Rector Trainor looks back at events of his final Long Vacation in post
This Long Vacation, Marguerite’s and my last at Exeter, has been busy for the College – and for us! Apart from our usual holiday in Maine in August, and a fair number of College occasions (of which more below), we have been busy packing up and removing our belongings, a major task after ten busy years. With a great deal of help from Exeter colleagues, we managed to clear out of the Lodgings Flat by the end of July. This allowed Andrew and Pippa Roe to move in, after some redecoration, during August; this provided them with a gradual entry to Exeter – prior to Andrew’s taking up of the Rectorship on 1 October – something we enjoyed a decade ago courtesy of Frances Cairncross and Hamish McRae. Late August and September found Marguerite and myself lodged in cosy but well-furnished accommodation in the Front Quad. Meanwhile, with a bit of luck later today, my office will (just) have been cleared by the deadline of 30 September!
Speaking of Rectors, the summer included a visit to College in July by two of the children of Rector Wheare, Henry Wheare and Philippa Gibbs. After dinner at High Table they showed Marguerite and me where their bedrooms had been as they grew up in the Rector’s Lodgings. Their visit cleared up for us some mysteries of room arrangement and evoked the happy Wheare family atmosphere which – it seems clear from the recollections of many Exonians – spilled over into Rector and Lady Wheare’s friendly and hospitable approach to the Exeter students of the day.
Turning to the University and College scene during the past few months, many alumni will have read of the end of the encampments near the Natural History Museum and the Radcliffe Camera. Both at the University level, and at Exeter, discussions have progressed during the Long Vacation regarding a scholarship scheme, with entry in October 2025, for students from Gaza. There seems to be broadly-based support, among both students and Fellows, for this venture, which will have many similarities to the Ukrainian scholarships running since 2023.
On other matters altogether, fundraising for the College Library continued to progress, greatly assisted by a £500,000 gift from Sir Ronald Cohen (1964, PPE & Honorary Fellow). Another gratifying development was the award to Exeter, for the second year running, of a Gold rating in the University’s Green Impact awards. Peter Nitsche-Whitfield, Sustainability Officer, led the effort prior to his departure for postgraduate study in Italy. We were sorry to lose Peter, but happily his successor Juliet Tye, who brings highly relevant academic background and job experience from Cambridge, is already in post. Another notable Exeter-related environmental plus was the appointment of Hikaru Wakeel Hayakawa, who spent a year at Exeter as part of the Williams College programme, as Executive Director of Climate Cardinals, one of the world’s largest youth-led climate organisations. Also, the recent restoration and renovation of the College Library is being considered for a number of prizes, including shortlisting for the British Construction Industry Awards. Meanwhile, the Exeter College Summer Programme – accommodated now in Turl Street as well as in Cohen Quad – had a bumper crop of students, continuing its run of academic and financial success buttressed by social occasions in Hall and excursions outside Oxford.
Members of Exeter’s Green Impact team with the Gold Award.
Two Exonians emerged as MPs in the UK General Election held on 4 July. Former Cabinet minister Claire Coutinho (2004, Mathematics and Philosophy) was re-elected as Conservative MP for East Surrey and is now Shadow Secretary of State for Climate Change and Net Zero. Newly elected was Chris Murray (2005, Modern Languages), who is now Labour MP for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh. The new Starmer Government is approaching cautiously issues of University funding – including the notorious freezing, for almost a decade, in the UK undergraduate student fee – but has suspended the implementation, scheduled by the previous Government for 1 August 2024, of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023. Statutory duties on colleges and universities to protect free speech remain, however.
With regard to students, most undergraduates are not here during the summer, of course. However, Exeter Finalists obtained 38 Firsts, and many postgraduates secured Distinctions or Merits in their taught degrees. There were four graduation ceremonies, including my final such appearance in that role on 28 September. At the 3 August ceremony, Finance and Estates Bursar Nick Badman very capably stood in for me at the College ceremony in Chapel. In another sphere, the College had its first student University Challenge team for many years, albeit we shall have to wait until 14 October to learn how they have fared. Meanwhile, the summer also saw a successful tour of Sweden and Germany by the College Choir, jointly with counterparts from Exeter’s sister college, Emmanuel Cambridge.
With respect to staff, many of their children participated in the family party on 7 July, as did many of the offspring of Fellows and postgraduates. Likewise there was participation from many categories of the Exeter community in the Late Summer Party on 6 September, which featured a tug of war series of three in which the (increasingly numerous) female side triumphed twice! There were also a very well attended farewell occasion for College Secretary Petronella Spivey – who leaves after six highly productive and very congenial years in mid-October – and my own final cake-and-coffee party this morning, my last day as Rector.
