Academic year 2025/26
One thing I remember clearly from being an undergraduate at Oxford was this curious dichotomy. Each term, each academic year, seemed to last forever. So much was packed in, there was so little time to stop, that each week seemed to contain a lifetime’s worth of new experiences. And yet when you emerged at the end of the term or the end of the year, it all seemed to have passed you by in a flash.
So, it seems, it is as a head of house. Less than a year in, I feel as though I have been at Queen’s forever. Yet it feels like only yesterday that I first arrived in the Provost’s Lodgings to find broken glass and pigeon poo everywhere. (So thin is the glass in the windows that an unfortunate pigeon had smashed straight through and caused chaos in the grand downstairs garden room.)
From my own point of view, it has been a wonderful year getting to know the Fellows, staff, students, and Old Members. I was told that Queen’s was a warm, friendly, and welcoming community. And so, it has proved. And many of the highlights for me have been about joining this community.
I’ve met most of the students and got to know some of them. Nicola and I especially enjoyed hosting a big group for dinner on Christmas Eve. It has also been a pleasure hosting the MCR’s “What’s Brewing at Queen’s?” events here in the Lodgings. These are twice termly opportunities for our graduate students to share insights with one another from the incredibly diverse range of research in which they are engaged. It is, though, one of the slight frustrations of the role that there is a limit to how many of our wonderful students I can really get to know well; and I am going to have to get used to a third of them turning over every year. But what a talented bunch they are.
One captained the women’s rugby XV to a convincing victory over Cambridge. And, of course, the music at Queen’s is astonishing in its beauty and quality. Waverley Fellow in Music and College Organist Professor Owen Rees continues to do a remarkable job in ensuring we have one of the finest choirs in the country; their new CD went straight into the top ten of the classical music charts. The Eglesfield Musical Society’s production of Guys and Dolls in the Fellows’ Garden was one of the undoubted highlights of the year.
Perhaps most of all, though, I have enjoyed meeting our former students: the Old Members. In no other role can I imagine getting to know such a diverse range of accomplished and fascinating people of all vintages. Hearing them share their fond memories of Queen’s, and knowing of their continued support for the College, has been inspiring. We have been to the US, Singapore, and Hong Kong this year, as well as hosting events in London and Oxford. I look forward to future years providing more opportunities to get out and meet Old Members both here and outside the UK.
The many gaudies with Old Members and Benefactors have been hugely enjoyable – though not at all good for the waistline. The staff here do a fantastic job making sure these are memorable events, and all year in ensuring that the College runs smoothly and that we are all well looked after. As such, it was a real pleasure for Nicola and I to host a garden party for them all in the Provost’s Lodgings just after the end of Trinity Term to thank them for their work during the year.
We have run six “In Conversation” events in the Shulman Auditorium over the year. These have featured me interviewing former Chancellor Sir Jeremy Hunt, former Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls, former boss of John Lewis Baroness Sharon White, energy and climate change expert Professor Sir Dieter Helm, Head of the CBI Rain Newton Smith, and journalist and author of Empireland Sathnam Sanghera. Recordings of these conversations are starting to be released on the College’s new podcast Provox. The dinners in the Provost’s Lodgings afterwards, involving students, Old Members, and Fellows were another highlight.
We have also invited Fellows, students, and Old Members to a series of themed dinners in the Lodgings to discuss issues such as the graduate labour market, student welfare, and AI. If you can bear hearing more of me, then I have also recorded further episodes of Provox with four of our Fellows, talking about their time at Queen’s and, especially, their amazing research, which will also shortly be available at the link above.
This has been a record-breaking year for fundraising as well and another welcome sign to a new Provost that our Old Members and Friends care deeply about the work we are doing and want to see us doing more of in the future. In due course, I look forward to saying more about the College’s plans and ambitions, and how these will underpin the launch of a new fundraising campaign. While the College’s endowment has continued to do well, there is so much more we need to do to ensure our ongoing success and secure our academic and financial independence.
If you have been to an Old Members’ event this year, and particularly at the College Conversation held before the Benefactors’ Dinner in June, you will have heard me, and others, say how important it is for us to complete the endowment of all our Tutorial Fellowships. We also need to provide more support for our graduate students, as government funding continues to be withdrawn – there is virtually no public support across the entire University for those studying for postgraduate degrees in the humanities, which, in turn, blocks access to graduate education for some of our most talented undergraduates.
And we, of course, need to continue to do all we can to ensure that the best and the brightest, whatever their background, have access to an education at Queen’s. In particular, we continue to reach out to young people and schools in the northwest where we have our historic roots, and we are looking to expand that activity. We have also developed important links with Lewisham and Sutton in London. This critical access and outreach work has been generously supported by donations from Old Members and Friends in recent years.
One of the most inspiring days of the last year was one that I spent at a school in Whitehaven in Cumbria meeting an extraordinary headteacher, Nigel Youngman, who has completely turned around a school placed in special measures by Ofsted, and some of the fantastic students there. There is more to do to attract more of the most able students from this part of the country, and I look forward to continuing this excellent work begun under my predecessor, Claire Craig.
And then there are the buildings. Queen’s is a beautiful college, but it is a modern college constrained by a medieval site. We remain unable to use or redevelop the Florey Building, and this is likely to remain the case for many years to come; so, we have been navigating the challenge of room shortages for some years. And much of our current estate needs refurbishment. I am happy to say, however, that we have made great progress over the last year in expanding our footprint in Oxford. As I write, I am confident (fingers crossed) that we will be acquiring two buildings in central Oxford that will, within two or three years, give us more than 100 additional student rooms. That will ease all sorts of constraints and allow us to make good progress with improving our existing rooms.
I will end with a word about our Fellows. As well as being responsible for teaching our students, a job they do admirably well, they are also the Trustees of the College, and they take that duty very seriously. Many take on significant leadership roles within the College, and I am hugely grateful to them for that. And that is all in addition to their research, much of which is world-leading, a fact which is recognised in the many grants they win, and of course in their publications.
Sometimes they win even more explicit recognition, and this year is no exception. Professor Jane Langdale featured as one of five Oxford ‘Changemakers’ in the Ashmolean’s ‘In Bloom’ exhibition; Professor Jose Carrillo was elected a Fellow of the American Mathematical Society and a Fellow of the new Academy for the Mathematical Science; Professor Ludo Phalippou has been awarded the prestigious James R. Vertin Award for his work in finance; and Dr Charlotte Ryland and Queen’s Translation Exchange won a Vice-Chancellor’s Award in the category of Local Community Engagement. Congratulations to them all.
And finally, a farewell to two of our Fellows. Professor Peter Robbins, University Professor of Physiology and Senior Fellow, Fellow in Medicine, and former Estates Bursar, here at Queen’s, is bowing out after 40 years. And Dr Keyna O’Reilly, Fellow in Materials, and most recently Tutor for Welfare and Hardship Officer, is also retiring after (a mere) 26 years at Queen’s. I know that all those who were taught and supported by them over their time here will join me in thanking them and wishing them much happiness in the years to come.