magazine - Somerville College

JCR andMothersSomervillianBurns Night8 16 22 35 MCR newsfor AllSkiesat SomervilleSomerville2012magazine100 years ofDorothy L Sayers | 10Why Does EducationMatter? | 14Eyewitness to9/11 | 24

2 | Somerville MagazineContentsPrincipal’s Message 3News and People 4Author Profile: Kate McLoughlin 6A Call for Contributions 6Commemoration 7JCR News 8MCR News 9One Hundred Years ofDorothy L Sayers and Somerville 10Sue Dixson: Going Home 12Alison Wolf: Why DoesEducation Matter? 14Mothers for All 16Finding Somerville on theOther Side of the World 18Susan Hyland: A High Commission 20Somervillian Skies 22Heidi Olsen: The Day theTwin Towers Fell 24Nina Byers: A Woman ofScience and the World 26Victoria Younghusband:Always a Somervillian 28The Somerville Campaign 30Events in Pictures 32A Night in the Companyof the City’s Brightest 35Alumni Events 2012 36Somerville CollegeWoodstock Road OX2 6HDTelephone +44 (0)1865 270600www.some.ox.ac.ukWHY RESEARCH STILL MATTERSIn today’s global economy, investment in research is not anintellectual luxury, but an economic and social necessity.Over the past few decades, the importance of research hasrisen up the political agenda, as governments recognise thatour knowledge, ideas and capacity to innovate are key driversof productivity and sustainable growth.As governments grapple with ongoing economic uncertainty,as well as a world increasingly concerned with food securityand the impact of climate change on food production, itis important that this commitment to long-term researchdoes not wane. The challenge of driving a knowledge-basedeconomy is one which must be addressed by government, theprivate sector and research institutions alike.Continued investment in scientific endeavour will bringhuge economic and societal benefits, from advances inanimal welfare to ways of reducing carbon emissions in thesupply chain. It is also vital in ensuring the UK maintainsa competitive global advantage. The private sector has animportant role to play. Increasingly, businesses and researchinstitutions are taking a collaborative approach, workingtogether to develop practical solutions on the critical issues ofour age.Tesco’s support for Professor Marian Dawkins and OxfordUniversity’s Food Animal Initiative (FAI) in previous years is anexample of such collaboration. The FAI continues to researchand develop sustainable farm systems that provide visiblebenefits to animal welfare, the environment and human health.We have since strengthened our partnerships with researchinstitutions. The Tesco Dairy Centre of Excellence, based atLiverpool University, brings together the whole of the industryto look at issues such as reducing the environmental impactof milk production and tackling lameness. Similarly, throughour partnership with the Sustainable Consumption Institute(SCI) at Manchester University, we are looking at ways to helphouseholds reduce their carbon footprint, including assessinghow food is wasted in the home and analysing consumerattitudes towards carbon labelling.As a truly international business spanning 13 countries, Tescois well placed to share research and expertise across the globe,from Beijing to LA. Just as Somervillians scattered aroundthe world can draw on a rich network to share experiencesand make connections, so Tesco too can use its global supplychain to exchange knowledge. This ability to learn from eachother has helped us become champions of research, from ourleadership of food safety issues in China to our innovative useof green technology in the US.No doubt the coming year will present new challengesto the research community. However, through successfulcollaboration between government, private sector and researchinstitutions, we can build a productive economy, a healthysociety and a more sustainable world.Lucy Neville-Rolfe, CMGExecutive Director (Corporate and Legal Affairs)Front cover image: Portrait of Dorothy L Sayers c. 1910,reproduced with permission from the Bodleian LibraryMagazine committee: Julie Hage (Development Director),Liz Cooke (Secretary to Somerville Association),Amy Crosweller (Access and Communications Officer),Antoinette Finnegan (Annual Fund and Alumni Relations Officer).We would like to thank Tescofor their support of SomervilleMagazine since 2005.

Somerville Magazine | 3Principal’s MessageALICE PROCHASKAI wrote last year, in the first flush of being a new Principal, thatSomerville is a glorious place to work. Now, half way throughmy second year, that still holds true. It is not just a place, ofcourse, but a world-wide community. My sense of privilege atbeing a part of this community is undimmed.Somervillians gather together from all over theworld in Oxford and often also in London. I havemet alumni at gaudies and reunions who travelledspecially from as far afield as Jordan and NewZealand, not to mention North America and variousparts of Europe, to reconnect with the College andtheir friends here. It can be especially gratifying tomeet former students who drop in when they arevisiting, sometimes for their first return in decades. Itmakes me feel proud to know that the College playeda part in setting them on the path to their manyinteresting and sometimes extraordinary careers.Close to home, there is a loyal group of Somervillianswho attend College events regularly and help toconnect the generations. One such event recentlywas a special screening for some 150 students and50 alumni of the film The Iron Lady, after whichthe audience streamed back to hall for tea anddiscussion. I was struck by the fresh and relativelydispassionate perspective of the students for whomthe Thatcher years are simply history. Equallystriking was the intervention of one of the Somervilleporters, Daniel Kurowski, who spoke eloquently abouthow, as a Polish citizen, he reveres the memory ofher support for Poland’s independence from thecrumbling Soviet Union.A few weeks later, the Somerville London groupheard a talk by Tessa Ross, the Head of Film 4 andExecutive Producer of The Iron Lady. Her careertrajectory has been quite different from that of theSomervillian subject of her film, but a model inher own way, of the combined determination andtalent that get Somervillians to the top of theirprofessions. Another well-known model for studentsand alumni of all generations is the late DaphnePark. She was the subject of a special talk by theBBC’s security correspondent Gordon Corera, authorof a book on The Art of Treachery. Among our guestsat that Literary Lunch was Daphne’s fellow peeress,the redoubtable PD James, who brought with hera walking stick inherited from Daphne. To add tothe parade of extraordinary Somervillians who havebeen celebrated in the College during the year, weheard an inspiring talk for the annual meeting ofthe Somerville Association from HRH Raja ZarithIdris, wife of the Sultan of Johor in Malaysia. Knownin her home country as “the intellectual princess”,Princess Zarith is the Chancellor of the Universityof Technology Malaysia, and she also worksindefatigably to improve the lives of the citizens ofJohor, especially women.A galaxy of visitors has given time to enrich theintellectual offerings of the College. Cindy Gallop,advertising executive and internet pioneer, came infrom New York for a spirited discussion with a groupof students in my sitting room, about how to promoteSomerville’s special qualities. The Nobel prize winnerDr Venki Ramakrishnan gave this year’s DorothyHodgkin Memorial Lecture, an inspiring, brilliantlyillustrated lecture about his prize-winning researchinto Ribosomes and Antibiotics.This report on the year would be incomplete withouta few words about our students. My interviews withthem have added to my stock of knowledge aboutOxford pastimes, from bridge and poker to sailing,horse-riding and ballroom dancing. The SomervilleBoat Club is enjoying a banner year, with third-yearsJenni Butler and Stephanie Peate winning blues inthe Lightweight Women’s Oxford boat, which beatCambridge decisively at Henley. Voluntary workfigures to an impressive extent, ranging from thecontinuing sponsorship of “Molly’s Library” in Ghana,to work in the Oxford region with needy children andschools, prison inmates and many other groups.Most of all, I love to hear about their passion fortheir subjects. One second-year history student isintrigued by the Glorious Revolution and findingit helps him think about modern government.One of our modern linguists is taking the unusualcombination of French and Czech, and we conversedenjoyably about Czech literature which I have readonly in translation and he, enviably, is beginningto enjoy in the original. A biologist introducedme to the “slow food” movement. Physicists andmathematicians have helped me understand theintellectual beauty of their subjects, even though Iwill never be able to do more than marvel at it. Atleast one Chinese student explained that she hadopted to come to Oxford because she wanted to learnhow to think independently. The student communityis a mosaic of differences. Just as this magazinewas going to press, we had the wonderful news thatstudents at Somerville are the happiest in Oxford.This confirms what everyone always tells me – thisCollege is special. It truly is a glorious place to work.

4 | Somerville MagazineNews & People...Joanna InnesMatthew Wood (right) and Dame Fiona Caldicott(second from right)Oxford’s winning Lightweight Women’s teamSomerville NewsDame Fiona Caldicotthas agreed to lead a UK healthcare reviewof the balance between protecting patientinformation and its sharing, to improvepatient care. She will be calling on an expertpanel made up of clinical, social care,research and other professionals, as well aspatients and service users, to determine thedetailed scope and priorities for the review.“It is timely to reconsider the principles ofinformation protection and sharing,” DameFiona commented. “It has become clear thatthere is sometimes a lack of understandingabout the rules and this can act as a barrierto exchanging information that would benefitthe patient. On other occasions, this hasresulted in too much information beingdisclosed.” The review will be independentof government and will report to the UKHealth Secretary, Andrew Lansley.Joanna Innes,Winifred Holtby Fellow and Tutor in ModernHistory, has been awarded a three yearLeverhulme International Networks grant forher project ‘Re-Imagining Democracy in theMediterranean, 1750-1860’.The grant of over £110,000 will enable herto establish an international network linkingscholars in Britain, the United States andFrance with historians and political theoristsacross southern Europe to explore the waysin which understandings of democracydeveloped in that region through the lateeighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.She is now planning a series of workshopsand conferences in Paris, Lisbon, Madrid,Pisa, Athens and New York.Professor Fiona Stafford’sbook Local Attachments: The Province ofPoetry has been awarded the 2011 BritishAcademy Rose Mary Crawshay Prize. Twoprizes are normally awarded each year.Each goes ‘to a woman of any nationalitywho, in the judgement of the Council of theBritish Academy, has written or publishedwithin three years next preceding the yearof the award an historical or critical work ofsufficient value on any subject connectedwith English Literature, preference beinggiven to a work regarding one of the poetsByron, Shelley and Keats’.Professor Stafford’s book is published byOxford University Press.Matthew Wood,Fellow and Tutor in Medicine and Physiology,has been awarded the title of Professor forhis outstanding research in field of genetherapy for degenerative disorders of thenervous system and muscle.Professor Wood leads a team of Oxfordscientists who earlier this year hit theheadlines, having developed a new methodfor delivering complex drugs directly to thebrain, a necessary step for treating diseaseslike Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Motor NeuronDisease and Muscular Dystrophy.He was also awarded a £2.5 million grantfrom the Health Innovation Challenge Fundlast summer to support his research intoDuchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD), themost deadly form of the disease. It is causedby damage to the dystrophin gene andaffects one in every 3,500 newborn boys.Jenni Butler (2009, Classics)and Stephanie Peate(2009, History),members of the JCR, recently representedOxford in the Lightweight Women’s race atHenley. The Oxford crew beat Cambridge byover a length.Somerville comestop for studentsatisfactionSomerville’s students are among thehappiest in Oxford, according to OxfordUniversity’s Student Barometer survey.The survey of students across all Oxfordcolleges covered topics such as the qualityof learning experience, support services,and whether students would recommendthe university to potential applicants.For all the latest news fromCollege, visit our website:www.some.ox.ac.uk/news