Regarding Fellows, the Royal Society has awarded Professor Dame Molly Stevens (Bionanosciences) the Armourers and Brasiers Company Prize, recognising ‘her achievements in pioneering nanomaterials for ultrasensitive disease diagnostics and advanced therapeutic delivery for the benefit of individuals and society at a global level’. Meanwhile, current and recent Fellows received two of the much sought after European Research Council Starting Grants: Dr Georgia Isom (Pathology; Senior Research Fellow at Exeter) for further work on the key problem of antimicrobial resistant micro-organisms, and Dr Federica Gigante (Asian and Middle Eastern Studies; recently an Exeter Supernumerary Fellow), for a study of slavery’s part in the ‘transmission of things and knowledge from the Islamic world to Europe in the late 16th and 17th centuries’. I also note the shortlisting, for the prestigious Wolfson History Prize, of Courting India: England, Mughal India and the Origins of Empire (Bloomsbury) by Professor Nandini Das (English). Meanwhile, former Exeter Chaplain Rev. Mark Birch secured a prestigious double appointment as Canon Rector of Westminster Abbey and Chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons.
During the summer three scholars associated with Exeter received the coveted Recognition of Distinction, Oxford’s designation of full professorship: Cath Green (Fellow by Special Election), Professor of Clinical Biomanufacturing; Fadi Issa (Lecturer), Professor of Translational Immunology; and Stuart Lee (SCR Member), Professor of English Literature. No Oxford college gained more of these awards than Exeter in this round, and only one secured as many.
From left to right: Professor Catherine Green, Professor Fadi Issa and Professor Stuart Lee
Regarding other achievements by Fellow, I note an article in Science, co-authored by Dr Paula Koelemeijer (Tutorial Fellow in Earth Sciences), on a landslide-induced megatsunami in Greenland; this research, also featured by the BBC, has significant implications for parts of the planet far removed from the Northwest Atlantic. Also, Dr Joanna Weinberg (Hebrew Lecturer), gave a paper in September (with Anthony Grafton) on ‘Collaboration and conflict in the printing house: Johann Buxtorf edits the rabbinic bible (1618-19)’ at the 60th anniversary conference of the Toronto Renaissance and Reformation Colloquium, held in memory of its co-founder, Rev. Dr James McConica, who was a double alumnus of Exeter and an Honorary Fellow. Also recently, Dr Weinberg published (again with Anthony Grafton) ‘I have always loved the Holy Tongue’: Isaac Casaubon, the Jews and a Forgotten chapter in Renaissance Scholarship (Harvard).
A splendid summer event associated with Exeter, which Marguerite and I attended, took the form of a lecture at the British Museum on 19 July by the King of the Ashanti. His Majesty had visited Exeter in May 2023 on the occasion of the unveiling of the photographic and oil portraits of John Kufuor (1963, PPE & Honorary Fellow), former President of Ghana. President Kufuor also attended the lecture, as did his aide Ivor Agyeman-Duah, a long-time friend of Exeter who, since the unveiling, had played an important role – as did Exonian Professor Malcolm McLeod (1965, Social Anthropology) – in securing the return, as long-term loans, to Ghana, from the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum, of Ashanti golden regalia taken by the British in the late 19th century.
A number of Fellows have recently left, or are about to leave, Exeter. Supernumerary Fellow Professor Bojana Mladenovic (Director of the Williams programme) has returned to Massachusetts at the end of her assiduous and hospitable two-year term. Among departing Governing Body Fellows, Professor Dapo Akande (who taught Law and Public Policy at Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government and enthusiastically looked after his postgraduate advisees at Exeter) has taken up a Fellowship at All Souls after appointment to the University’s Statutory Chair in International Law. After three high-achieving years in College, Dr Edith Chen (Boskey Fellow in History), has taken up a tenure-track appointment at the University of Utah. Professor Andrew Farmer (General Practice) is retiring: he has played an active role in College, serving on committees and providing extra teaching and general encouragement to Exeter’s medical students. Also retiring is Dr Michael Hart (Politics), Exeter’s Senior Fellow, who is completing 42 years of service to the College and to the Department of Politics and International Relations. A former Proctor and Sub-Rector, Michael has been a devoted Politics tutor, as reflected in a very well-attended and enthusiastic gathering of PPE alumni at Exeter in June.
Happily both Andrew and Michael will become Emeritus Fellows from October, and there are many other additions to the Fellowship. For example, the Long Vacation saw the announcement of four new Honorary Fellows, major participants in College deliberations, each of whom is also a major philanthropist to Exeter: Dr Jonathan Hall (1993, Physics & Philosophy; a member of the Financial Policy Committee of the Bank of England and of the College’s Development Committee and Campaign Board); Bart Holaday (1965, PPE, Rhodes Scholar; long-serving adviser on Exeter’s development efforts); Charles Outhwaite (1984, Modern History; member of the College’s Development Committee and Campaign Board); and Peter Thompson (long-time friend of the College and member of Exeter’s Campaign Board).
