guests can scan a QR code to alter the temperature on their smart radiator valve which feeds back to the EcoSync’s cloud-based management platform. The system is also being linked to the Hall’s accommodation booking systems which will enable the proactive ‘switching-off’ of heating to empty rooms, greatly improving the Hall’s energy efficiency.
Produced by Max Fordham and funded by the UK Government’s Salix Grant, the Hall now has a decarbonisation plan which sets out a road map for our historic estate to become as close as possible to zero net energy by 2030. A detailed study of the Hall’s buildings was carried out and a project to improve the energy effiency of the medieval buildings in the Front Quad was proposed. The plan will be used to inform future estate projects.
Highlights: Current Initiatives
Our Sustainability Sub-Committee has been working with our 900 students and staff over the past two years to greatly reduce our impact on the natural environment, manage resources that we impact in a sustainable way, and conserve and enhance biodiversity across all our sites. We outline some of the work we have undertaken to create a baseline of data against which we can now track our progress, set meaningful sustainability targets and record activities and successes that we have achieved to date.
Decarbonisation Plan
From February 2022, the Hall started a ‘Low Carbon Monday’ as a new initiative to reduce our food carbon footprint. We now offer two vegetarian meals, which tend to have a lower carbon footprint, and one meat option every Monday for lunch and dinner. We are using the Our World Data website to guide which ingredients we use to ensure that we are offering low carbon meals.
News from the Fellowship
For more information on the Hall’s new Fellows please visit: www.seh.ox.ac.uk/people/fellows *joined the Hall in the academic year 2021/22
Dr Frank Hwang St Edmund Fellow* Frank is the Chairman of the Oxford Chinese Economy Programme (OXCEP), which has been partnering with the Hall since 2013.
22 Meet the College’s latest Fellows who joined St Edmund Hall or started new positions in the last year.
Professor Filippo de Vivo Professor of Early Modern History and Tutorial Fellow in History* Filippo teaches early modern European and world history, with special emphasis on Italy and the Mediterranean.
Orlando is a political theorist researching domination and the workplace, with a particular interest in new and emerging forms of work.
James Howarth Librarian and Fellow by Special Election As Librarian, James strives to make the Library the intellectual hub of Hall life and a welcoming place to study.
Dr Orlando Lazar Early Career Research and Teaching Fellow in Politics
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Dr Claire Nichols Tutorial Fellow in Earth Sciences* Claire uses magnetism as a novel tool to understand Earth and planetary formation and habitability.
Professor Solène Rowan Professor of Law and Tutorial Fellow in Law* Solène is a Professor of Law specialising in contract, tort, commercial and comparative law.
Dr Callum Munday Fellow by Special Election in Geography Callum is a climate scientist specialising in African climate and climate change.
Dr Rhys Llewellyn Thomas Early Career Teaching and Research Fellow in Economics* Rhys’s research is in Health Economics. In particular, he uses econometric techniques to analyse health-related questions.
Dr James Whitbourn Director of Music and Fellow by Special Election
James Whitbourn directs the musical activities of the College and leads its choral programme for students.
Andrew Vivian joined the Hall in March 2022 as the new Director of Development and Fellow, and is responsible for fundraising and alumni relations. I feel very privileged to have recently joined as Director of Development at this key point in time as we embark upon ambitious sustainable capital developments and the launch of the ‘
HALLmarks: Forged by the Hall’ Icampaign.haveworked in education and in fundraising for the University of Oxford for several years, with a particular focus and interest in supporting students from all backgrounds, through scholarships, bursaries and access programmes. Since joining Teddy Hall, I have been warmly welcomed and have had the opportunity to work with current students and Aularians, and experience how the Hall is making such an impact on people’s lives. For centuries, hallmarks have been used to record the quality and hallmarkscampaign.seh.ox.ac.uk
Thank you once again for all your Floreatsupport.Aula!
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By asking the question ‘How were you forged by the Hall’ we hope this provides an opportunity for reflection and pride, and to think about how you may wish to give back by giving forwards for the benefit of future Teddy Hall students. This may be through supporting young people who would never dream of considering coming to Oxford, but have enormous academic ability and potential, enhancing the experience of Teddy Hall students whilst on course through improved sport, music and the arts facilities, or enabling all undergraduate students to experience high quality ‘in college’ accommodation throughout their studies. Or you may be compelled to invest in the world-class research and academic excellence at the Hall through supporting fellowships, early career research and postgraduate scholarships. All donations of all sizes are so important and in this challenging cost of living crisis we really do appreciate Aularian generosity more than ever before. We have an exciting and full events calendar planned for the next academic year and I am looking forward to getting to know as many alumni as possible, either virtually or in-person. The Development and Alumni Relations Office is committed to keeping in touch with you and providing opportunities for our alumni to maintain contact with one another. As the first point of contact for alumni, we are always glad to welcome you back to Teddy Hall, answer general queries or forward messages between friends who have lost touch with each other.