Somerville Magazine | 5Harry EscottKate Williams2011 Telethon callers Rachel Hutchings and Nick CooperAlumni NewsHarry Escott(1996, Music) wrote the score for SteveMcQueen’s latest film, Shame, released inJanuary, a Film4 production whose ExecutiveProducer was Tessa Ross (1980), which haspicked up a number of prizes from the filmfestival circuit.Dr Ellen McAdam(1976) was appointed in 2011 as Headof Glasgow Museums, the largest museumservice in the UK outside London. She isthe first woman in the 135 year history ofGlasgow Museums to hold this position.Dr Kate Williams(1993, English) has had her first novel,ThePleasures of Men, published by Penguin.Prior to this Kate had already publishedthree historical biographies.Noah Bulkin(1995, Modern History) has been appointedManaging Director at Lazard Ltd, advisingUK companies on acquisitions, where hejoins Melanie Gee (1979, Mathematics),who has been with the firm’s European andGlobal Transport, Logistics and Infrastructureteams since 2008.Rachel Sylvester(1988, English) was short-listed for thePolitical Journalist of the Year at theNational Press Awards 2011 and was ‘highlycommended’ in the category.Lucy Neville-Rolfe(1970, PPE) has been announced as thenew President of EuroCommerce followingher election at their General Assembly on 21March 2012. She will take up her three-yearmandate on 1 July.Somervilliansrecognized byQueen’s HonoursWe are delighted to congratulate thefollowing Somervillians on appearing onthe New Year’s Honours List:Dr Maggie Gee(1966, English), author, was awarded anOBE for services to Literature.Maggie Fergusson(Parham, 1983, History), author andSecretary of the Royal Society of Literature,was awarded an MBE for services toLiterature.Shiban Akbar(1987, English MPhil) was awarded anhonorary OBE for services to thecommunity and voluntary services tothe Muslim community.Telethon News2011 campaign raises £200,000In September and October, 15 students cameback to Oxford early in order to spend twoweeks speaking with Somervillians all over theworld. The telethon asks for support for theAnnual Fund and we are thrilled to announcethat this campaign raised £200,000, thehighest amount ever raised in a telethonat Somerville.As ever, the students greatly enjoyed their timecalling their predecessors and Bethan Tanner(2008, Experimental Psychology) commented“the telethon was such a great experience tobe involved in. I loved getting to chat withalumni about their experiences at Somervilleand their lives since they’ve left. Over the twoweeks I heard so many interesting stories!”During the course of the campaign the callersspoke with 860 Somervillians, of whom 55%decided to make a gift, which is a great result.We were particularly thrilled this year to haveVerena Timbull (2000, Human Sciences)running the campaign for us. Verena was acaller in the 2002 telethon and so it was greatto have her back in the calling room. Callingtook place in the bar again this year, althoughthe new site-wide wifi, funded by generouscontributions to the Annual Fund, meant thatthe callers were also able to take their laptopsout into the autumn sunshine and call alumnifrom the main quad.The Annual Fund provides essential incomefor student support, teaching and the tutorialsystem, and maintenance and development ofthe College buildings. If you didn’t receive acall in 2011, we’re already planning the 2012campaign and so hope to connect with evenmore Somervillians this year.

6 | Somerville MagazineAuthorProfile:Kate McLoughlinDr Kate McLoughlin is a Lecturer in Modern Literature atBirkbeck, University of London. She is the author of severalstudies of the representation of war in literature, and also workson Modernism, comparative literature, women’s writing andJewish writing. Kate is an Associate of the Royal College ofMusic in piano performance. Her first book of poems, Plums,was published last year.Kate McLoughlin(1988, English)For this piece, I was asked, ‘howdid your studies at Somervilleprepare you for life as a publishedpoet?’ If I answer that questionhonestly, I have to admit thatat first, an MA, MSt and DPhilin English Literature inhibitedrather than emboldened me as acreative writer. Early attempts atnovels, discarded with the wistfulrealisation that I wanted to writesomething but had no idea how orwhat, still lie in drawers. Luckily,though, those degrees did prepareme for life as a lecturer and Ihave found a creativeoutlet in academicEnglish. My books andarticles might seemdry and abstruse to thenon-specialist reader,but I have lingeredover every word ofthem, tried to makeeach better than thelast and, in so doing,honed my craft.And academic English was,unexpectedly, the spur to the firstnon-scholarly book that I havepublished: a book of poetry calledPlums, which appeared at the endof 2011.I had been marking exam essayson 20th-century literature byundergraduates at the Universityof Glasgow. You would notbelieve how many of these essaysdiscussed a 28-word poem by theAmerican writer William CarlosWilliams called ‘This Is Just ToSay’. This is a ‘found’ poem, anote left by someone apologisingfor having taken and eatenanother person’s plums. Readingthese innumerable essays, Ibegan to imagine myself in thesituation of the individual whoseplums had been stolen. I began toget angry on their behalf. I beganto wonder how that person mighthave written back to the thief.Poetic responses proliferated inmy mind. At that point, I wenton holiday to Barcelona andsaw Picasso’s 58 variations onVelásquez’s famous painting LasMeninas. Struck by how Picassopares Velásquez’s rich detailsdown to a few lines and patchesof colour, I asked myself whethera literary equivalent might bepossible in relation to Williams’spoem. The result was Plums: asuite of 58 poems, 58 variationson Williams’s original, theplundered fruit at their centre.The publication of Plums, by asmall press you won’t have heardof yet called flipped eye, was asurprise and a delight. I haveread from it at the Poetry Café inLondon and have further readingsscheduled at Somerville on 30April and at the Wirral Festival ofFirsts on 8 July. My major creativeoutlet is still my academicwriting, but I am also now working– slowly – on a second collectionof poems and a memoir ofgrandmothers.Plums is available from amazon.A Call for ContributionsJane Robinson (1978, English)I had such a rich response fromSomervillians after requesting help withmy previous book Bluestockings (whichwas the subject of a Literary Luncheon acouple of years ago) that I thought I’dtry again.My research for a new book commissionedby Viking Penguin, about the stigma ofillegitimacy from 1918 to the 1960s, isposing some intriguing questions. Whatwas it really like to bear, or to be, anillegitimate child then? All prejudice andshame, or are there stories of triumph andachievement, too?I’m looking for personal/family reminiscencesto help break the guilty silence surroundingthe subject, and would love to hear fromanyone with relevant experience.Contact me via my websitewww.jane-robinson.comor c/o Veronique Baxter,David Higham Associates,5-8 Lower John St,London W1F 9HA.Any wish for anonymity will befully respected.

Somerville Magazine | 7CommemoratingSomervillians who have died (since1 June 2011)This year Somerville’sCommemoration Servicewill be held in the CollegeChapel on Saturday 9thJune at 2.30pm. This isan important event in theCollege calendar, whichunderlines the enduringrelationship betweenSomerville and itsformer members.The service opens withthe traditional wordsof the College BiddingPrayer, in which wecommemorate theCollege’s founders,governors and majorbenefactors; it ends withthe solemn reading of thenames of members of theCollege and its staff whohave died in the last year.Close family andSomervillian friends ofthose who have diedare especially invitedto the Service, butall Somervillians arewelcome to attend.If you know of anySomervillians who havedied recently but whoare not listed here,please contact Liz Cookeat Somerville College,Woodstock Road, OxfordOX2 6HDEmail elizabeth.cooke@some.ox.ac.uk ortelephone 01865 270632.Claire Angela Beauvais née Burrows (1976) on 20 March 2011 Aged 53Lorna Margaret Bottomley (1941) on 28 December 2011 Aged 90Sylvia Bradford née Crammer (1943) 0n 9 November 2011 Aged 86Elizabeth (Liz) Clare Brice (1975) on 23 August 2011 Aged 54Christine Frances Brooke-Rose (1946; Hon Fellow, 1997) on 21 March 2012 Aged 86Margaret Anne Brown née Smith (1944) on 26 August 2011 Aged about 85Jennifer Constance Croft née Jackson (1968) on 8 October 2011 Aged 62Hilary Anne Crook formerly Gilbert, née Miller (1949)on 7 August 2011 Aged 80Madeleine Devlin née Oppenheimer (1928) on 22 March 2012 Aged 102Ursula Miriam Dronke née Brown (1939), on 8 March 2012 Aged 91Agnes Margaret Ann Dummett née Chesney (1948) on 7 February 2012 Aged 81Rosemary Margaret Garvey née Pritchard (1937) on 17 August 2011 Aged 92Beryl Ruby Alice Hobson née Machan (1947) on 16 December 2010 Aged 86Elizabeth Clarissa Wiclif Hummerstone née Barker (1962) on 27 October 2011 Aged 68Ruth Elizabeth Jameson née Jarrett (1934) on 4 January 2011 Aged 94Betty Rose Judge née Jones (1948) on 5 December 2011 Aged 81Claudia Mary Lennon née Furneaux (1938) on 26 June 2011 Aged 91Elizabeth Jean Longmate née Taylor (1947) on 29 June 2011 Aged 82Elizabeth Margaret Monkhouse (1930) on 27 December 2011 Aged 99Janet Katharine Nash née de Gruchy (1965) on 26 August 2011 Aged 65Valerie Edith Nix née Brown (1948) on 14 November 2011 Aged 82Virginia Pasley née Wait (1956) on 2 September 2011 Aged 74Rhoda Susanna Reid née Allison (1959) on 29 February 2012 Aged 72Jonathan Roberts (2010) on 25 June 2011 Aged 20Nancy Rowlinson née Gaskell (1948) on 3 January 2012 Aged 81Mary Russell Vick née de Putron (1940) on 1 March 2012 Aged 89Barbara Joyce Shuttleworth née Nathan (1940) on 15 June 2011 Aged 89Hester Margaret Gatty Smallbone née Parrington on 15 March 2012 Aged 87Katherine Walsh (1969) on 21 March 2011 Aged 65Cynthia (‘Cyndy’) June Whiffin née Mingham (1965) on 24 January 2012 Aged 66

