Univ Record 2017

Master’s Notes
Peter Strawson, our eminent post-war
Fellow in Philosophy, once remarked
that Univ was excessive only in its
moderation. The College doesn’t go in for
self-congratulation, let alone showing off.
But the College had more than one cause
for quiet satisfaction over the year. It was
ranked 8th in the Norrington Table, a
small slippage from its 4th place in 2016,
even though its overall score was a fraction
higher than last year. This was the second
successive year in which the College was
placed in the top ten of the Table, after a disappointing run in the bottom ten in the
previous three years. Univ finalists were awarded 37 Firsts, a number only once bettered
(last year) and, for the first time in its history, not a single finalist was awarded a Lower
Second, Third or Pass degree. It is greatly to the credit not only of our students, but of
their tutors, that every one of our Finalists achieved a First or Upper second.
The College’s new Opportunity Programme swung into operation during the year.
We set aside up to ten additional undergraduate places for applicants from markedly
disadvantaged backgrounds and were pleased to feel confident enough to make ten
offers – subject to the University’s standard A-level grades prerequisite – in January.
The College received many more strong candidates than usual flagged by the University
as disadvantaged, the result perhaps of the publicity that the announcement of the
Programme had attracted in the national media and among schools the previous summer.
In August we confirmed the places of eight of the ten, who had not only met but in
almost every case surpassed the A level grades required, and in September we brought
them to College for an intensive four-week course in study skills before the start of the
academic year. We have every reason to believe that they will thrive at Univ.
The College’s initiative to expand opportunities for graduates by building up its
stock of permanently endowed scholarships progressed well. Endowed capital for fullyfunded
graduate scholarships (which cover living costs as well as tuition fees) has steadily
accumulated in the past five years as a result of generous benefactions from Old Members,
the University’s matched funding scheme, and partnerships with the Rhodes Trust,
the China Scholarship Council, the Rothermere American Institute and a number of
University Departments. The College has increased the number of scholarships it can
offer each year from seven to 35, and expects a further increase in 2018. This year, for the
first time, over a hundred graduates at Univ had scholarships provided by the College,
either exclusively or jointly with the University and only four new doctoral students were
reliant on private funds.
The happy outcome of being able to support more graduates than any other mixed
college is that the quality of candidates for graduate places is now outstanding and the
proportion who accept an offer of a place has risen quite sharply. As a result, we admitted
significantly more than planned in October but managed to meet our pledge to house
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all the newcomers in College accommodation. A repeat would present the College with
problems next year, but these are the problems of success.
The College continued to extend its presence in north Oxford in anticipation
of the growing dependence of graduates and early-career Fellows on the College for
accommodation, and the likelihood that property prices will go on rising for some years
to come. We undertook an extensive refit of the former convent at Harberton Mead in
Headington, near the John Radcliffe Hospital, in time for twenty students to take up
residence in Michaelmas Term. A handsome building with an extensive garden, set in a
quiet wooded area, Harberton Mead will be ideal for graduates with research placements
in Oxford’s hospitals or the labs in South Parks Road, all within a ten minute bike ride.
The College also acquired two properties at 98 and 100 Woodstock Road, with gardens
abutting its Staverton Road site, which it intends to earmark for small research groups.
For much of 2017 the College has been giving careful and systematic thought to
the development of its newly expanded north Oxford site. A working party of Fellows,
professional advisers and Old Members has produced an outline of the accommodation
and social and educational facilities we envisage building for a mixed community of
about 250 undergraduates, graduates and academics, and it has embarked on a search for
an architectural practice to draw up a masterplan. The College expects to announce its
choice of architects early in the New Year.
Old Members have offered wise advice on the development of the north Oxford site,
as on many other aspects of the College’s future. This was notably so at the weekend
retreat held at Ditchley Park in October 2016 for some of our leading supporters, where
the College set out its long-term plans for the consolidation of its tutorial provision,
for financial support for students and for the Opportunity Programme as well as for its
expansion into north Oxford.
At the many gatherings in the course of the year I have again been struck by the
engagement and goodwill of our Old Members towards the College. I enjoyed warm
welcomes on visits to New York and Washington DC in the autumn, to Hong Kong,
Beijing, Singapore, San Francisco and New York (again) in the spring, and to Prague
in June, where a rooftop dinner for our central European alumni in sight of the floodlit
castle will linger long in the memory. It was the perfect setting to announce the
endowment of a scholarship by Dr Pavel Klein (1974, Psychology, Philosophy and
Physiology) for an undergraduate from the Czech Republic.
The high participation of Old Members at gaudies, the Annual Seminar, the Univ
Society Dinner, Univ in the City, and local meetings in Birmingham and Cambridge
has been matched by the response to the Annual Appeal. It topped £1.1m for the third
successive year and once again a third of all our Old Members made a gift. No other
Oxford college commands as much support, year after year. Univ is fortunate and
privileged to have such a loyal community of former students.
Our current students were as fully engaged as ever in all that College life offers. In
the Summer Eights both the W1 and M1 boats stayed comfortably in Division 1, in 4th
and 7th place respectively. Univ’s first soccer XI was well beaten in the annual football
tussle against the characteristically nimble and skilled Devas Club team from south
London, with which we are strengthening the links that we have enjoyed with them for
over a century. For the first time both College and Club fielded women’s football teams
– with a predictable outcome.
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