John Cox: The Rake’s Progress

Access and outreach

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.

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 roots. 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 them.

Over 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. 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.

My 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.

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The Women of the Hall exhibition, created for International Women’s Day 2022, included profiles of current students, staff and academics.

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 www.seh.ox.ac. uk/women-of-the-hall).

These projects have been incredibly uplifting to work on, and I think they inherently complement our outreach work by encouraging an even more diverse and inclusive community for prospective applicants and future students. 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 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 them.”

Introducing Melody Njoki

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 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.”

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 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.

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.

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.

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 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. 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.

New Teddy Hall wine label

Congratulations to St Edmund Hall student Britany Kulka (2021, DPhil Earth Sciences) who has designed the latest Teddy Hall wine label.

In this year’s competition, all students, staff and Fellows were invited to submit a wine label design.

We 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.

St Edmund Hall

Cabernet Sauvignon

Design by Britany Kulka

Winning design by Britany Kulka (2021, DPhil Earth Sciences) Runner-up entry by Zhaorui Xu (2019, MMathPhil Mathematics & Philosophy)

Runner-up entry by Lavanya Sinha (2017, Medicine)