8 | Somerville MagazineJCR NewsTeaching on the SubcontinentEmily Iredale(2010, English)The College hasvarious travel awardsavailable, which everyyear enable Somervilleundergraduates andgraduates to travel theworld to further theirstudies. Emily receiveda travel grant towardsthe cost of a trip toIndia to teach at thePanscheel Tribal School.This grant was fundedby Anne Clements,mother of FionaClements (1990), inmemory of her brother,John Bishop.Going to Pansheel School waslike nothing I have ever done. Thechildren who are educated in thisschool would have no opportunityfor education otherwise, as theirparents are really too poor to beable to afford either the schoolfees or the bribes to get theirchildren into any other schools.You can sense the vivacity of theplace as soon as you walk throughthe gates and the atmosphere istotally different to some of theother institutes that we visitedin the area, mainly orphanagesfunded by American churchcommunities. Whereas in thoseplaces we were constantly facedwith doctrinal messages anda loaded atmosphere, in thePansheel school the childrenwould run up to us smiling andwaving at all times (even whenall you wanted to do was hangout your washing!). I was trulywelcomed there, by every childand every adult.Teaching the children was hardwork, as their understanding ofEnglish is limited (not surprisingconsidering that they are beingtaught Murati, the state language,and Hindu, the national language,and English, all on top of theirtribal mother tongue!) butinfinitely rewarding. Leaving aclassroom followed by chorusesof a song you’ve just taught tobetween 30 and 40 children,slowly watching them gainconfidence with the foreign wordsand tune, is a joy.Largely we taught the teachers,knowing that anything we taughtthem would be passed on tothe children in time, whereas ifwe focused solely on teachingthe children what we taughtthem would leave the schoolin several years’ time. It waschallenging, especially thinkingabout English from a foreignlanguage perspective (so manyof the subtleties of English makelittle sense!), and occasionallyfrustrating, as many of themistakes that the teachers madewere simply habits, tricks of theirspeech which they understoodwere wrong grammatically whenyou explained them, but thatform a groove in their languagewhich is easy rather thanright. Nevertheless I think thatwe did help, leaving behindgrateful teachers, some exercisebooks and hopefully a deeperunderstanding of some of thestumbling blocks of English.Living and working alongsidethe children, seeing their tribalvillages and the differencesbetween the mud huts there, sovery basic, the only light availablebeing that which filtered throughthe wicker roofs, compared withthe resources, space, light andespecially food made available tothem at the school, was simplyincredible. I feel honoured tohave been allowed to share thisexperience with the teachers andthe children and would like tothank the donors who helped tomake it possible.‘The day of the hard-copy prospectus is over.’Tim Williams(2010, PPE)In February, alumnaCindy Gallop (1977,English) returned toSomerville to showcurrent students how totransform the way wecommunicatewith prospectiveapplicants. TimWilliams was one of thestudents in attendance.When choosing which college toapply to, pupils today don’t ringup and order a prospectus. Theygoogle Somerville and the firstthing they see about us is thewebsite, so we’ve got to make sureit stands out and embodies whatthe College is about – offeringsomething different.Compared to other collegewebsites, Somerville’s is one of thebest – it is updated fairly regularly,there are blogs by the Principal andFellows and good explanations ofwhy someone should apply.But it’s top-down – written byCollege staff in a fairly dry fashion.‘So what?’ you might be thinking.‘All other college websites arethe same.’ That’s true but, asformer advertising executive andSomervillian Cindy Gallop toldstudents in February, Somervilleis different; great things happenhere. The student body, not grandbuildings, is at its heart, and thatneeds to be reflected in how weappear to applicants.As Oxford Media Society Presidentover the past year, I’ve heard fromexecs and journalists at the top oftheir industry and the words on alltheir lips were ‘Twitter’, ‘Youtube’,‘Tumblr’, ‘blogs’ and ‘usergeneratedcontent’. The day of thehard-copy prospectus is over.To use horrible tech talk, we are astudent-generated College in needof a student-generated website. Itshould be splashed with photosof what students are up to, linksto blogs, embedded videos andtwitter feeds written and updatedby students. Put simply, it cannotafford to be boring.Imagine a website full of linksto a ‘Somerville Fashion’ blog –encouraging fashion-consciouspupils to interact and commenton our stuff – and to our newWo/men’s Institute and sportsteams. If you weren’t at the recentTorpids rowing contest, there wasonly one way to follow the action– on Twitter. I tweeted pictures ofTeddy Hall’s crashed boat to over400 people.It should not be up to Collegestaff to make this change –student-generated content needsstudents to generate it. FollowingCindy’s talk this term, I thinkthe JCR knows what it needs todo. The imperative now is for usto turn these ideas into reality.Watch this space.

Somerville Magazine | 9MCR NewsA Day in the LifeApril Ross(2011, Greek andLatin Languages MSt)April Ross hailsfrom Canada, havinggraduated from theUniversity of Waterloowith a joint honoursdegree in ClassicalStudies and Geography.She is delighted to bestudying at Somervillethis year.Frequently my day begins beforethe crack of dawn, when I dragmyself out of my bed and rundown to the river for an earlymorning rowing outing. I hadnever rowed before I arrived inOxford, but the rowing committeehad cleverly designed a ‘try-itout’day that incorporated everystudent’s Achilles heel — freefood — so I was drawn down tothe river to give rowing a try, andended up enjoying it so muchthat I stayed even for the earlymorning practices. This year thewomen’s team has proved verycompetitive, with many eagerfreshers joining the team from arange of athletic backgrounds.The novice crew won two of theirthree races in the Christ Churchregatta in November, and bothwomen’s boats garnered fivebumps between them in Torpidsthis February!During the day I work on mycoursework and reading. I amso fortunate that Somervillehas a well-stocked library; I amreading for a fairly specializedtopic in classical geography,but the library frequently hassome of the more obscure titlesI require. Although I do not takeany courses or lectures with theClassics tutors at Somerville, Ihave nevertheless found themextremely encouraging andsupportive of my degree, andwe sometimes get together overcoffee to discuss my plans forthe DPhil or how my papersare progressing. It is wonderfulto have senior academics atSomerville interested in mysuccess and giving me advice forlife as an academic.Of course, everybody needs studybreaks, which is why I head overto the dining hall for lunch anddinner. A number of other MCRstudents who live both in andout of College frequently cometo one or both of these mealsto catch up with friends. TheMCR itself has become a popularplace to hang out, drink tea, andsocialize with other graduates. Weare a tightly-knit group, and thedifferent interests and pursuits ofits members – both academic andextracurricular – make for somevery interesting conversations.After dinner I generally rushoff to a rehearsal or event heldby the University’s Gilbert andSullivan Society. During Freshers’Fair I was disappointed to findthat most music societies inOxford were not looking forpianists… except for the Gilbertand Sullivan Society! Following afantastic production of Pinaforein Michaelmas term that wasorchestrated for only two pianos,I joined the Society’s committeeand have taken on the role of defacto official rehearsal pianist,which keeps me occupied prettymuch every single evening ofthe week.Between my musical, athletic,and academic pursuits, lifeat Somerville has proven bothchallenging and rewarding. I lookforward to continuing my studiesat Somerville so that I can keeprowing before dawn and playingpiano until all hours of the night!MCR Football: Alive and KickingHugh Wolgamot(2009, Engineering DPhil)The 2011-2012 academic year (or footballseason) is believed to mark the first timeSomerville has entered a team in the MCRfootball league. This had been talked aboutfor some time, but with the increasing size ofthe MCR and the enthusiasm of a core groupof able footballers, it finally became a reality.The start wasn’t easy – there were some tensenegotiations with the league, and even thegroundsman at our home pitch claimed notto know that Somerville had admitted malestudents, despite the men’s JCR team havingplayed on the same pitch for years (NB: theMCR league is ostensibly male only, but inthe best Somerville tradition we flouted theregulations by fielding women in every game).There were also a few issues once we startedplaying – despite people declaring theirintention to turn up, we had a number ofincidents of oversleeping and getting lost enroute, while on the pitch we had some naivetyto overcome (throw-ins, offside, fitness,defence and attack being particular areas ofconcern). However, the season has been greatfun. Many goals set at the start of the seasonhave been achieved – we have scored a goal(in fact, many), we have now purchasedshirts, to be passed on to coming generationsof the MCR’s finest, and, most importantly,we have won a game – the glorious triumphover Green Templeton II in the final match ofthe season.The team mirrors the MCR’s tradition ofbeing welcoming and open to all – this isindicated by our fielding players from at least10 countries over the course of the season.We look forward to next season, when we willundoubtedly carry all before us – watchthis space!

