Hilary Term 2023 e-News
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23rd March 2023
Hilary Term 2023 e-News
Spring has arrived at Worcester, and so this Hilary e-newsletter is sent to you from a College bathed in sunshine, with scilla and daffodils at every turn. In this edition of our newsletter you will read about a plethora of publications, alumni achievements and an update on student news. There is also is a story about our new Shrove Tuesday celebration: the pancake race in the Quad. Sadly I did not win the trophy but we all very much hope the event will become an annual fixture!
We were delighted to welcome HRH Sultan Nazrin Shah (1976, PPE) back to College last month, to celebrate the publication of his new book, Globalization and the Rise, Relative Decline, and Regeneration of Perak. It will be published by Oxford University Press in 2023. I look forward to seeing many of you at one of our up-coming events, both in the US and back in College next term.
With all best wishes and, as ever, thank-you for your support for Worcester.
David Isaac CBE, Provost
College news
Viola Kerr appointed as Development Director
We are delighted to announce the appointment of Viola Kerr as the new Development Director of Worcester College. Viola joins us from Regent’s Park College in Oxford where she is currently Director of Development and Alumni Relations. She brings significant experience initiating fundraising strategies, developing relationships with donors and establishing innovative alumni relations programmes, working both within Oxford and beyond.
Viola will play a key role in devising and leading a new Development strategy and plan, which are essential components in the delivery of the College’s five-year strategic plan. Everyone at Worcester looks forward to working with Viola when she joins the College in May 2023.
Worcester’s first pancake race
Introducing a brand-new tradition… the Worcester College Pancake Race! The challenge was a lap of the lawn, with a pancake flip on each corner. Four heats whittled down our competitors to four finalists: the Provost competed alongside staff and students, but it was 1st-year PPE student Jay who took home the trophy.
Worcester calling… Telethon 2023 begins
If you recently received a pre-call email from the Development Team, you’ll know that from now until March 27, a team of Worcester students will be calling hundreds of Old Members from all around the world. Should you be called by one of our student callers, please spare them a few minutes to chat, and if your circumstances allow, do consider making a gift to College. If you haven’t received a pre-call email, you can still be part of the Telethon – please visit our website to make a gift and to meet the calling team!
Successor to ‘The Silk Roads’
Professor Peter Frankopan, Senior Research Fellow at Worcester, has published a new book on 2 March, The Earth Transformed. This ground-breaking book takes a fresh look at the history of humankind, with climate and the natural environment front and centre. Don’t miss Peter in conversation with the Provost at Oxford Literary Festival on 2 April – tickets available now.
Listen to the Provost’s Provcast
The latest podcast from the Provost is now available on the University Podcasts webpage – the new home of the Provcast! In February the Provost talked to Professor Christopher Reed, the Terra Visiting Professor of American Art 2022-23, about his Study Day and upcoming lectures.
Meet our new Junior Research Fellow
Dr Maximilian Lau is Junior Research Fellow in Medieval History at Worcester College and Co-Investigator of the AHRC Research Project: Noblesse Oblige? ‘Barons’ and the Public Good in Medieval Afro-Eurasia. He teaches for the Faculty of History and the Department of Late Antique and Byzantine Studies, is a senior member of the common room of St Cross College, and head coach of the Worcester College Boat Club!
Read more about Max’s research project
New Hymn Books in Chapel
The current Hymn Books have been in use in the Chapel continuously since 1985 and the time has come to replace them. The Chapel will be purchasing a complete set of new books for current and future students at Worcester, which will go into circulation at the beginning of Trinity Term 2023, and will be used in all service for the next 40 years. If you would like to support the purchase of these books with a donation, we are offering the opportunity for your name, or the name of someone you wish to be remembered, to be printed on a bespoke book plate on the inside of one of our new Hymn Books.
Student news
Organ Scholar off to Exeter Cathedral
Congratulations to Giles Longstaff (2022, Music) who will be joining Exeter Cathedral as their Organ Scholar in September. Giles is currently in his final year reading Music at Worcester and is the Chapel’s Organ Scholar. The intimate space of the College Chapel is a far cry from the nave at Exeter, where Giles will be playing the Grand Organ, first constructed in 1665 and today containing over 4,000 pipes.
Canon Precentor at Exeter Cathedral, James Mustard, said: “We’re all so pleased to be welcoming Giles to Exeter Cathedral later this year. His experience as a Chorister at York, and his time both as a student and Organ Scholar at Worcerster College will have set him up well for this role. He’s coming to a busy cathedral and, though he will be learning from us, we also look forward to learning from him.” We wish Giles all the best in this exciting new role.
Most successful Boat Club in Torpids 2023
Worcester College Boat Club took the river by storm, outshining all the other clubs to be the most successful overall in this year’s Torpids racing. Four crews qualified for the event and together they rose 20 places from their starting position. All of the crews went up the rankings and coveted blades were won by Men’s 1st Torpid, Men’s 2nd Torpid and Women’s 2nd Torpid, who bumped up 7 places into a brand-new division!
“This was an exceptional week for WCBC,” said Meg Savage, Vice-Captain of Boats. “Since Covid, we’ve been building the club back up and training hard and it was really emotional to see all of our work finally paying off.”
