The Queen's College Record 2020

Old Members’ Activities
nostalgic menu that featured several
College classics, rounded off with the
showcase dessert of Bombe Alaska.
Our gratitude goes to former Head
Chef Andy Field, Dawn Grimshaw,
and the catering staff for obliging our
specific requests. Speeches from Old
Members and Mrs Alison Madden
were warmly toasted, as was the
commemorative sterling silver bowl
by Graham Stewart, which was
presented to the Provost by the 1979
first cohort of women.
Merriment continued in the Beer Cellar, with bop-style entertainment, sound-tracked
by tunes that had been nominated from decades past and present. A beautiful
celebratory cake was served, which helped to sustain energy on the dancefloor!
Thanks to Sue Tutty and Sean Meade for keeping the G&Ts flowing.
The dinner proved extremely popular and with numbers limited to 140, was
oversubscribed. By agreement with the Old Members’ Office, we therefore planned to
theme July 2020’s College Garden Party around Queen’s women through the ages, to
round off the extended year of celebration. Due to the COVID-19 situation, unfortunately
this event was cancelled. However, we look forward to future Network events to
continue to build on the spirit of celebration and community generated together!
Lobby: Equality and Diversity in Recruitment for Senior Roles
Diversity has received a great deal of attention in the news recently, notably because
of the Black Lives Matter movement, and with the realisation that COVID-19 has been
affecting certain groups of people disproportionately. But how can organisations take
concrete steps to increase the diversity of their leadership and populations? Often,
they start with the largest under-represented population – women – on the basis that,
although each under-represented group faces different challenges and has different
experiences, some of the changes made to increase the representation of women can
act as a contribution towards the systemic changes that will also lead to increases in
representation of other groups.
This was the founding principle on which the Lobby working group – Jackie Rolf
(Modern Languages, 1981), Claire Taylor MBE (Mathematics, 1994) and Sarah
McMahon (Literae Humaniores, 1982) – wanted to build. We looked at the governance
of the College and whether there was an opportunity to make the College’s policies
and procedures more inclusive of diversity. We believe that this work, largely carried
out in 2018-19, will also benefit the College’s current and future work on increasing
diversity in other areas, such as race and socio-economic disadvantage.
92 The Queen’s College | College Record 2020