10 | Somerville MagazineOne hundred years ofDorothy L SayersThis year sees the centenary of the young Dorothy L Sayers coming up toSomerville as the Gilchrist Scholar to read Modern Languages – an eventwhich the DLS Society is commemorating by holding their annualconference at Somerville in August. In preparation for this and several othergroups that have requested a ‘DLS’ tour of the College, Anne Manuel, theCollege Librarian and Archivist, has been digging out photos and documentsfrom the archives about Dorothy L Sayers’ time at Somerville.DR Anne ManuelCollege Librarian andArchivistDorothy L Sayers (she insisted on the L)was an outgoing and sociable studentwho quickly became well known as aflamboyant but popular character in College. Shewas a founder member of the self-styled MutualAdmiration Society – a sort of writers’ circle forSomerville students to which entry was restricted byinvitation and submission of work. Always a stylishyoung woman, her dress sense came to the attentionof the Principal Emily Penrose, who one morning atbreakfast, dispatched fellow student Vera Farnell,(anticipating her future role as Dean from 1924-47)to ask DLS to tone down her dress, which featureda scarlet three-inch wide headband and a pair ofdangly parrot-in-a-cage earrings!Dorothy L Sayers was interested in all the creativearts, singing regularly in the Bach Choir and writing,directing and acting in College dramatic productions.Her pièce de résistance was the Going Down Play for1915 – Pied Pipings. The Bicycle Secretary’s Song,which she wrote for the production, mercilesslyparodies her own role in the College to the tune of‘I’ve got a little list’ from The Mikado. According tothe helpful notes written in the play script, DLS hadtransformed the role of Bicycle Secretary from a putuponthankless minor prefect role to one of enormouspower and prestige – clamping down on offenderswithout mercy. Her own role in the Pied Pipings wasa caricature of another flamboyant character – SirHugh Allen, director of the Bach Choir, and on whomDLS had a crush.Dorothy L Sayers as Sir Hugh Allen

Somerville Magazine | 11and SomervilleOpening of Darbishire Quad in 1935 - Dorothy L Sayers is in the front row turning round to talk to someone behind her.Dorothy L Sayers left College in 1915 towork in an advertising agency in London(where she found inspiration for one of herLord Peter Wimsey novels, Murder MustAdvertise) but she remained in contactwith her old College and returned regularlyfor Gaudies. She became chairman ofthe Somerville Students Association in1935 – the year that the new East Quad(now Darbishire) was opened. The ViceChancellor, Lord Halifax, performed theopening ceremony at that year’s Gaudy andthe whole event became the basis for herfamous novel Gaudy Night, which is set inthe fictional Shrewsbury College – a thinlydisguised version of Somerville.In all she published 12 detective novels,most featuring the character Lord PeterWimsey, before turning to writing plays(including The Man Born to be King) andfinally translating Dante’s poetry - twovolumes of The Divine Comedy werecompleted before her death in 1957 atthe age of 64. Dorothy L Sayers’ ashesare buried beneath the tower of St Anne’schurch in Soho, London, where she hadbeen churchwarden for many years.Dorothy L Sayers (third row, on the left) in 1915. Phototaken at Oriel College where Somervillians had beenmoved to make space for convalescing soldiers duringthe First World War.

12 | Somerville MagazineGoing HomeSue Dixson (1971, Modern Languages) sometime member ofa prayer group for communist countries, frequenter of theOrthodox church in Oxford with its beautiful singing andspiritually uplifting atmosphere, on her journey to the East.Sue Dixson(1971, ModernLanguages)Luton Airport, 2011. ‘Going anywherenice?’ asked the passport officer. ‘Home!’I exclaimed. ‘Where’s that?’ ‘Bulgaria.’‘Why there?’ ‘Animals, land, space, only 8 millioninhabitants...’ ‘Enough’ – he sounded envious.My civil partner and I moved to a small village incentral Bulgaria three years ago to realise our dreamof starting a smallholding. We wanted to live lifecloser to nature – experiencing the seasons, growingour own food, using our hands and shaping our ownland. We wanted to learn not only Bulgarian but alsothe language of what goes on under the surface of adifferent way of being.How do I describe my home in this beautiful, ifrough and ready, land at the far-flung edge of theEuropean Union?Home is a country which was under Ottoman rulefor 500 years, then endured/enjoyed over 40 yearsof communism. Home is a people fiercely proudof its Cyrillic script and its revolutionary heroes ofthe 1870s – whose praises are sung annually bythe local choir we have joined. Home is where oneof our neighbours recently ‘came out’ to me as acommunist but where another villager supports thefar-right. Home is where many people do not carewho is in power as long as someone finally sorts outthe water supply – once cut off for 77 days.Home is the sound of dogs barking, jackals howlingat night, the stream roaring past our land when thesnows melt, the cry of buzzards and the dulcet tonesof ubiquitous chainsaws – without which life herewould be impossible as all heating in the villages(and many towns) is wood-based. There is no flickingof switches to put on the central heating. Winter is atime of survival and most Bulgarian villagers sleep intheir living rooms to keep warm by their petchka, thewoodburning stove, on which they also cook.Home is our three dogs, Pippa, Hannah and Dan,and two cats, Lucy and Jack, all of whom give usso much love and not just when food is involved!We wanted tolive life closerto nature -experiencing theseasons, growingour own food,using our handsand shaping ourown land.

Somerville Magazine | 13Our first dog Pippa was severely malnourished whenwe found her but is now the waggiest dog we know!Hannah was thrown out of a car outside our houseand Dan likewise was dumped in our road. Even withlarge patches of hair missing, Dan preferred fuss tofood as we nursed him back to normality. Yet homeis also where Bulgarians keep their dogs on a chain,maybe never walking them and only feeding themstale bread.Home seems to be a law unto itself and where ‘Elfand Safety’ is practically non-existent. Insteadcommon sense usually prevails and people takeresponsibility for their own actions, often with arange of tools which would be either bannedfrom use in the west or consigned to ananthropological museum.Home is where we eat eggs from our own hens andwe milk our own goats. We come face to face withthe cycle of birth and death, realising that drinkingmilk has more to do with producing and slaughteringkids to keep goats in milk than dropping a cartoninto a supermarket trolley without a second thought.Home is where food comes from the garden and notan aeroplane…Home is where our neighbours, immensely generouswith their time and experience, share their produce,customs and way of life – now that we have learntsome of their language and can begin to scratchunder the surface. Home is a poor country where ourlives are so much the richer, though in many ways wenow have less.Oh, and home sometimes involves singing in acrumbling Bulgarian Orthodox church where, duringthe service, people light candles, chat and hand outfood to celebrate name-days. Warm, human disorder,uplifting in its own unique way. Only occasionally doI hanker after the peace and solemnity of long ago inthat certain church in Oxford.Home is thesound ofdogs barking,jackals howlingat night, thestream roaringpast our landwhen the snowsmelt, the cry ofbuzzards andthe dulcet tonesof ubiquitouschainsaws.

14 | Somerville MagazineWhy DoesEducation Matter?Ruth Thompson(1971, History)talks toAlison Wolf(Potter, 1967, PPE)I’m the personI am, and I havethe skills I have,because ofSomerville.

Somerville Magazine | 15“Iwas luckier than I deserved tobe”, is Alison Wolf’s modestsumming up of her work for theGovernment in overhauling vocationaleducation for 14 to 19 year olds. ProfessorAlison Wolf (Potter, 1967) has a greatdeal on her plate. As Sir Roy GriffithsProfessor of Public Sector Management atKing’s College, London, she is in demandworldwide for her academic and researchreputation. Her book- and paper-filledoffice testifies to a life of multi-tasking.Alison’s reputation is built largely on herwork casting doubt on the causal linkbetween growing numbers of people witheducational qualifications and economicgrowth. Does Education Matter? (Penguin,2002) was hailed as a book that tookcourage to write (she was, after all, anacademic in the very system she tookto task) and which caused – or shouldcause – politicians and policy-makers tostop and think. Her thesis, reduced tothe essentials, is that “you can’t educateyour way to growth”, but she is at pains toexplain both that “you can’t run a moderneconomy that innovates without welleducatedpeople and a strong researchculture” and that she believes passionatelyin education.Wolf’s work came to the attention ofMichael Gove, now Education Secretary,and she got to know members of histeam before the 2010 election. She hadbeen especially critical of the lack ofvalue (indeed the negative impact) ofmany vocational qualifications offered infurther education, a sector which over 25years has been “nationalised” and thensubjected to a battery of changes. Theresult? “Heath Robinson is hardly in it.”The Review of Vocational Education – theWolf Report was published in March 2011.It recommends, in brief, that 14-19 yearolds should study subjects that are valuedby the labour market, not mandated bygovernment quangoes; bogus equivalentsof qualifications should be swept away; andthat the system needs to reflect better therecent changes in the labour market for theunder-19s.Alison recounts with amusement how shewas recruited. She hadn’t known whetherthe politicians had been listening or notwhen she urged reform of vocationaleducation. The Schools Minister’s officephoned while she was “on holiday, butworking”, asking her to meet him. Sheimagined a general chat. On the one dayin mid-August 2010 when both wereavailable, she arrived at the Departmentfor Education “with my suitcase, on theway to Gatwick” and met two Ministers,two special advisers and about eight civilservants. They thanked her for agreeing todo the review, and invited her to commenton a scoping document. “So I swallowed,and – look, to be honest, I just had to gofor it, didn’t I?”And go for it she did. “They left me toget on with it”, with the help of one“wonderful” civil servant and the ability tocall on other Departmental support.She declined the offer of an advisorygroup. Wolf thinks it was an advantagethat as an acknowledged expert she wasnot likely to be “hugely controversial oneither side”, and that the Government“genuinely didn’t know what they wantedto do”. She discovered wrongs of which shehad been unaware that needed to be putright: notably that agencies at arm’s lengthfrom Government had “stuck GCSE pointvalues on everything that moved” amongvocational qualifications. As a result,“children were being lied to” about thevalue to employers of their qualifications.Unusually, Alison wrote her report herselfand was impressed that Ministers read it.She was willing to talk about the extentto which her draft recommendations wereinterfered with “because they weren’t.I was really pleasantly surprised whenthey said they would do it all”, she says.She kept within her brief and was nottempted beyond the DfE’s remit intopost-19 education – though she happilygoes on record to say that the split ofresponsibilities for education between twoGovernment Departments is “completelydemented”.Would Wolf do it again, and if so wouldshe do anything differently? “I wouldn’t tryto combine it with my ordinary job”, shesmiles. “And only if I felt that I was goingto be trusted by Ministers the way I wasthis time.” Otherwise, “it could eitherbe very thankless or very pointless. AndI wouldn’t do it unless I was once againgoing to stay involved after I’d handed thereport in”.I asked where Wolf hoped policy mightbe in five or ten years’ time. She believesthat attempts to create equivalenceacross qualifications will disappear.She is delighted with the Government’scommitment that anyone without at leastGCSE grade C in Maths or English at 16must go on studying these subjects: “thatwas the recommendation I really, reallywanted”. More ambitiously, Alison hopesthat the present plethora of short courseswith credits will go. “I am optimisticthat the nature of post-16 programmeswill really change”, towards somethingmore holistic and more akin to what aprospective university student is offered.Alison Wolf says that “I’m the person Iam, and I have the skills I have, becauseof Somerville”, which provided “the sortof higher education that really made mybrain hurt”. What’s more, “people whoget [elite higher education] should feelprivileged and feel obliged all the rest oftheir lives to put something back in”. Ifher report achieves her stated objectivethat “vocational education for 14-19year olds really does serve the purpose ofcreating and maintaining opportunities forall young people”, Wolf will surely havedone that.Her thesis, reduced tothe essentials, is that “youcan’t educate your wayto growth.”The Review of Vocational Education – theWolf Report is available to view online:www.education.gov.uk/a0074953/review-of-vocationaleducation-the-wolf-report