The College also announced the first five Prideaux Fellows, recognising substantial philanthropic contributions to the College as well as more general beneficial effects on society. They are: Mike Coleman (1979, Geology); Cheryl Kloppenburg, widow of Henry Kloppenburg (1968, BCL); Harish Salve KC (long-standing friend of the College); Biz Stone (co-founder of Twitter, friend of the College and frequent speaker at Exeter); and Dr Bernard Wolfe (1958, Medicine, Rhodes Scholar; Emeritus Professor of Medicine at the University of Western Ontario).
The new academic year will see the advent of a substantial number of new Exeter Fellows. Those who will be Governing Body Fellows are: Professor Ann Kelly (Fellow by Special Election; Associate Professor in Medical Anthropology), from King’s College London; Dr Sandra Kiefer (Tutorial Fellow in Computing Science), most recently a research fellow at Jesus College Oxford; Dr Lukas Krone (Staines Medical Research Fellow), from a research post in Oxford’s Department of Physiology, Anatomy, and Genetics; Dr Joseph Leidy (Boskey Fellow in Modern Global History) from a research position in Oxford’s History Faculty; Professor Laura Sjoberg (Politics & International Relations), from Royal Holloway University of London; Dr Florian Trouvain (Tutorial Fellow in Economics), most recently a ‘postdoc’ at Princeton University; and Professor Philippa Webb (Associate Professor in Law & Public Policy at the Blavatanik School of Government and former Visiting Fellow of Exeter) from King’s College London.
The new Supernumerary Fellows are: Professor Sam Crane (Politics; Director of the Williams Exeter Programme at Oxford [WEPO]); Dr George Green (Archaeological Science); Dr Sarah Howles (previously Staines Medical Research Fellow at Exeter; a Wellcome Trust Clinical Career Development Fellow and Honorary Consultant Urological Surgeon); Professor Meghan Pandit (Clinical Medicine; Chief Executive, Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust); Professor Arathi Sriprakash (Professor of the Sociology of Education); Dr Jake Taylor (Astrophysics); and Professor Richard White (Professor of Genetics, Nuffield Department of Medicine).
In addition, Exeter will also welcome four new Visiting Fellows: Dr Ariel Khan (Creative Writing, Middlesex University); Dr Deborah Gabriel (founder of Black British Academics, a global community working to enhance equity and social justice in higher education); alumna Dr Sally Seraphin (1999, Human Biology; Biosciences, Trinity College Hartford Connecticut); and alumnus Professor Herman Salton (2007, MPhil International Relations; ICU Tokyo).
Also with regard to alumni, I note with great sadness, among other recently deceased Exonians, the death on 31 July of Sir Colin Maiden (1955, Engineering DPhil, Rhodes Scholar & Honorary Fellow). Sir Colin was a highly distinguished engineering researcher, a respected company board member, and the very influential long-standing vice-chancellor of the University of Auckland.
Much more happily, I record some of the distinctions recently achieved by Exeter alumni. Professor Philomen Probert (1991, Literae Humaniores & 1995, MPhil, in General Linguistics and Comparative Philology; Oxford’s Professor of Classical Philology and Linguistics), was elected a Fellow of the British Academy. Professor Merata Kawharu (1994, DPhil in Social and Cultural Anthropology, Rhodes Scholar) was appointed Deputy Vice-chancellor Maori of Lincoln University in New Zealand. Also, Hila Levy (2008, MSc Biology, Rhodes Scholar; Assistant Director for International Affairs at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service), co-authored an important article in Science on ‘Mainstreaming nature in US federal policy’.
The summer also brought visits to Exeter from alumni, including: Janet Ho (2003, Jurisprudence), Professor David Rose (1978, DPhil in Biophysics), and Lydia Stephens (2011, Literae Humaniores). Also, many alumni who matriculated between 1985 and 1989 attended the very sociable Gaudy on 21 September, which was addressed by Robert Tansey (1989, Philosophy and Modern Languages).
This is my final article for E-news. Looking back on the past decade, Marguerite and I prize our very numerous contacts with Exonians – at High Table, gaudies and other Oxford events, at occasions elsewhere in the UK, on our many trips abroad, and online. Your welcomes to us have been uniformly enthusiastic. Alumni form a crucial part of the Exeter family– including for philanthropy, of course (a key feature of a modestly endowed college) but also in many other ways. Your loyalty and enthusiasm go a long way towards ensuring that Exeter retains a vibrant community supporting a caring, high-achieving, and ambitious college. It has been a great privilege, and a huge pleasure, for Marguerite and me to be associated with you. Fortunately this is au revoir rather than goodbye as Exeter has elected me to an Honorary Fellowship from October, and Marguerite will continue to enjoy her lifelong membership of the SCR. Floreat Exon – and a very warm welcome to Andrew and Pippa Roe!
Rick Trainor
Rector 2014-24
Rector Trainor and Professor Dupree say au revoir to members of College at a farewell tea on Rector Trainor’s last day in post