MCR football team win the Cuppers final
Congratulations to our MCR Football team who were the victors in this weekend’s Cuppers Final! The team were at the top of their game, securing a 2-1 victory in a very exciting match.
Blues Rugby at Worcester
Amazing news that five students from Worcester have been selected to play in this year’s Varsity Matches for Oxford University.
Jamie Lloyd Williams will be playing in the Men’s team, and in the Women’s team no fewer than four Worcester women: Iona Bennett, Clara Strømsted, Alex Travers and Stella Farmer. Come and support our Worcester students on the 25 March 12pm at the home of rugby in Twickenham. It’s a great day out!
Old Members
Supporting Ukraine
Old Member Brooks Newmark (1980) has been courageously moving women and children to safety from Zaporzhzhia, Dnipro and Kharkiv by picking them up in a coach and driving them to safely. You can watch more of Brooks’ story on YouTube.
New tender tribute to TV soap star
Russell T Davies OBE (1981, English) has directed and produced a new three-part drama Nolly about Noele Gordon from Crossroads. Writing in The Guardian, Rebecca Nicholson said: “After his brilliant drama about the Aids crisis in Britain, It’s a Sin, was such a hit, one can only imagine the options that writer Russell T Davies had for what to do next. He returned to Doctor Who, of course, but I love the fact that first, he chose to make the wonderful, idiosyncratic Nolly, a tender tribute to the TV soap star Noele Gordon, who died in 1985.” The title role is played by Helena Bonham-Carter, and ‘Nolly’ is being streamed on ITVX on 10 February.
Knighthood for Master of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge
Old Member Sir John Benger (1982, English) has been elected as the 40th Master of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge and will take up the position in October this year. Sir John is also an alumnus of St Catharine’s, where he read English before coming to Worcester for his PGCE and DPhil on sixteenth-century radical Protestant literature.
Following his doctoral studies, Sir John joined the House of Commons Service in 1986; since 2019 he has been the Clerk of the House. In this role, he has served not only as the chief adviser to the House on matters of parliamentary procedure, but as head of the service which employs 3,000 people from pastry chefs to chaplains, setting him up well for life at the head of a college. Sir John was appointed Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath for services to Parliament in the 2023 New Year Honours List. We wish him the best of luck in his new role!
Artist curates exhibition on behalf Ashmolean Museum
Worcester’s Honorary Fellow Anne Desmet RA (1983, Fine Art) has curated a new exhibition at the St Barbe Museum in Lymington, featuring 120 works from the Ashmolean’s collection of prints, plus loans from private collections, by leading artist-engravers from the 1790s right up to the present. ‘Scene Through Wood’ marks 100 years since the founding of the Society of Wood Engravers in 1920 and celebrates one of the most astonishingly skillful and richly creative forms of visual art. Featured artists include William Blake, M. C. Escher and Peter Blake, Gertrude Hermes RA, Gwen Raverat and Edwina Ellis.
‘Rant Against the Regime’ blog
Emeritus Professor of English and Cultural Studies Kirk Combe (1983, English) launches a new Substack blog. The blog is a weekly post exploring issues of Culture and Education through the lens of various cultural theories. “While I always shoot for entertaining and whimsical in my tone (maybe tending, at times, toward sardonic and barbed), I never back away from sophisticated and provoking in my content (on movies, literature, politics, current events, educational issues, sports, and so forth). In many ways, this blog stems from my most recent academic book, Speculative Satire in Contemporary Literature and Film: Rant Against the Regime.”
Old Members’ publications
The Art of Conversation: How to have better conversations by James Wyatt (1993, Mathematics)
In an entertaining and thought-provoking style, this book considers some controversial topics in a way that shifts attention away from what is right and wrong to highlight the failings in our approach. “When our connected world should be bringing us closer together, polarised opinions and dysfunctional conversations are pushing us further apart. The Art of Discussion has never been more important.”
Parfit: A Philosopher and His Mission to Save Morality by David Edmonds (1983, PPE)
From the bestselling co-author of Wittgenstein’s Poker, an entertaining and illuminating biography of a brilliant philosopher who tried to rescue morality from nihilism Derek Parfit (1942–2017) is the most famous philosopher most people have never heard of.
Dear Mother Law by Professor Ayse Odman Boztosun (1995, Law)
The book explains the basic mechanism of rule of law by referring to the relevant provisions of the Turkish Constitution (Constitution is called ‘Mother Law’ in Turkish) It was published three years ago in Turkish, the fifth edition has just recently been released. It has been published as an e-book on Amazon Kindle.
Pastor Tillich: The Justification of the Doubter by Sam Shearn (2014, Theology)
The book tells the story of German-American theologian Paul Tillich (1886-1965) and his early theological development from his student days until the end of the First World War, set against the backdrop of church politics in pre-war Germany and with particular reference to his early sermons. Using a wealth of hitherto untranslated German sources, the book explores Tillich’s theological interpretation of religious doubt to present a significantly original, contextualised account of Tillich’s early life in Germany.
Upcoming events
For the latest event updates and information, and to book your place, please visit the Alumni Events page of the College website.