18 | Somerville MagazineFinding Somervilleon the otherRichard Forrest (1994, Classics and Modern Languages)and Emily Forrest (Freedland, 1994, Law) sharetheir experience of unwittingly following in a greatSomervillian’s footsteps.Easter Island.That romanticspeck on the mapwhich seems tovanish into itsown remoteness,and conjures upthe image of thosedark, frowning,stone heads.We are sitting on the edge of a crater,looking down at the bright turquoiselake which fills it. A few fig trees givea sense of scale – it is over a kilometre across andcovered with vast mats of reed, but from where wesit it looks like a lily-pond. Above us, frigate birdsswoop and bank in the warm air. Across from us, andvisible past a dip in the crater’s edge, is the Pacific– stretching from where we are, uninterrupted, toAntarctica. Behind us is one of the world’s longestrunways, built by NASA as an emergency landingpoint for the Challenger mission. And beneath ourfeet, eight and a half thousand miles from home, isan extraordinary and wonderful bit of Somerville. Letus explain.Our first conversation in the college bar in 1994 wasabout how much we wanted to see the world. In theyears since, we have been lucky enough to be able tofollow our itchy feet to some amazing places. It wasin planning a trip to the deserts of northern Chile lastyear that we realised we would be edging probablyas close as we ever would to Easter Island. Thatromantic speck on the map which seems to vanishinto its own remoteness, and conjures up the imageof those dark, frowning, stone heads. We could notresist the detour, and before we knew it, we were onour way.Easter Island (Rapa Nui) peeps out of the SouthPacific half way between Tahiti and Chile. Bizarreand beautiful, just fifteen miles across and largelybarren, it has the power to drive your imaginationlike nowhere else. Populated by Polynesian explorerssome time after 600AD, its story unfolded in totalisolation until the Dutch arrived in 1722. Duringthose years, a unique statue-carving culture evolved,resulting in hundreds of colossal stone figures beingarranged across the island. Once the isolation cameto an end, chaos followed – including landings by theSpanish and British, Peruvian slave raids, in-fighting,and a catastrophic collapse of the population froman estimated fourteen thousand at its peak to onehundred and eleven people in 1877. By the timethe island was annexed by Chile in 1888 it wasmore or less a treeless wasteland, littered withtoppled statues.This was about as much homework as we’d hadthe chance to do before we found ourselves faceto face with some of the statues, rising out of theslope of the volcano from which they were carved.Nothing prepares you for the intensity of standingin front of them, nor for the stimulation of being ina place which makes you want to ask quite so manyquestions. Questions about the statues themselves:

Somerville Magazine | 19side of the worldwhy were they created? How on earth were theymoved? Who do they represent? Why were theypulled down? Questions about the people who madethem, and their remarkable existence. And moreprosaic questions too: Why are there so many horsesand why do they look like clones? Why are there drystone walls which could have come straight from theYorkshire dales? Why do some of the locals seem tothink so highly of General Pinochet? Every questionwe posed had a quirky and unexpected answer whichrevealed another chapter of the island’s history.And then, the jackpot question. How do we knowall the things we know about the island, if itsindigenous people were almost wiped out? Ourlocal guide gave the answer. An Englishwoman,Katherine Routledge, came in 1914 to studythe island. She interviewed the last remainingpeople who had witnessed the island’s originalculture. She instigated the first comprehensivearchaeological survey of the island, anddocumented everything she discovered. Shewas a great lady, our guide said, who studied atSomerville College in Oxford.So there we were, in this absurdly remote place,paying tribute to an unimaginably bold Somervillianwho came by sea to Easter Island nearly a centuryago, with only the sketchiest idea of what shemight find. Katherine Routledge’s work without adoubt saved elements of the island’s history fromoblivion, and laid the foundations for much of theexploration which has taken place since. On theisland she is nothing less than a local hero.Back in the UK, we paid our respects in twoplaces. First at the British Museum, whereone homesick figure twinkles darkly under themuseum’s spotlights, showing his volcanicheritage, but otherwise tight-lipped as to his past.Then in the Somerville library, where the storyof Katherine Routledge and her extraordinarylife can be found, and where new generations ofSomervillians can feel inspired by what might liebeyond undergraduate days.So there we were,in this absurdlyremote place,paying tribute toan unimaginablybold Somervillian.Katherine Pease was astudent at Somervillebetween 1891 and1895, studying ModernHistory. In 1906 shemarried William ScoresbyRoutledge and sailed withhim on their yacht to theSouth Seas. From 1913to 1915 she worked onthe Easter Islands withthe tiny community ofpeople who had survived150 years of foreigninvasions which hadall but destroyed theirculture. Her excavationsof the famous EasterIsland statues and herinterviews with the localpeople managed tosalvage what remained ofthe traditions, historiesand belief structures thatwould otherwise havedisappeared forever. Shedied in 1935 at the ageof 69.

20 | Somerville MagazineA High CommissionIn December 2011, Susan Hyland (1983, PPE) took up the post of PoliticalCounsellor at the British High Commission in Islamabad. Throughout hercareer, she has known that speaking the same language doesn’t guaranteeunderstanding – knowledge that will prove invaluable as she startsbuilding her home in Pakistan.The new Political Counsellor tothe British High Commission inPakistan is trying to make hernew house feel like home. I watch fromOxford on skype as Susan Hyland walksthrough her rooms in Islamabad pointingout Multan pottery – a dark-blue vase anda blue-and-turquoise tray; Afghani glasscandle-holders in midnight-blue andgrass-green; papier-mâché eggs fromKashmir painted in gold flower patterns;a white appliquéd tablecloth; a pashminadelicate enough to be pulled througha ring. As Political Counsellor, Susanmust get to know the people and issuesof Pakistan. She regrets the fact thatPakistani government restrictions and UKconcerns about people’s safety put manybeautiful and interesting parts of Pakistaneffectively out of bounds for herself andher team. That is why filling her home withdecision makers and commentators fromall over the country is such a key part ofher job, so the welcoming human toucheshave more diplomatic significance thanfirst meets the eye.The call to Islamabad came out of theblue, just before Christmas. Fifteen yearsinto her Foreign Office career, Susan hadrisen to being head of the FCO’s HumanRights department. This prestigious rolehad followed postings to the embassies inParis and Moscow and stints in securitypolicy and strategy in London as head ofthe NATO desk and as chief of staff tothe head of the diplomatic service. Littlepersuasion was needed to entice Susanto Islamabad. Equipping herself withAnatol Lieven’s Pakistan: a Hard Countryas preparatory reading, and a few hours ofbasic Urdu at King’s College London, sheflew out and spent the festive season withthe British Defence Attaché, his family anda couple of Pakistani novels (MohammedHanif’s A Case of Exploding Mangoes andAli Sethi’s The Wish Maker).This diplomatic high-flyer arrived atSomerville as a chemist, switching toPPE after her first year. She spent apostgraduate year at Yale taking philosophyclasses and, back at Somerville, wrote athesis on stoicism for the BPhil. I suggestthat the politics element of her degreeis now more important to her than thephilosophy element. “My mind works likea philosopher’s,” she answers. “I enjoyed‘politics at Oxford’ more than the ‘politicsof PPE.’” It was at the Union that she gotto know the ‘political animal’: the instinctsshe acquired there have come in useful inunderstanding the personality and powerpolitics of Pakistan.I ask whether Baroness Park, SomervillePrincipal during Susan’s undergraduateand graduate years and a noted diplomatherself, was an influence. “Daphnebelieved in being courageous, in gettingthings done. She valued academic workbut her emphasis was on doing. She hadno patience with people who onlyfound problems.”How does Susan see UK-Pakistanrelations? “The UK population is boundup with that of Pakistan. A large numberof people in the UK have family links toPakistan and care about what happenshere.” What does she see as the country’smain challenges? “This is a crucial yearfor Pakistan. The forthcoming electionwill be the first democratic change ofpower. There are big challenges in theregion – the country is intimately affectedby what happens in Afghanistan and thedeparture of NATO forces in 2014 will havea significant impact. Pakistan’s security isbound up with what happens in the region,and so is the UK’s.”I wonder what she makes of the factthat American forces killed Osama BinLaden in Pakistan. Her reply is careful.“There are parts of Pakistan where armedterrorist groups operate and it’s hard foranyone to keep control. The fact thatBin Laden was killed on Pakistani soilwas difficult for Pakistan’s political andmilitary establishment and its people tocome to terms with. It has complicatedthe relationship with the United States,and the mistakes that led to the very sadkilling by NATO forces of the 24 Pakistaniborder guards in November 2011 madethings worse. Both sides feel let down bythe other. If some in the US see Pakistanas harbouring terrorists, many in Pakistanfeel that their armed forces and people aremaking greater sacrifices than anyone inthe front line of the fight againstglobal terrorism.”Mutual understanding is at the core ofSusan’s diplomatic vision. She providesby way of example her attempt to create apiece of the Mediterranean on the upstairsterrace of her house in Islamabad. “LastSaturday, a string of on-duty and off-dutysecurity guards, with guns on their backsor in shalwar kameez, hoisted potted olive,lemon and orange trees up my stairs. Ifollowed on with pots of rosemary andchillis. The day after, the people who hadbeen part of this procession decided thatthe smaller plants should be planted in myfront garden, and this was done. I hadn’texplicitly told them that all the plants I’dbought should remain upstairs, but I’dthought my intention was obvious from thefact that we’d carried them all upstairs.Why do I assume that the intentions andmotivations behind foreign policy are anymore transparent to both sides?”As part of promoting such transparency,Susan will be keeping a blog on theHigh Commission website. Somervilliansare welcome, she says, to look her upin Islamabad. If you do call in and findyourself admiring the olives and rosemarythat have now been restored to the potsupstairs, you’ll know that such householddetails – and the new understanding thatlies behind them – are a microcosm ofinternational relations.

