Professor Susan (Sue) Gillingham, Fellow and Tutor in Theology, recently heard that she had been awarded the highest degree of the University – the Doctor of Divinity.

Four books and ten articles have to be submitted and are judged by two or three international experts outside Oxford. The work has to ‘constitute an original contribution to the advancement of theological knowledge of such substance and distinction as to give the candidate an authoritative status in this branch of learning’. All of the work submitted demonstrated Professor Gillingham’s different approaches to studies of the Psalms, and illustrated their implications for the study of the religion and literature of the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible in general. The judgement in this case was ‘unequivocal and emphatic’. Over the last ninety years there have been only seventy-six successful applications, and seventy-four of these have been achieved by men. The other woman was the recent Regius Professor of Divinity who is now working again in America. This makes Professor Gillingham the first British woman to have been awarded this degree. Sue received her degree formally in the Sheldonian Theatre on 1 August.