Witheducation.anambitious campaign target of £50m over five years there is a lot of work to be done. We have raised significant amounts thus far, but there is still some way to go and achieving our goal will rely on a significant collective effort of the entire Hall community. We are incredibly grateful to all Aularians for your continued generosity, and I very much hope that the new campaign will inspire even more of our alumni to contribute to our priority projects and areas of greatest need.
This year we bid farewell to Kate Payne after eight years of outstanding service to the Hall and to Sarah Bridge who joined the Hall last year. I know from my short time here that they will be missed by many Aularians and I would like to take this opportunity to wish them both well in their exciting new chapters.
provenance of precious things. With its unique spirit and core set of values, Teddy Hall has adapted regularly for over 800 years to deliver a profound impact on the lives of its students and the wider world. Whether it is recalibrating after the pandemic, playing a significant role in managing the climate crisis or absolutely delivering ‘needs blind’
From the Director of Development
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THE AULARIAN25Get to know your Aularian Community Find out a little bit more about the 10,000 alumni in the Aularian Community. We are in contact with 9,277 alumni globally. 9,277 4,3454,345 of our alumni have attended one or more Hall events. 123 We have alumni living in 123 countries across the globe. The top 5 locations are made up of the UK (63%), USA (12%), China (1.8%), Germany (1.7%) and Australia (1.7%). Other countries include Macedonia, Albania, Moldova, Kingdom of Eswatini, Wallis and Futuna and Solomon Islands. 63% 1 7% 1 8% 1 7% 12% 5 The top 5 most common alumni Jurisprudencesubjects: (675 or 6.1%) PPE (627 or 5.6%) Geography (520 or 4.7%) English (428 or 3.8%) History (325 or 2.9%).
Hall together again
26 After working hard throughout the pandemic to keep Aularians connected online, last year we were excited to welcome back our Teddy Hall community in-person.
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114 Aularians attended the Alumni Summer Dinner in June where the Principal invited alumni, guests and Fellows to the College.
In
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Over 2,000 members of the Aularian Community have attended one of the Hall’s events in the last year. 2,000 1,383 Aularians are registered on the Hall’s networking and mentoring site, Aularian Connect. 1,383
Alumni and guests at the Alumni Summer Dinner 2022.
The alumni event schedule kicked off with the 60th Anniversary Lunch, swiftly followed by the 40th and 50th Anniversary Dinners. The Principal then took the opportunity to meet with alumni in the USA and to attend the 36th Annual New York Dinner, before returning to hear the Choir of St Edmund Hall in our annual Carols in the Quad. 2022 kicked off with the St Edmund Hall Association London Lunch in February. In the spring we held the inaugural Afternoon of Music and this summer, we were delighted to reinstate the Alumni Summer Dinner, encouraging alumni of all ages to revisit the Hall. We had over 150 alumni, guests and Fellows join us for the occasion. These photos give you a small glimpse at all the events that have taken place over the last year. As well as meeting in-person, we took the opportunity to keep plenty of events online, allowing us to reach a global audience. Highlights included the continuation of the Fellowship Lunchtime Lectures, Teddy Talks and Aularian Author series. Aularian Connect, the Hall’s networking and mentoring platform continued to grow and we now have 1,383 alumni registered on the platform from over 47 different countries and 135 industries. Join today at www. aularianconnect.com to connect with contemporaries, friends and fellow Aularians. Alumni and guests at the 60th Anniversary Lunch for the matriculands of 1961. 2022/2023 we plan to offer alumni and friends even more opportunities to reconnect, network and hear of developments at the Hall. Please do visit the website to see what events we have coming in the next year. an event or to share photos of an event you have hosted please contact aularianconnect@seh.ox.ac.uk or +44 (0)1865 279070.
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New Year at Formal Hall in the Wolfson Hall. Krishnan Guru-Murthy gave this year’s Geddes Lecture at the Examinations School.
The first of the Hall’s ‘In Conversation’ series, with Professor Barbara Savage. Law alumni and guests enjoyed an informal lunch at the Hall to celebrate the retirement of Professor Adrian Briggs.
Alumni attending the 50th Anniversary dinner for the matriculands of 1972. Students and their parents at the Freshers’ Parents’ Dinner held for all Studentsundergraduates.celebratingChinese
Hosted by Olly Belcher (1999, Geography), President of the St Edmund Hall Association for alumni, this podcast provides a special opportunity for current and past members of Teddy Hall to share how that unique spirit has shaped their insights and experiences in politics, academia, business, entertainment, technology and more. Join us as we lead the way and shine a light on some of those who make Teddy Hall and other Oxford colleges the great institutions that they are. and subscribe online: anchor.fm/spiritofthehall
Listen
The St Edmund Hall Association’s podcast, Spirit of the Hall, is now in its third season and continues to feature engaging conversations with some of St Edmund Hall’s most fascinating alumni, Fellows and staff.