Somerville Magazine | 21Kate McCloughin(1988, English)talks toSusan Hyland(1983, PPE) Many peoplein Pakistanfeel that theirarmed forcesand people aremaking greatersacrifices thananyone in thefront line of thefight againstglobal terrorism.

22 | Somerville MagazineSomervillian SkiesQ&A with Rob Leather and Etienne SmithRob Leather (1994, Physics) and Etienne Smith (1998, Biochemistry)both joined the RAF after graduating from Somerville. They arenow flying the Typhoon, one of the world’s most advancedfighter aircraft. Their paths crossed for the first time in2011 on 29 Squadron, RAF Coningsby, where Etienneis currently an instructor.

Somerville Magazine | 23The time at universitygoes by very quickly… IfI could go back I’d tellmy 18 year old self toembrace everything.What motivated you to jointhe Air Force?Rob: For me it was a mixture of naïveidealism and the needs of every twentysomething to ‘do justice and go and slaydragons’ (the massacres in Serbia at thattime and the subsequent RAF involvementsatisfied both the will and means). Also,I’d spent a short period working in the Cityduring a summer break, and the sight ofthe ‘glum, grey suited men’ on the trainswas sufficiently disenchanting to make methink “What’s the best job in the world?”. Iremember my tutor said both the Cityand the RAF were equally wasteful of anOxford education!Where did you begin yourtraining?Etienne: We both began training withOxford University Air Squadron. Thereafterwe completed our officer training at RAFCollege Cranwell.Rob: Where Etienne won the Sword ofHonour. I went on to be an instructor onthe Hawk, and then joined the front-line fora three-year tour on the Jaguar, a low levelground attack aircraft.Etienne: The RAF saying is “join and seethe world” and they mean it.Rob: Yes, one year I visited and flew in 18different countries from Belize to Omanand Israel in just 12 months! I was thenlucky enough to be posted to California onan exchange tour with the US Navy andflew F-18 Hornets for three years.What have been your highlightssince training?Rob: Whilst in California my two notableachievements were gaining my carrierlandingqualification on the USS CarlVinson and having my second child – withanother Somervillian, Helen Saunders(1993, Psychology and Philosophy).Etienne: After advanced fast-jet training, Iwas one of the first pilots to be chosen tofly the Typhoon, a single-seat, supersonic,high-G fighter used recently in the Libyancampaign. I was posted to 11 Squadronand after three years there, I was selectedto be an instructor. I had the chance tofly with Rob in a two-seat Typhoon. ASomerville first we think!So, how does Somerville prepareyou for being a fighter pilot?Rob: Rigorous learning, uncompromisingstandards, self-reliance, elitism – all areterms that could be applied to both, butthe real similarity is to be presented withan environment in which there is both theobligation and the opportunity to challengeyour own expectations of your abilities.Whether studying atomic physics or landinga jet on a boat, it is hard to imagine thateither could be conquerable. (I have visionsof my former physics tutor shaking hishead, “But it is not you see…”).How do you rememberSomerville?Etienne: Very fondly. I had a fantastic timeat Somerville enjoying both the academicchallenge of my degree studies and extracurricularactivities such as rowing forthe College. It’s only when you leave thatI think you really realise how special thetime at Oxford was. I’d love to do itall again!Rob: Yes, the time at University goes byvery quickly and I think the significanceof your time there does not sink in untilmany years later. If I could go back I’d tellmy 18 year old self to embrace everythingand not rush into the world of work; it willalways be there for you, while other thingswill not.So, would you do it all again?What are you doing now?Rob: Well, as the focus of a pilot is tocontinually self-improve, it feels like I haveyet to do a day’s work that I didn’t relish. Iremember being on a huge multi-nationalexercise at Nellis Air Force Base, LasVegas. There were over 80 jets airborne,ground threats to deal with and I was flyingat 600kts at 100 feet racing away from abandit with my 1000lb live bomb that Ihad to deliver against a target within a fivesecond time-window. Now that is fun andexcitement that it impossible to describe!Etienne: We are both currently serving withthe front-line on the Typhoon and havean active role in the Quick Reaction Alertcapability of the UK Defence Forces, whichincludes scrambling to intercept Russianlong-range aviation assets and, morewistfully, providing a protective shield over(Somerville’s!) skies.

24 | Somerville MagazineThe Day theTwin Towers FellA few months before 9/11, Heidi Olson (1985,MSc Management), had left financial services firmCantor Fitzgerald, which was based at the WorldTrade Center. She came back to work just days afterthe attacks, helping to rebuild the company thathad lost over two thirds of its New York workforce.We downed more coffee than ispossible, ate junk food by thebarrel, and cried at work(despite the taboo).

Somerville Magazine | 259/11 changed it all. Not just for me, not justfor New York, but for much of the world. Iworked at Cantor Fitzgerald for 16 years – 6years prior and 10 years after 9/11. I worked on the101st floor of the World Trade Center. I like to thinkI wouldn’t have died on 9/11 but everyone else saysleaving the firm in April 2001 saved my life. 654 ofmy colleagues died.Life is a series of near misses and direct hits. Youknow the sad stories – I lived them. Less told aretales of goodness and kindness.I saw the World Trade Center fall – not on television,in real life, standing on the street. It wasn’t true – itcouldn’t be. I had no idea this was a global event –this was my building, my company, my friends, mycity and crazy f***ing fanatics ruined it. They filledme with fear, they stole my family’s safety, they killedmy friends. That clear day there were sirens andmore sirens, and then it became still. By Wednesday,missing person posters appeared everywhere, andevery second picture was someone I knew.On September 11th I was helping locate friends, onthe 12th we hoped for survivors, and on the 13thmy husband Roger said, “go help, I’ve got the kids.”Everyone in New York wanted to do something oranything. I was lucky, I had a place where I wasneeded and I could help.The next days, weeks, months were a blur. No onekept a calendar. We worked every waking hour. Rebuildingthe company would honour lost friends.Cantor Chairman Howard Lutnick asked me to buildour trading floor at a temporary location at UBS,the firm’s investment bank. Thus I was initiatedinto the tribe of traders. We downed more coffeethan is possible, ate junk food by the barrel, andcried at work (despite the taboo). Sometimes welaughed until coffee came out our noses. Some days,perhaps, we crossed out of the land of the sane. Itwas hard work.Rebuilding is a story about generosity. I swam in theocean of kindness. I arrived at UBS and entered anempty office floor – I was so alone I wept. I knewslightly more about building a trading floor than Iknew about building a Space Shuttle. Just then aUBS banker appeared and asked what I needed.“Thank you, I need a UBS phone directory and tomeet someone in your technology department.” (Ihad no tech team – the small group of survivors wereliving at the Cantor/eSpeed Data Center runningthe electronic bond market). Five minutes later thetech team found me. By the end of day we hada preliminary plan. Urgently, I needed to organizethe microphone/speaker system that links all ninetrading floors into one virtual room and get phoneboards for calling customers. At a deli I randomlyran into the former Cantor employee who set up thetrading floor at the WTC. She said, “I’ll come upand we can call the vendors.” By the next morningthe phone turrets were on their way and VerizonTelephone had deployed its premier team. TheUBS facilities manager did magic: in record timethey installed trading desks and rolled in dozensof chairs (for employees we hadn’t yet hired).Office supplies materialized. A volunteer madephone lists for vendors and staff – another lifeline.Others sorted resumés so we could hire. Jars ofpennies from lemonade sales, pictures from schoolchildren, baskets of muffins found their way to us.Psychologists offered us free therapy so we wouldn’tcrack up – most of us couldn’t spare the time. Ateam wrote thank you notes on our behalf. Less thanthree weeks from the project start, we had a tradingfloor – a process that normally takes four months.New York was back in business.I do not know all of the names or the thousands oftasks, but what people did was astonishing. Out ofthe crowd they came. Vendors, volunteers, employeesand strangers gave from the heart. I am humbled tohave witnessed and received so much kindness. Mypost-9/11 colleagues are amongst the finest peopleon earth. Cantor Fitzgerald has contributed morethan $45 million to victims’ families and is nowlarger than it was in 2001.The worst of times bring out the best in people.I saw the WorldTrade Centerfall – not ontelevision,in real life,standing onthe street.Heidi Olson (1985, MSc Management)Heidi was Chief Operating Office, CantorFitzgerald Equity Capital Markets. She recentlyretired (with proverbial gold watch andspeeches). She is working on a book.

26 | Somerville MagazineA Womanof Scienceand theWorldNina Byers is a theoretical physicistwho, in addition to her own scientificresearch, has pioneered the celebrationof women’s contribution to physicsin the 20th Century. She talks to ToniCoffee about her career to date, andSomerville’s special place in it.

Somerville Magazine | 27‘A Shadows: Contributions of 20th CenturyWoman of Science and the World’ – thusbegins the Introduction to Out of theWomen to Physics (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2006),a collection of 40 wonderful essays about womenwho made important original contributions toscience despite serious gender discrimination intheir working lives, and often received no credit fortheir pioneering work. Co-editor and author of theIntroduction is Nina Byers, theoretical physicistand Professor of Physics Emeritus at the Universityof California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and one-timeFellow at Somerville.In 1967, on leave from UCLA, Dr Byers was electedby Somerville and Oxford University, jointly, asOfficial Fellow and Tutor in Physics and UniversityLecturer – the first woman to hold that position inthe University Physics department. In 1968 shebecame Janet Watson Visiting Fellow and Tutor inPhysics at Somerville and continued to teach andsupervise graduate students for one term each year,in a joint appointment by Oxford and UCLA.From her unique vantage point she could see thedifferences between the competitive nature of themale-dominated department and the mutual supportand collegiality that prevailed in a society of women.It is a gap that still exists, she believes, and notonly in the academic world. In 1973 she returned toCalifornia full-time (“alas”) and she has also taughtat Stanford and Harvard, but the memory of her yearswithin a community of accomplished women hasresonated throughout her career as teacher, researchscientist, advocate for nuclear disarmament, andchampion of women in science.“It was a great privilege to be at Somerville,” sherecalls. Janet Vaughan was Principal, “a wonderfulperson and a great lady” and “the caliber of scholarsand human beings that populated the SCR wastruly distinguished.” Among those she rememberswith great pleasure are philosophers ElizabethAnscombe and Philippa Foot, literary critic EnidStarkie, biochemist Antoinette Pirie, mathematicianAnn Cobb, and, of course, Nobel Laureate DorothyHodgkin, “one of the stars in the constellation ofgreat scientists of our time, and all time.”The chapter on Dorothy Hodgkin in Out of theShadows was written by Jenny Pickworth Glusker,1949 and Hon. Fellow. “The College had a gloriousrecord of recognizing and supporting the workof female scientists,“ she says, and that is anappropriate tribute to the person after whom it wasnamed. “Mary Somerville was a fine scientist”who, at a time when writings about scientificadvances were coming from France, wrote fourimportant books.Mary Somerville was one of the first two womenadmitted to the Royal Astronomical Society, andsimilar references appear throughout Dr. Byers’ ownlife and work. She was frequently the only womanin her undergraduate physics courses, she was theonly female Teaching Assistant in graduate schoolat the University of Chicago, and at UCLA shewas for 29 years the only woman on the Physicsfaculty. Foremost among her research interestswere elementary particle physics and the theoryof superconductivity, for which she was honouredby the American Physical Society. She also takesgreat pride in her papers which brought to light theimportant discoveries of mathematicianEmmy Noether.Dr. Byers’ career in physics was rooted in curiosityabout the bombs which were dropped on Japanat the end of World War II, and issues related tonuclear power have been a continuing influence inher teaching and professional activities. Participationin social movements was a family tradition and shebecame engaged in the effort to stop and reverse thearms race while still in graduate school. From thebeginning, she was opposed to the construction anduse of nuclear weapons and she has refused to workon associated projects.Among her many honours and awards is thechairmanship of the Forum on Physics and Societyof the American Physical Society. It was an electedposition and she received the support of her peers,she believes, primarily because of her work fordisarmament. She has written major papers aboutthe role of physicists in the still-controversialdecision to drop the bomb in 1945 and still teachesa seminar at UCLA on Nuclear Power in whichstudents are reminded that the world’s supply ofnuclear weapons has grown from two bombs in 1945to more than 20,000 today.Left: Newly-electedFellow Nina Byersstands in line duringthe Queen’s visit toSomerville in 1968.The Collegehad a gloriousrecord ofrecognizingand supportingthe workof femalescientists.Toni Coffee has beena regular contributerto Somervillepublications forsixteen years. Shedivides her timebetween Oxford andNew York City and isa graduate of BarnardCollege, the women’sundergraduatedivision of ColumbiaUniversity. She is aformer editor of theBarnard AlumnaeMagazine.

28 | Somerville MagazineAlways aSomervillianSuchandrika Chakrabarti(2001, English)talks toVICTORIA YOUNGHUSBAND(1973, Classics)She has particularly fond memoriesof the support she received fromher Moral Tutors at Somerville,Nan Dunbar and Lesley Brown.

Somerville Magazine | 29Victoria Younghusband’s story shows that you never really leave Somerville.Now a Partner in the Financial Markets Group at City law firm SJ Berwin,she is also one of the founding committee members of the SomervilleCity Group. However, Victoria actually left Somerville in 1975without gaining her degree.Victoria came up to Oxford to read Classics in 1973.From the start, her experience at Somerville was notquite like that of her friends. Her mother had died inan accident when Victoria was 19, and, as a resultshe often left College at the weekend to see herwidowed father back at home in London.She does remember Somerville as a relaxedenvironment, a place for making lifelong friendsand gaining a good education. The literary side ofClassics absorbed her the most – Aristophanes’Lysistrata was a particularly memorable text – whilethe philosophy element appealed to her love ofsolving problems.In the summer term of her second year, Victoriafell pregnant, and moved back to London in 1975to begin a law degree at Queen Mary College(now Queen Mary, University of London). Shehas particularly fond memories of the supportshe received from her Moral Tutors at Somerville,Nan Dunbar and Lesley Brown. However, betweenmarriage, tending to two small children and startinga law degree, she didn’t get the chance to visitSomerville again until the Centenary celebrationsin 1979.Starting again so soon at another university gaveVictoria a unique chance to compare her lawseminars to the rigours of the Oxford tutorial system.With five other people in her tutorials at Queen Mary,Victoria missed the ‘take no prisoners’ dimension ofher Classics tutorials.The process of reading essays aloud – anervewracking job when Nan Dunbar had oncedeclared, “Golly, that was exhausting!” – and thenarguing her point of view prepared Victoria well forher law career. The intensity of tutorials, with justone or two other people in the room, certainly honedher debating skills and gave her the confidence topresent her work to a critical audience, be that tutoror client.After the law degree, Victoria completed her LPC atThe College of Law in London, and, aged 28, startedher articles – her training contract – at StephensonHarwood, in 1982. She went on to qualify in 1984,and to be made a partner in 1989.In 1991, Victoria moved to Hong Kong to work oncorporate finance, listings and takeovers. The workwas challenging and time-consuming, with Saturdaymornings being considered a normal workday. Onebenefit of working outside her comfort zone wasdealing with clients whose first language was notEnglish. This meant that she had to become veryprecise with her wording, and even more carefulwith document presentation, which was helpfulwhen she came to write articles and book chaptersfor both lawyers and laypeople.The mixed excitement and fear involved in travellingthrough early 1990s China remains vivid forVictoria, with one incident involving a missingaeroplane ignition key and the most turbulent flightof her life convincing her that perhaps four-anda-halfyears away from home was enough. Herchildren, Teresa (now 36) and Arthur (now 34), wereat boarding school in England during this time, andshe found that long-distance mothering had becometoo difficult.In 2003, back in London, Victoria became amember of Tony Blair’s Better Regulation Taskforce(later Commission). Her four years in this rolebrought her closer to the makings of policy. Thedifficulties of deciding who polices an industryand how appealed to her problem-solving nature,and dealing with the issues of making legislationworkable gave her an insight into how outsiders viewthe world of banking.Victoria’s work at SJ Berwin these days includesteaching and pastoral roles. She looks for andencourages the abilities to hold one’s own and toinspire confidence in the listener in her traineesolicitors. Also, after being held to such highstandards in her Somerville tutorials, she is quick tosee when her trainees are being a little intellectuallylazy, and is keen to get them to fulfil their potentialwithout puncturing their confidence. She maintainsrelationships with the young lawyers who passthrough her office, and is always happy to hear howpast trainees are doing.Now, as one of the founders of the Somerville CityGroup, Victoria is glad she has been able to giveback to the institution that she thinks of as grand,and yet also as a place that nurtured her during adifficult time in her life.VictoriaYounghusband(1973, Classics)After being heldto such highstandards inher Somervilletutorials, sheis quick tosee when hertrainees arebeing a littleintellectuallylazy, and is keento get themto fulfil theirpotential withoutpuncturing theirconfidence.

30 | Somerville MagazineThe Somerville Campaign:Building on a great momentumThe generous support of more than 1,100 alumni and friends towardthe first phase of the Somerville Campaign has transformed our Collegecommunity; those of you who have had a chance to visit the newRadcliffe Observatory Quarter buildings will know exactly what I mean.The 68 students who have been living in the buildings during the past two terms have voiced theirenthusiasm in multiple ways: Alice Westlake (2010, Engineering) expresses with compelling clarity how herexperience of living in these new fit for purpose rooms has “allowed me to focus more on my studies andtaken away the problems that finding and living in private accommodation can cause”.Julie HageDevelopment DirectorMore than 36% of our alumni have supported the Campaign and £17.5 million has been raised so far (April2012). This truly remarkable generosity has given us confidence as we embark on the next phase of ourambitious £25 million Campaign to secure the College’s future, raising significant sums for student supportand fellowship endowment.Increasing student supportThe recent press coverage of the highereducation challenges in the UK hasincluded an article in the Sunday Timesby our alumnus and Development Boardmember Sam Gyimah (1994, PPE), MP forSurrey East, encouraging all graduates togive philanthropic support to universitiesas a means to securing fair access andexcellence. Sam came to Somervillefrom a state school and feels that thehelp he received from the College wasvital in encouraging him to continue hisstudies: “I struggled to pay my rent, butthe College offered me a long term loan tohelp me do so. I’m conscious that, in thesecircumstances, a lot of students wouldnot even have taken this leap of faith toapply in the first place. Knowing that theinstitution wants people like you and thatthe support is there when you need it canmake a big difference”. [www.samgyimah.com/news/blog/calling-all-alumni].At Somerville, students have for decadesbenefited from support from generousalumni who have endowed a bursary ordonated a sum towards scholarships, andwe now intend to build on this tradition byraising a minimum of £4 million towardsour student support fund. With the triplingof tuition fees from September 2012, the“leap of faith” required when applyingto Oxford is significant, and we see it asour role to attract additional funding andpublicise the opportunities for support aswidely as possible in order to ensure fairaccess to the brightest students.£2.2 million has already been raised by918 alumni and friends towards studentsupport. The response to and diversityof our appeals is incredibly heartening,from the Appelbaum family who supporta deserving UK student every year, to theCaldicott Bursary which helps a ClinicalMedicine student to meet the costs of theirlong course. These examples of generositytowards Somerville students, joined bymany, many more, demonstrate howaccess and excellence can be supportedin tandem if we have a healthy studentsupport fund backing our efforts.Bursaries and graduate scholarshipsIn the last year, 25% of current students have been provided with financialsupport. This places Somerville in the top five within the collegiateuniversity, and would not be possible without all of the many donors eachyear to the bursary fund and to graduate scholarships.“I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to the family and friends ofthe late Vanessa Brand, who studied history at Somerville. Without thesupport from the scholarship they established in her memory, I would not beable to study as a doctoral student at Somerville. Their generosity providesme with the opportunity to pursue my studies in an unparalleled intellectualenvironment — an enormous privilege, for which I am truly grateful.”Jacques Schumacher (2010, History DPhil)For further information on howyou can support Somerville, pleasecontact Julie Christiane Hage:Tel: +44 (0) 1865 280596Email: julie.hage@some.ox.ac.ukFor the latest Campaign figures,please visit the Somerville website:www.some.ox.ac.uk/Campaign

Somerville Magazine | 31Securing academic excellenceCurrently, fewer than 60% of our teachingposts are endowed and the burden ofcovering teaching costs is significant,corresponding to around £500,000 everyyear. Many of you will know that a specialopportunity for securing our tutorialfellowships has become available to us:the Oxford Teaching Fund, which offersmatched funding to endow posts acrossthe collegiate University, particularly in thehumanities. We are delighted that we nowhave the opportunity to secure Philosophyand French, two core posts in the College’sdistinguished humanities group, viathis route.The target is daunting; we need to raise£1.2 million per post in cash and pledgesby September 2013 in order to attract£800,000 in matched funding. However,the prospect of securing these posts inperpetuity is extremely attractive, and ifwe succeed in doing so, this will alleviatefunds to pay for the College’s teachingin other subjects. It is therefore a greatencouragement that alumni and friendshave pledged more than £500,000 towardthe Philosophy appeal and a numberof significant legacy pledges have beenearmarked for the French Fellowship. Wehope that many of you will contribute tothese efforts in the coming year to help usunlock this unique opportunity.Endowing FellowshipsThe fundamental impact of the tutorialteaching on students is beyond doubt. Therecent Modern Languages Day (March 2012)offered a dynamic contribution to our effortstowards securing the French post and we weredelighted with the opportunity to honour oneof our most distinguished benefactors, DrChristina Roaf, with a Foundation Fellowshipin acknowledgement of her support forModern Languages over the past 45 years.Ayla BuschDr Christina RoafLesley Brown’s teaching career in Philosophy,Classics and PPE has prompted many of her studentsto give to the Philosophy appeal, and to express howsignificant the educational experience was for them.Ayla Busch (1989, PPE) explains: “As individuals, weseem to be living in different mind frameworks thatare shaped by society, our families, our experiencesand values. Studying Philosophy has helped me tounderstand those frameworks better and thus relateto people in a much more connected way. Being ableto think out of the box, having the tools to questionanyone’s thoughts, being able to see problems froman eagle’s view and being aware of boundaries ofconduct or the meaning of actions – all of theseare very relevant to my daily personal as well as myprofessional life.”We are planning an event for all alumni with an interest in Philosophy later this year,featuring a key note speech by Lesley, as a means to rally everyone who feels they areable to support us in our efforts.AdvancingSomerville’stradition ofglobal researchWhile most of our current fundraisingincome derives from alumni and friendsin the UK and the US, we are alsoseeking to increase our engagement withinternational partners further afield, with aview to attracting support for the College’sresearch excellence and increasingscholarships available to internationalstudents. Alumni working in Asia and theMiddle East have been instrumental inopening doors to significant philanthropiccontacts as we seek to secure fundingfor the College’s research base inthese regions of the world. In brief,the generosity and resourcefulness ofSomervillians never fail to impress.The Power of Regular GivingRegular gifts have an enormous impact on the College, as they allow us to plan aheadwith confidence and make the most of all donations. Regular gifts allocated to theAnnual Fund provide support for three vital parts of College life: tutorial support;buildings and facilities; and bursaries. We hope that even more Somervillians will jointhis growing community of regular givers.As I reflect on my educational experiences, I alwayslook back on my time at Somerville with particularfondness. With the constant challenges to the fundingposition of British universities, colleges and theirstudents, we should all do what we can to helpSomerville remain the special place that we remember.David Brooks(1997, Modern Languages), Annual Fund donor

32 | Somerville MagazineEvents 2011-12KDJ English Day14 May 2011This day was open to all who read English atSomerville since 1961 and was a celebrationof Professor Katherine Duncan-Jones’s70th birthday.Right: Heather O’Donoghue (MacKinnon,1974, Mediaeval English), Katherine Duncan-Jones, Fiona Stafford and Philip West.“Katherine’s day on Saturday was a real joy.Thank you for all you did to arrange it, get usthere and make it such fun for us all.”Sarah Wedderburn (1971, English)Michala Butterfield Lunch18 June 2011Michala Butterfield (née Emmett) came to Somerville in 1995 to read Law. Since Michala’stragic death in 2008, the Emmett family and their friends have been raising funds for theMichala Butterfield Bursary Fund. In June, family and friends came to a lunch in Collegeto remember Michala and also to celebrate the family’s achievement in fundraising forthe bursary. Anahita Hoose, one of the students currently being funded by the MichalaButterfield Bursary, also attended the lunch.Left: Jane Loader (Aspell, 1995, Biological Sciences) with members of Michala’s familyGaudy 20112-3 July 2011Matriculants from 1935 to 1955were invited to College for a weekendof events including talks, a blacktiedinner, a garden party, and theopportunity to tour the ROQ site.Opening of the ROQ buildings17 and 18 September 2011The weekend of 17 and 18 September was a very special one as it was the official opening of the new ROQ buildings. More than 280donors to the project came to the celebration and were among the first people to see the completed new buildings.Left: The Chancellor, Lord Patten of Barnes. Middle: Jane Steedman (1966, PPP) and Eva Blyth (Franey, 1954, Mathematics)Right: Sian Thomas Marshall (Thomas, 1989, Biology) and Katie Thomas (Baxendale, 1990, Theology) beside the Donor Wall

Somerville Magazine | 331961 Golden Reunion20-21 September 2011The 50th anniversary of the arrival of theyear of 1961 was celebrated with a weekendof reminiscing and events.“The 1961 reunion was such a success.I certainly thoroughly enjoyed myself, asdid all my friends from that time. It wasparticularly good to meet and talk to peoplewho I hardly knew at College and now can’twait to meet again at a future reunion.”Jackie Wilson (Herbert, 1961, Mathematics)Left: Francisca Garvie (1961, ModernLanguages), Maya Slater (Bradshaw, 1961,Modern Languages) and Mary Clemmey(1961, Natural Sciences)I had an AMAZINGtime. Thank youso very much.Caroline Cracraft(Pinder, 1961, History)Celebration forLesley Brown24 September 2011Many of Lesley’s former pupils returned toCollege to celebrate her retirement after 42years at Somerville.“Lesley Brown’s retirement lunch was anexample of Somerville at its best. It was awonderfully warm occasion, bringing togetherSomervillians of all ages to swap stories,share experiences and celebrate Lesley’sstalwart contribution to the College over thedecades”. Ian Mulheirn (1999, PPE)Right: Ian Mulheirn and Lesley BrownPrivate screening ofThe Iron Lady15 January 2012200 Somerville students, staff and alumnigathered together to enjoy a privatescreening of The Iron Lady, followed by alively panel discussion of the film over teain Hall.Far left: Ginny Stacey (1962, Physics) andJudith Marquand (1954, PPE) wait in linefor the private screeningLeft: The queue of Somervillians eager totake their seatsMedia NetworkEvening18 January 2012We were delighted that TessaRoss (1980, Oriental Studies),one of the most distinguishedfigures in the film world, agreedto speak about her career, Film4and the British Film Industry.Left: Speaker Tessa Ross(right) with Rebecca Jones(1985, History)Literary Lunch21 January 2012Our speaker and guest of honour wasthe BBC’s distinguished SecurityCorrespondent, Gordon Corera, in whoselatest book, The Art of Betrayal: Lifeand Death in the British Secret Service,Baroness Daphne Park plays a memorablepart. He spoke about the career of DaphnePark, and its significance in the context ofwomen’s role in intelligence and the placeof Africa in the work of the SIS.Left: Gordon Corera

34 | Somerville MagazineThe House of Commons2 February 2012Hosted by Sam Gyimah (1995, PPE), MPfor Surrey East, the first Somerville CityGroup event of 2012 was a fabulous blacktie dinner in a private dining room at theHouse of Commons.Far right: Nicola Ralston (1974, History),Nicola Blackwood (2005, Music), AliceProchaska, Sam Gyimah (1995, PPE) andTherese Coffey (1989, Chemistry).Right: Guests enjoying dinner at theHouse of CommonsWinter Meeting25 February 2012Our guest speaker at the 2012 WinterMeeting was Princess Zarith Idris of Johor,Malaysia (1979, Oriental Studies), whospoke on the subject of what Muslimsin Malaysia have in common with othercommunities around the world.Far left: Guests at the Winter MeetingLeft: Princess Zarith IdrisModern Languages Day11 March 2012This wonderful celebration of the Somerville School of Modern Languages, past, present and future, included speeches from our ModernLanguages Fellows along with Eleanor Fuller (Breedon, 1972), who is now the UK’s Permanent Representative to the Council of Europe.We were also delighted to present Dr Christina Roaf with a Foundation Fellowship in recognition of her many years of generous support ofthe College.Above left: Guests at Modern Languages Day Above right: Eleanor FullerNew York Reunion14 April 2012Cindy Gallop (1977, English) generouslyoffered to host this year’s reunion in hericonic New York ‘Black Apartment’, aspart of the Oxford University Reunion inNorth America.Left: Cindy Gallop with Alice Prochaska atthe New York reunion receptionI really enjoyed the partyat Cindy’s, and it wasinspirational to hear the otherSomervillians’ stories andto feel their connection tothe College.Nancy Brown(Freeman, 1980, PPE)

Alumni Events 2012All events are in College unless otherwise stated.For further details please contact Liz Cooke atelizabeth.cooke@some.ox.ac.uk or telephone+44 (0) 1865 270632.Somerville and its alumni volunteers run a widerange of events and activities to help Somervillianskeep in touch with each other and with the College.We hope to welcome you to one of our events thisyear. If you have feedback on our existing events orwould like to suggest a new event, please contact:development.office@some.ox.ac.ukJune9 Commemoration Service22-23 1962 Reunion23 Garden Party23-24 Gaudy for 1956-66July19 Somerville London Group tour and dinnerat Strawberry Hill HouseSeptember14-16 Oxford University Alumni Weekend15 Alumni Weekend Formal Dinner in Hall27 Somerville London Group: Sir Mark StanhopeOctober6 Campaign Concert with Emma Kirkby(1966, Classics) at the Ashmolean MuseumFor the latest information on events please visit: www.some.ox.ac.uk/AlumniEvents