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Former JCR President Julien Kress came up to the Hall from France in 2019 to read History. After only two terms at Teddy Hall, the Covid pandemic struck, the country went into lockdown the day before Hilary term ended and Julien returned to France where he was to stay until Michaelmas term of his second year. As JCR President, Julien led the JCR body through much of the Pandemic but assures us that the ‘spirit of the Hall’ is still very much alive! Julien Kress 2019, History
Dr Tom Crawford Early Career Teaching and Outreach Fellow
During Manisha’s time at Teddy Hall she had premonitions and déjà vus which made her feel that she really was meant to be there. After the Hall, Manisha joined the competitive world of broadcasting and has worked all over the world for the likes of Reuters Television, the BBC and CNN. She took a break and went to volunteer for an orphanage in the Dominican Republic which changed her perspective on life forever. Dr Tom Crawford is the Hall’s Early Career Teaching and Outreach Fellow in Mathematics and is also known as the Naked Mathematician. Tom believes anyone can study Maths, you just need to learn in a way that suits you. His Maths tattoos and body piercings also prove that there is room in the SCR for everyone! Dr Bill Cogar came up to the Hall in 1976 from the States to read Modern History. Bill loved the friendly nature of Teddy Hall and became the Junior Dean in 1979, the year after the College accepted women for the first time. After the Hall, Bill became a Professor at the US Naval Academy in Maryland and later on Director at the Mariner’s Museum.
Paisley Kadison, came to the Hall in 2005 as a one year visiting student from the States. Paisley was just seventeen when she came over to Oxford and tells us aboout her journey getting here, as well as what it was like visiting for just one year. Today, Paisley is General Counsel at Accel-KKR and is involved with the St Edmund Hall Association in the States.
Paisley Kadison 2005, Visiting Student
Manisha Tank came up to the Hall in 1994 to read PPE.
Manisha Tank 1994, PPE Dr Bill Cogar 1976, DPhil Modern History
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30WWW.SEH.OX.AC.UK The Aularian Room Aularians regulalry donate their books to the Hall and these are placed in ‘The Aularian Room’ in the St Peter-in-the-East church library. Here is a recent selection of some our favourites.
Between Worlds: Folktales of Britain & Ireland
This anthology brings together extensive selections of poetry by the five most prolific and prominent women poets of the English Civil War period.
Catriona Ward (1999, English) An ordinary house on an ordinary street becomes a pit of unimaginable darkness in this truly nerve-shattering psychological thriller from the author of Little Eve.
Panic & Joy: My Solo Path to Motherhood
The novel is the final installment of the Ibis trilogy, which concerns the 19th-century opium trade between India and China.
Return to Twin Peaks offers new critical considerations and approaches to the Twin Peaks series, as well as reflections on its significance and legacy.
Kevin Crossley-Holland (1959, English) A definitive collection of folktales from across Britain and Ireland that have been passed down from generation to generation.
Dan Abnett (1984, English) A book in the Warhammer 40,000 series, this is the final installment in The Bequin Trilogy.
Emma Brockes (1994, English) Panic & Joy examines essential questions about motherhood and the modern family.
The Last House on Needless Street
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The Life of Brian Terry Jones (1961, English) Released in 1979 to tie in with the film Monty Python’s Life of Brian
Flood of Fire Amitav Ghosh (1978, DPhil Anthropology)
European Human Rights Law Keir Starmer (1985, BCL) A detailed analysis of the Human Rights Act 1998 and the case law of the European Court and Commission of Human Rights.
Pariah: Ravenor vs Eisenhorn
Women Poets of the English Civil War Elizabeth Scott-Baumann (2003, English) and Sarah C.E. Ross
Catherine Spooner (1992, English) and Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock
Ark Storm Linda Davies (1982, PPE) Ark Storm brings together the worlds of finance, scientific innovation, and terrorism in a fast-paced thrill ride. A New History of Jazz Alyn Shipton (1972, English) Alyn Shipton challenges many of the assumptions that surround the birth and growth of jazz music.
Return to Twin Peaks
Plutoshine Lucy Kissick (2016, Environmental Research - Earth Sciences) Lucy’s debut novel has been hailed a scientific romance for a new era.
Development and Alumni Relations Office St Edmund Hall, Queen’s Lane, Oxford, OX1 4AR E: aularianconnect@seh.ox.ac.uk | T: +44 (0)1865 279070 Registered Charity number: 1137470 www.seh.ox.ac.uk@stedmundhall Connect with us online There are many ways to keep-in-touch with Teddy Hall and find out the latest news about the College, alumni and its students. Celebrating Chinese New Year Enjoying the Teddy Hall Ball Cycling from Pontigny to the Hall Teddy Talks Listen www.youtube.com/stedmundhallonline: Spirit of the Hall Listen anchor.fm/spiritofthehallonline: Geddes Lecture Social Podcastsmediaand networking Video Fellowship Lunchtime Lectures ‘In Conversation’ series Aularian Connect Register www.aularianconnect.comnow:
