Issu

e 32

Spr

ing/

Sum

mer

201

2

DF

Durham First – the magazine for alumni and friends of Durham University

KLUTE GOES UPMARKETToday’s students outraged

CAN YOU TELL IF YOUR CHILD IS GAY?Sex research centre opens

DURHAM ROWERSFrom 1815 to the 2012 Olympics

Welcome to the Diversity Edition of Durham First. You know as well as I do that Durham is special.Research-intensive and intellectuallydemanding, but with a uniquecollegiate system that allows studentshere the space and support to do more than just grow up while getting a degree. Durham creates diverseopportunities for people to develop in unexpected ways.

Many Durham alumni had never rowedbefore they came here, and it is thiswonderfully photogenic aspect of Durhamlife that we celebrate on the cover and inthis edition’s photo story. Most people giveup rowing when they graduate, but, for acommitted few, it becomes their life’s work.Alumnus Stephen Rowbotham arrived as a tennis player but took up an oar for thefirst time while at Durham and went on to become an Olympic bronze medallist.(Read more about Stephen and our alumniOlympic hopefuls on page 21.)

But diversity is about far more than theopportunity to try new sports and pastimes.There is Richard Adams (page 16), whotook inspiration from the Christian traditionat St John’s and created the Fairtrademovement. There is Professor Sheikha Al-Misnad (page 4), who used her DurhamPhD to develop a vision of Arab education

that she is now putting into practice as thefirst female president of Qatar University.And then there is the opening of the researchCentre for Sex, Gender and Sexualities(page 18) pioneered by Professor Jo Phoenix,it shows how Durham can lead the way byasking (and answering) some of society’smost challenging questions.

As we launch our international search for 40 new professors and other membersof our academic staff (see VCQs above), it is an ideal time to celebrate how diversewe have always been.

We hope this edition reminds you of what a great time you had when you were here.

Astrid Alvarez, Co-Editordurham.editor@durham.ac.uk

From theAlumniRelationsManager

02

Q:What does it mean for Durham to join the Russell Group?

A: The Russell Group is often branded by thepress as representing the elite universitiesand many people therefore assumedDurham was already a member. However,as the Russell Group was established as a grouping of leading research universitieswith a medical school, so Durham (whosemedical school became part of NewcastleUniversity in 1963) was excluded. The Russell Group has recently agreed toexpand its membership from 20 to 24 toensure it really does represent the leadingresearch-intensive universities in the UKwhich, of course, had to include Durham.

I am sure our membership will strengthenthe influence of the Russell Group, but itwill also benefit Durham in many ways.First, I and senior staff will be able to meet regularly and share insights with theleaders of other leading UK universities,including Oxbridge, with a similar research-intensive ethos to ours. Second,membership will give us a much strongervoice politically, with government and non-government organisations, to promote ourvalues of true excellence in research andeducation. Third, it will help our brand and profile internationally, where Durham is perhaps less well known than it shouldbe. Finally, expansion of the Russell Group

establishes an unambiguous grouping ofthe leading universities in the UK, and of course that is where Durham belongs as the University becomes a leading global player.

Q:How has Durham University prepareditself for the new student fees regime?

A: The new student fee structure only appliesto a proportion of our students, specificallyhome/EU undergraduates. We knew thesechanges were coming and as studentswould now be paying the full cost of their education (rather than receivinggovernment subsidies for a significant partof their education) it was clear that studentexpectations would be enhanced. I trust weare well prepared.

Educationally, we are launching aninternational recruitment drive for 40 new professors and other academic staff(www.joindurham.com) to strengthen our research and teaching base. We haveinvested substantially in new facilities – a stunning library extension has recentlyopened, nearly doubling the size of thelibrary and providing state-of-the art studentwork spaces, as well as expansion of thelibrary on Stockton campus; a new studentservices centre (the Palatine centre) whichwill open this summer, bringing together allthe student-facing services into one central

and purpose-designed location includingcareers, international office, disability andcounselling services, and academic supportservices; our new centre of sportingexcellence, opened by the Minister for Sport and the Olympics at Maiden Castleand a new Olympic quality indoor sportshall at Stockton; and a major rollingprogramme of refurbishment of Collegerooms, JCRs and other facilities to enhancethe student experience more generally.

Finally, we have put in place one of themost generous bursary and scholarshipschemes of any UK university to supportundergraduates whose financialcircumstances would otherwise make itdifficult for them to accept the place theyhave won at Durham, part of our strategy to ensure Durham admits the most ablestudents with greatest potential irrespective of background. I am pleased to say that ouralumni and friends have been particularlygenerous in supporting student scholarshipsand bursaries. For example, a localbusinessman, Bob Young, has provided a £1 million endowment to ensure financialconstraints do not limit the opportunity of students from County Durham who win a place to join our College and Universitycommunities.

Professor Chris HigginsVice-Chancellor and Warden

Vice-Chancellor’s Questions

03

FEATURES REGULARSTHE DIVERSITY EDITION04 Icon Sheikha Al-Misnad, President of Qatar University

07 The First BA in Africa? NS Davis has been found!

08 Rowing through Time A photo essay

12 The Big New Alumni Benefit Journals online for free

13 Klute Goes Upmarket Today’s students outraged

14 The Great North Book How you helped bring the Lindisfarne Gospelsto Durham

16 What Are Universities For?Richard Adams – Founder of Traidcraft

18 Can You Tell if Your Child is Gay? Sex research centre opens

21 Ones to watch at the Olympics Our alumni contenders

22 Leaving Durham a Legacy Would you consider leaving a gift to Durham in your will?

23 Research + Impact = Money Help solve the equation

02 VCQs Questions to the Vice-Chancellor

02 From the Alumni Relations ManagerWelcome to the Diversity Edition of Durham First

24 Experience Durham Student achievement in sport, music, the arts and volunteering

26 News in BriefAlumni and University news

Back Cover – Alumni Events CalendarDates for your diary

Opinions expressed are those of individual writers. Requests for reproducing material should be made to the Alumni Relations Office, where permission will usually be given.

Front cover image: University College Rowing Crew 1895.

16

04 13

18

14

08 21

EDITORSAstrid AlvarezAlumni Relations ManagerDavid WilliamsDevelopment Communications ManagerDEPUTY EDITORTim GuinanAlumni Relations Officer

IMAGESAndrew Bennison and George Ledger (Contemporary sports and rowingimages page 11)Angus Alexander Macfarlane-Grieve(1891-1970)(Historical rowing images page 10)Andrew Heptinstall(Rowing tank image page 9 andRichard Adams)Ali Mohamed E Hussein (Sheikha Abdulla Al-Misnad)

DESIGNCrombie www.crombiecreative.com

PRINTElanders www.elanders.com

CONTACT USAlumni enquiries/Letters to the EditorAlumni Relations TeamDurham University, University OfficeOld Elvet, Durham DH1 3HPT: +44 (0) 191 334 6305F: +44 (0) 191 334 6073E: alumni.office@durham.ac.uk durham.editor@durham.ac.ukW: www.durham.ac.uk/alumni www.dunelm.org.uk© Durham University 2012

04

It’s got Al Jazeera, the 2022 World Cup and enough gas and oil to make its citizens the richest in the world, but one of Qatar’sother big claims to fame is that its national university has a female president. David Williams talks to Durham alumna Sheikha Abdulla Al-Misnad about being a leader in Arab education.

IconSheikha Al-MisnadPresident of Qatar University

05

At the moment, Qatar has the resourcesto do more or less what it likes, and whatit has chosen to do is offer a kind ofintellectual direction to the Arab world.In Al Jazeera, it has the most influentialmedia outfit in the Middle East; it hascreated a Museum of Islamic Art, buyingup the best examples from around theworld; and it is using its wealth to secureits place as a diplomatic and militaryleader in the region (it sent four jets to support NATO intervention in Libyain 2011). Eventually, however, the gas will run out.

What then for the 250,000 or so Qatarinationals and the million-plus ex-patriotworkers who support them?

‘We have to be competitive,’ says SheikhaAl-Misnad (PhD Education, St Aidan’s,1984). ‘We are blessed with economicresources, but we have yet to developfully our range of professional humanresources. The only way for Qataris todrive their country’s economic growth isto be competitive. We live in a resource-based economy, but we are aware that the resources will run out eventually. We are a small country in an increasinglyglobalized world. If we are not competitivein the knowledge economy, everythingwe have now in terms of economicresources and our progress as a modernnation would be in jeopardy. For us Qataris,it is the only way to survive in the future.’

Since becoming the first female Presidentof Qatar University in 2003, Sheikha Al-Misnad has continually stressed threefundamentals: the University has toproduce competitive graduates; it has todo world-leading and relevant research;and, in order to drive up standards, it hasto pursue international accreditation.

‘Research,’ she says in one of her speeches,‘must go beyond publication in specialisedand sophisticated journals. In fact, [it]should be used as the platform for solvingsocial, economic, ecological, andtechnology issues and problems that we face.’

‘Excellence ishonesty thatmust be seriouslyobserved.’

‘For us to add value to world knowledge,we should capitalise on our comparativeadvantages,’ she explains in person.

‘For example, we can research newways to protect and sustain the marineenvironment. In the social sciences, wehave established a social and economicsurvey institute that studies how theattitudes of Qatari people are changingduring what is probably the fastest socialtransformation in history. By focusing on our local strengths, we can contributeto human knowledge globally.

‘Knowledge and science and discoveriesare human. They have no race, no colour,no religion, and they are fast changingall over the world. So when you produceknowledge as an academic institution,you have to share it globally. If you wantto be a forward-looking institution andone that is in tune with the times, youhave to link yourself to international

bodies; otherwise you cannot function as a knowledge-based entity. Universitieswere global even before the word globalbecame trendy.’

Her Durham PhD was titled TheDevelopment of Modern Education in theGulf States with Special Reference to Women’sEducation and was published by Ithaca,going on to become one of the keyintellectual resources for those interestedin education in the region. But it wasbecoming University President that gaveher the opportunity to put her ideas intopractice – the biggest moment of hercareer. In a decade, she has taken theUniversity from what she describes as a

‘traditional institution’ (where learningwas by rote memorization, administrationwas centralised and there was no roomfor new ideas) to one that is poised tobecome one of the leading intellectualinstitutions in the region. To achieve this,she has had to fight both the inertia of traditional culture and the entropy of wealth.

This is her maxim: ‘Excellence is honestythat must be seriously observed.’

‘In our part of the world, we do not liketo speak openly about problems or to admit that there are sometimeschallenges and mistakes,’ she explains.

‘For me, honesty is about doing what yousay you will do. When you say we willproduce 1,000 new graduates, you have to make sure that they are reallycompetent graduates and not justnumbers. This is my struggle. How do we achieve genuine excellence? You cannot reach excellence withoutfacing challenges honestly.’

Then there is the entropy of wealth. ‘The youth of this country are perhapsthe luckiest youth on earth,’ she says.

‘For education, for jobs, for promotion –the opportunities are limitless for young Qataris. This is why I emphasisecompetitiveness in the global knowledgeeconomy. The comfort of the life weenjoy now makes it more challenging to promote motivation and hard work.’

And then, of course, there is the habitualquestion of female education in the Arab world. At Qatar University, at the undergraduate level, lectures aredelivered separately to male and femalestudents and there are women’s and men’scampuses. (The women have a Starbucks,the men don’t – and grumble about it.)

But ask her about her own experienceand you get short shrift. ‘Why thisfascination with a woman’s position andstatus in the Muslim world?’ she asks.

‘Whenever I go to conferences ormeetings, the first thing journalists ask isabout women. In the West, they have thisstereotype that a woman in the MiddleEast must be secluded, neglected,marginalised or demoralised. I am surethis is the case in some societies – Muslimand otherwise. But I must admit that thishas simply not been my experience. I havenever felt that I have been discriminatedagainst because I am a woman.

‘In this country, 75 per cent of universitystudents are women, most of the engineersare women, most of the doctors arewomen, most of the accountants arewomen. And although I am sure thereare women who experience injustice inthe Arab world, often alongside povertyand lack of education, that same injusticefalls on men too. Women in the Arabworld, and especially the Gulf area, are much stronger than how they areperceived in the West.’

She talks about the pre-oil days, when the men were away diving for pearls fromJune to October and the women wereindependent and managed the family’saffairs. And she talks about the povertyand danger: how the pearl divers alwaysowed money to the owners of the boatsand how, if a man died, his widow mighthave to marry the boat owner to settlethe family’s debts. And she talks abouthow her father’s generation had thehardest life on earth, living in the deserton only dates and fish, and of the deathsfrom famine during the Second WorldWar. And you do think, why not them,the children and grandchildren of pearldivers, who were some of the poorest andmost vulnerable people on earth, whyshould they not be the lucky ones now?

‘Do you know what sometimes comes tomy mind?’ she says. ‘My mother is stillalive. She got married at 13 and sawnothing of the world apart from theinside of her house. And my daughter is in the same family, and she got hergraduate education in the United States.The people of that era are livingpeacefully and happily with the youth of today.

‘This new generation is so different. Theyare more assertive, more self-confident,they express themselves freely, they havehigh expectations of what they want andthey want to have a role in the world.This is what we wanted to happen. This isgood. This is the generation that will bemore innovative, more creative, morecritical in their thinking. Education and the internet have opened their eyesto completely new worlds. They havediscovered that they can say theiropinion and that they can be differentand that there is nothing wrong withbeing different. In the past, youth mayhave been marginalized, but today theyare have started to express themselvesand they want to be treated with respectand have their opinion respected. Theyouth in the Arab world are discoveringthemselves. I am not saying it is going tobe easy, by the way; it will take anothertwo decades of turmoil for something toevolve which can contain all of them, andI don’t know what that will be. I don’tthink anyone knows. We are just at thebeginning of that process of revolution.When I see my graduates on Twitter oron Facebook, I know that we are seeing a new generation.’

‘The youth in the Arab world are discovering themselves… We are just at the beginning of that process of revolution.’

06

07

The FirstBA in Africa?NS Davis has been found!

Two editions ago, in June 2011, we asked if you could help usprove that Durham created the first BA in Africa. At that point,we only knew that the graduate’s name was NS Davis. However,after a big response from Durham First readers, we now knowmore. Matthew Andrews takes up the story.

Fourah Bay College, Freetown, Sierra Leone, founded in 1827 by the ChurchMissionary Society as a much-revisedversion of a pre-existing school called the Christian Institution, was affiliated to Durham University on 16 May 1876.

By the time of its affiliation, the Collegehad already gained a strong reputation in the region and earned for Freetown the title of the ‘Athens of Africa’.

On being affiliated to Durham, Fourah Bay became a broader institution, with a curriculum embracing a wide range oftopics including ‘Latin, Greek, Hebrew,Arabic, French, German, ComparativePhilology, History and Geography, as wellas Moral Philosophy, Political Economy,Logic, Mathematics, Music, and somebranches of Natural Science’.

The first six students to graduate wereconferred their awards in December 1878; one student gained a Bachelor ofArts and the remaining five received theLicentiate in Theology. That BA graduatewas Nathaniel Davis, who was ordainedsometime shortly afterwards. Davis wenton to become a tutor at Fourah Bay College.

The Durham University Journal (the officialjournal of Durham University 1876 and1995) carried the remarks from the sub-warden of the time on these first degrees,and we quote: ‘these students were pure

Negroes, and this would be the firstinstance of their having obtained actualdegrees in any of the universities, and he could not help but feel this spoke well for civilisation and Christianity inCentral Africa’.

Sadly, the University’s actions also attractedracist attacks. CE Whiting recorded in hishistory of the University (Sheldon Press,1932) the comments in a Londonnewspaper, criticising the action of the Senate… ‘that the next step wouldprobably be the affiliation of the Zoo’.

Students at Fourah Bay continued to takeDurham degrees until 1969, when studentsthen started to take degrees from theUniversity of Sierra Leone, to which theCollege had become affiliated in 1966.

To return to our original question, thehistory of Fourah Bay, and indeed whetherit awarded the first BA in Africa, is closelyrelated to the establishment of anotherWest African educational institution,Liberia College. This was an American-funded institution founded in 1851, but which did not admit students until1863. A somewhat sporadic success, it graduated only ten students between1866 and 1902.

To determine whether Durham created the first BA in Africa, we still need to askfurther questions. First, what education

was provided by Liberia College in thisperiod? Liberia College, although not assuccessful as Fourah Bay, did produce‘graduates’ earlier; but what was the statusof these degrees?

Second, although we now have an imageof Nathaniel Davis (see above) from thearchives of Palace Green Library, it wouldbe wonderful to find out what else is knownabout him. The University Calendar recordssome of the simple facts of his career, but did he leave traces anywhere else?

So once again, we are asking for your help. Do you know anything about LiberiaCollege or the life and achievements ofNathaniel Davis? We would love to hearfrom you: durham.editor@durham.ac.uk

This DF article is based on a fascinatingarticle by Matthew Andrews (MASeventeenth-Century Studies, St Chad’s,1997-98 and BA Philosophy & Theology,St Chad’s, 1994-97). Matthew iscurrently studying part-time for a DPhil at Oxford University in the development of English higher education during thenineteenth century, with a particularfocus on the foundation and growth of Durham University. The original article is available on request and can be viewed in full atwww.dunelm.org.uk/dfissue32/fourahbay

Pictured: the late Rev. NS Davis, MA formerly a tutor at Fourah Bay College.

ROWING THROUGH

TIME08

University Boat Club, Grand Challenge Cup Winners, 1860

It’s a Durham thing. Maybe you hadn’trowed before you came here anddidn’t pick up a blade again after youleft, but in the three or four years inbetween it was out of bed before dawnand – ‘next stroke, easy oar, drop’ –just before lectures.

It’s always been a Durham thing. Didyou know the Regatta started in 1815as an informal procession of boats tocelebrate victory at Waterloo? There iseven a painting of the event (see page 11),

and we have taken this as the startingpoint for a meandering photo tourthrough Durham’s rowing, past and future.

The course includes the magnificentlystatic Grand Challenge Cup winners of 1860 and the first live-action shots of the 1920s, when the only equipment a coach needed was a loud-hailer andthe élan to wear his shorts in the snow.From there we come straight up to datewith an image of the beautiful curves

that can be seen at Queen’s Campus in Stockton-on-Tees and the first shotsof our very latest coaching technology:a powered, indoor rowing-tank. Costing£1 million and one of only three in theUK, the tank can generate water speedsof up to three metres per second and it is the centre-piece of a range of newsporting facilities at Maiden Castle.

To read more about our alumnicontenders see page 21.

09Grey College Men’s Crew in the newrowing tank at Maiden Castle 2012.

10 An Informal Procession of Boats on the River Wear to Celebrate the Victory of Waterloo (1815)Oil on canvas, by Edmund Hastings (1781-1861)

11

12

JSTOR is a service that allows all Durham alumni and retiredstaff to access thousands of electronic journals courtesy of Dunelm Community and Durham University Library.

This service will allow you to accessa wealth of information, enablingyou to keep up to date with recentresearch developments fromDurham University and beyond.

Used by millions for research,teaching and learning and withmore than a thousand academicjournals and over one millionimages, letters, and other primarysources, JSTOR is one of theworld’s most trusted sourcesfor academic content.

REGISTER NOWYou need to be registered and loggedon to Dunelm online community to access JSTOR. Once you are, this service is free to use and canbe accessed anywhere in the world.

For more information please visitwww.dunelm.org.uk/jstor

THE BIG NEWALUMNI BENEFITJournals are now available online for free!

‘Having JSTOR is the single mostbrilliantly useful thing you coulddo for alumni! Real open accessto life-long #research #learning’(@pamfic via twitter)

KLUTE GOES UPMARKET A new sign, smart décor, new cocktails, contemporary music. What is happening at Durham’s favouritestudent nightclub? Future alumna and Palatinate writer, Frances Weetman (Economics and Politics,Collingwood, 2010- ) reports on the changes and the student reaction.

On a cold, depressing day in earlyJanuary, news struck. The managementof Durham’s famous nightclub Kluteannounced a radical change to its format.The club was being given a facelift andwas to be transformed into a haven forcontemporary, ‘popular’ music. And onething was for certain: the students werenot happy about it. Amazingly theyweren’t objecting simply because theyliked the way it used to be. They wereobjecting because Klute had become aDurham University institution. Durhamwithout “their” Klute didn’t seem likeDurham at all.

This strong emotional attachment to theclub is all the more surprising as Klute is famous for being ‘Europe’s WorstNightclub’. (It was originally the secondworst but got promoted when its rival in Eastern Europe burnt to the ground.)

Recent generations of alumni willremember Klute as being anuncompromising club that watched whatother mainstream nightclubs were doing,and then said no to them all. Klute didthings the Klute way. It didn’t care forpretentions, or how you were dressed.It was the place for a wonderfully off-beatnight out, without the pressure to listento ‘popular’ music or to dress à la mode.

By removing the quirkiness, enforcing a dress code and infusing the club withpopular music, my contemporaries and I feared the worst. Durham was surely tolose one of its (other) greatest institutions.

So, has it really changed so much? In some senses, yes. Many of Klute’sendearing and signature features havepassed into the annals of Durham history.The graduation boards that proudlywelcomed you into Klute’s entrance,signed by graduands at the end of eachyear, have been removed. Those belovedTVs above the bar, which displayedvintage University rugby matches, aresadly a thing of the past. College nightshave been scrapped. And, yes, they nowplay contemporary music.

But the student backlash faded as soonas Klute reopened. And there is one real reason for this: it hasn’t changed as much as we had feared.

Yes, it’s slightly different. But really it’s a Klute that has responded to the 21stcentury. Although the graduation boardshave been replaced by interactivescreens, every night still closes with the traditional Klute song, That’s Amore. The manager, Andy, continues to run theshow. And the old club sign, featuring

the famous purple lady, now takes prideof place in the main entrance.

It seems as though the initial studentbacklash kept the old Klute alive. Theclub’s Sunday-night DJ and Durhamfavourite, DJ Frosty, saw his Klute-demise with the new changes, butpeople-power resurrected him to remainan ever-present feature of Durham’snightlife and he is now a regular fixtureat college bops and formals. ‘Cheesy’music is now played in Klute everyTuesday, thanks to the student response.

So, despite the cosmetic changes, it’sthe student atmosphere that makes Klutewhat it truly is. And although the changesmay have been unwelcome at first, Klutewill always be Klute, as long as Durhamstudents will it to be.

13

The Lindisfarne Gospels are the fourgospels bound together into a single book.The book was made in a monastery on theNorthumbrian island of Lindisfarne in theeighth century AD. It was the creation of a single artist-scribe named Eadfirth, whoblended styles of writing and decorationfrom classical, Celtic and Anglo-Saxon art to create what is recognised as one of the great landmarks of human culturalachievement.

Originally created to honour the North East’s‘patron saint’, St Cuthbert, the book became,together with the saint’s body, one of thetreasures of the religious community thatoriginated on Lindisfarne. It was taken withthem when they fled Viking attacks duringthe ninth century and became part of thecultural, scholarly and religious inheritancethat led to the foundation of DurhamCathedral – one of England’s greatestarchitectural achievements – and,eventually, to the foundation of theUniversity. The Gospels were cherished in Durham for over 500 years until thedissolution of the monasteries, when they became the property of the nation.Arguably, they are the North of England’sgreatest masterpiece.

It is the must-see event of 2013 – the Lindisfarne Gospels in Durham. A spectacularthree-month summer exhibition that sees the Gospels on show in the City that cherishedthem for more than half a millennium and with the inheritors of the scholarly and religiouscommunity that first created them at a time before the dawn of England.

THE GREATNORTH BOOKHow alumni helped bring the Lindisfarne Gospelsto Durham for July to September 2013

The LindisfarneGospels are arguablythe North of England’sgreatest masterpiece.

Image captions: 1. Opening page of St Matthew’s Gospel, reads‘The book of the generation of Jesus Christ…’

4

14

1

The ExhibitionFrom 1 July to 30 September 2013, the Gospels will visit Durham once more.They will be exhibited in new, world-classfacilities in the University’s Palace GreenLibrary. Visitors to the exhibition will see some of Britain’s most significantmanuscripts and books alongsidestunningly beautiful artefacts from Anglo-Saxon England that have been drawn from national and regionalcollections. Surrounded by St Cuthbert’streasures, including his sapphire ring,jewelled cross and travelling altar, theGospels will be viewed in a setting thatevokes a sacred atmosphere of pilgrimageand homage. The centrepiece is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see Cuthbert’streasures together with the book that was written in his honour.

The University would like to take thisopportunity to thank many of our alumni for their support in refurbishing PalaceGreen Library. Without the quality ofexhibition space that alumni helped us to create, we could not have staged the Gospels exhibition in Durham.

Over the last three years, Palace GreenLibrary has been transformed from theeclectic and fascinating warren of roomsyou may once have known into a state-of-the-art research hub and exhibition venue.

The Law and Music libraries have beenmoved to specialist facilities near the MainLibrary, and this has created space tosensitively adapt the original 17th-centuryspaces within the World Heritage Site, so expanding the research area for thescrutiny of rare manuscripts, improving the facilities for conservation, and creatingadditional study and exhibition space.

The first-floor exhibition hall has beentransformed into the Wolfson Gallery, a space that can accommodate andshowcase world-class exhibits such as theGospels, while at the heart of the buildingis a new and enhanced Special CollectionsReading Room – a place in whichresearchers will be able to work with our precious collections in a comfortablebut secure, supervised room.

Why not join us next summer and comeand see the Gospels? You can bookaccommodation online atwww.durham.ac.uk/event.durham

Our Appeal remains open, so if you would like to contribute to the continuingrefurbishment of Palace Green Library,please visit www.dunelm.org.uk/pg/appealIf you give £100 or more, you can haveyour name, or the name of someone you choose to honour, listed on the wall of one of the new galleries.

2. St Luke the Evangelist. 3. Carpet page from St John’s Gospel.4. Cat detail from Lindisfarne Gospels.

4

15

32

What are universities for?16

Richard Adams, founder of Traidcraft, talks to Carmen Thompsonabout the movement he created – and the part that universitiescan play in changing the world today.

‘What are universities for?’,asked Richard Adams,Traidcraft founder, giving an after-dinner speech to students at Durham on 23rd February 2009.

Exactly three years later, Stefan Collinireleased a book with the same title. But before Collini, before the CoalitionGovernment, before the changes to highereducation teaching budgets and theunimaginable changes to funding for students, Richard Adams’ wordsanticipated a deeper challenge to highereducation: not just what are universities for, but what are they good for?

This ability to anticipate is one of Adams’greatest qualities – one that is essential to this social entrepreneur, who foundedTraidcraft in 1979, initiated the Fairtrademovement and pioneered the marriage of social values to the market. Today, wefind it difficult to think about what we arebuying at the supermarket without thinkingabout the people who made the goods onthe shelves. We have Adams to thank forthis act of conscience.

He wanted to change the world, but heunderstood that change starts with people.He anticipated that people would rathermake fairness an everyday choice abovepurse and profit. So as he strides into a teahouse in Newcastle on a grey April day in2012, he brings a warmth and openness. If we imagine that change has to start withpeople, who better to talk with about whatthis change could look like for universities?

To understand why Adams is the type ofperson who chooses to change the world,we need to picture him as a student atDurham in the 1960s. The first person inhis family to choose a university education,he remembers that: ‘One day I was at home,the next – a huge range of possibilities’.

17

He read sociology in the Department ofSocial Theory and Administration (newlyfounded in 1964) – a new subject forDurham, in an era of new ideas.

‘The 1960s was a time of change,’ he says.‘There was significant decline in all of themajor industries and a period of greatuncertainty. The Department was really intune with these changes. The late ProfessorJohn Rex [who died in 2011] knew whatsociology meant to contemporary society.’

Living and studying in a time of uncertaintyseems to clear the ground for new ways ofbeing. This was the temperature of the1960s, where ‘even the cultural revolutionin China seemed attractive, this throwingout of the past’. However, Adams was ableto see beyond uncertainty towards an as yetunimagined future, because he was groundedin his ‘newly minted [Christian] faith’.

‘Having the frame of reference was veryuseful,’ he says. ‘Thinking about personalinjustice and the gap between rich andpoor… This is all bound up with theecological question – our impact on theplanet, the personal and the environmental.’

For Adams, it is this complex meshing of knowing ourselves and understanding our connection to others and the world weinhabit which seems to be key to leadingmeaningful and sustainable change.

This faith informed the shape, directionand growth of Traidcraft, bringing about notonly fairer relationships between consumersand producers, but leading to innovativebusiness models, which gave staff a say inthe business – an idea which anticipatedthe movement we now see towards corporatesocial responsibility.

For Adams, what is different now comparedto the 1960s is that, although we are facedwith great uncertainty, our ability to imaginethe world differently, and to feel empoweredto change it, is not as present. So what can education contribute towards thispeople-before-profit thinking, to replicatethis meshing of personal and environmentalresponsibility, and empower futuregenerations to lead change?

‘Universities are not microcosms of society,’he says, ‘but they have the capacity tobecome exemplar communities, if theychoose. They need to commit to take thispackage of global justice issues seriouslyand take a whole approach to live out a future model, examining every area,building resources, going deep and lookingat what is taught and how relevant it is tothe future.’

Although Adams acknowledges theconstraints on universities to meetcontemporary demands, for example to square finances and league tables, he asks: ‘If you can’t do it in that setting,where can you do it?’

On a more practical level, he sees one ofthe roles of education as being to showpeople that certain types of change arenecessary. Much of his current work as amember of the European Economic andSocial Committee in Brussels is concernedwith how to engage the ordinary personwith the energy debate and with theirindividual responsibility to change. ‘Thereare two things which politicians can takeadvantage of to make significant change,’he explains. ‘The first is an educationalprocess, the second is crisis. Education is far better.’

Adams’ vision for an education process that leads to significant change is foundedupon strong values: ‘service, humility,understanding and valuing others’. This is not the familiar language of businessthat has rooted itself in the aspirations of education; nor is it the language ofachievement for the sake of productivity.These values echo the ethos of his college,

St John’s. They are values which movebeyond profit and productivity, to anticipatemore complex measures of human aspiration.‘In Europe, we are exploring alternatives toGDP, which include measuring wellbeing,’he says.

Adams’ ability to see this connectivity – to think beyond processes and to hold ontovalues – is part of a new self-discipline. Hereveals that he has started to keep a recordof his thoughts and feelings. This is partly‘a reflective process,’ he explains, ‘but forthe most part it is anticipation – where iseverything going? Not just reflecting on thepast, but making things relevant for thefuture.’ This practice is key to mapping outthe pieces, imagining what could happen,rather than being trapped by the past. ‘It ispossible for everyone to do this. If we did itmore constructively, it might help.’

The challenge that Adams sees foruniversities hinges on how people feelvalued in a more complex world, and thiscore challenge is set within the context ofclimate change and resource use. It is notjust the responsibility of one student or onedepartment but, he suggests, we must alltry to be entrepreneurs in this way.

‘We need to think of universities ascommunities of connected and valuedindividuals,’ he concludes. ‘Instead ofasking what they can get from each other,students, staff and alumni need to work out what they can offer to each other. In this way, positive change in the worldmight come.’

Carmen Thompson is DevelopmentExecutive for Durham’s Institute ofAdvanced Studies. To see the latestinformation about Fairtrade initiatives at Durham, please go towww.durham.ac.uk/greenspace/fairtrade/fortnight2012

His values echo the ethos of his college,

St John’s

18

The speaker, Professor Kathryn BondStockton of the University of Utah, hadcome to Durham to provoke. Her words, she said, were ‘playful, even entertaining,possibly wrong, though I don’t think so’.Her voice held the audience spellboundwith its American cadences and subtle,stimulating parentheses. She had short,shock-white hair in a Tintin quiff and her T-shirt could have been a black dog-collarbeneath her peach blouse, waistcoat andjacket. She looked like a vicar in negative.

But it was her ideas that intrigued. She argued that the idea of the ‘gay’ childilluminates the world of childhood. ‘If youscratch a child, you will find a queer,’ shesaid, ‘in the sense of someone “gay” or justplain strange. One boy says that he calledhimself a “filly”: a word, he thought, for a

“homosexual seagull”. A girl of nine thoughtherself a vampire, a shadowy figure withshadowy secrets surrounding women.For what a child is is a darkening question.The question of the child makes us climbinside a cloud – “a shadowy spot on a field

of light” – leading us, in moments, tocloudiness and ghostliness surroundingchildren as figures in time. One kind ofchild brings these matters into view – and it is the means, the fine-grained lens, bywhich to see any and every child as queer.’

For Professor Stockton, the idea of the gaychild makes us realise that our conceptionof our own childhood is always the act of an adult looking back. She stated: ‘The questions – “When did you know?Did you know as a kid?” – ask queer adults

It is perhaps one of the most provocative questions in our culture,one that transgresses into the hinterland between our notion ofchildhood innocence and adult sexuality. Because, surely, to be gay is not a lifestyle choice; it is, fundamentally, considered to be a sexual identity. And we do not agree that a child can have such a thing. We could as easily ask, but rarely do, ‘Is my child straight?’

David Williams, reports on the inaugural lecture for the Centre for Sex, Gender and Sexualities.

CAN YOUTELL IFYOUR CHILDIS GAY?

Professor KathrynBond Stockton

19

to account for this child (as if they could)…What might the notion of a gay child do to conceptions of the child? Quite a lot, it seems.’

As evidence, she discussed a 2005 editionof The Oprah Winfrey Show, ‘When I knewI was gay’. Guests on the show had taglinesrunning under their names: ‘Carson – knewhe was gay at age four’; ‘Billy – knew hewas gay at age eight’. Another guest told ofouting herself to her mother at ten and howher mother strategically forgot the traumaof this moment, by thinking her child was‘too young’ to know ‘that’.

The mother then had the ‘nightmare’, in her words, of seeing the ‘death’ of her‘dreams’ when she learned that her daughter,at the age of seventeen, was gay again.

But, as Professor Stockton pointed out,these testaments were all from adultslooking back, and, while it is certain thatmore children will start outing themselvesat ever younger ages, it is unclear what they will be outing themselves as. Stocktonasked: ‘Will they come out as “gay,” or “queer,” or under the banner of some other term? It’s too early to say.’

This, then, is how the category ‘gay child’illuminates all children; it shows how ourknowledge of childhood is always an act ofremembering the past and that all childrenactually live in a stretched present, in whichthey are always being held back from adultactivities and responsibilities.

‘The gay child makes us perceive the queer temporalities haunting all children,’Stockton explained, ‘for no matter how you slice it, the child, from the standpointof “normal” adults is always queer… For,despite our culture’s assuming every child’sstraightness, the child can only be “not-yet-straight,” since it too is not allowed to besexual. This child who “will be” straight ismerely approaching, while crucially delaying,the official destination of straight sexuality,and therefore showing itself as estrangedfrom what it would approach. How does anychild grow itself inside delay? The questionis dramatised, even typified, by the obviouslyqueer dynamics of a gay child, who is sodramatically held at bay.

‘Such a child, with no established forms to hold itself in the public, legal field, has been a child remarkably unavailable to itself in the present tense. For this queerchild, whatever its conscious grasp of itself,has not been able to present itself accordingto the category “gay” or “homosexual” –categories culturally deemed too adult,since they are sexual.

‘The effect for the child who already feelsqueer (different, odd, out-of-sync, andattracted to same-sex peers) is a feeling of time out of joint. Certain self-chosenmarkers for its queerness arrive only after itexits its childhood, after it is shown not tobe straight… At this point, the designation

“homosexual child,” or even “gay kid,” mayfinally, retrospectively be applied. “I am notstraight. I was a gay child.” This has beenthe only grammatical formulation allowedto gay childhood. The phrase “gay child” is a grave-stone marker for where or whenone’s straight-life died.’

For Professor Stockton, there is a kind ofbackward birthing mechanism, in whichthe gay adult hunts for the roots of his or her queerness through a retrospectivesearch for feelings, desires and physicalneeds and so creates a ghostly gay child.

‘We want to bring the best thinkingin the world, the most brilliantminds in the world to Durham.’

‘Given that children don’t know this child,though they move inside it, life inside thismembrane is largely available to adults asmemory – “What can I remember of what I thought I was?” – and so takes us back in circles to our fantasies of our memories.The gay child shows how the figure of thechild does not fit children – doesn’t fit thepleasures and terrors we recall. I see thenotion of the ‘gay’ child as figuring childrenas fighting with concepts and moving insidethem, sometimes successfully, sometimesnot… The ghostly gay child gathers otherconcepts of children in its wake.’

Professor Stockton came to old, AnglicanDurham to shake it up, and that was thepoint. The new Centre for Sex, Gender and Sexualities was created to enrich the University, and the communities that interact with it, with the most radicalthinking on these issues.

Professor Jo Phoenix is the Centre’s Director.‘We want to bring the best thinking in theworld, the most brilliant minds in the world to Durham,’ she says. ‘There are 50academics already here from every Facultyat Durham whose work feeds into the Centre,and together we can find ways as a group of scholars to influence some of the mostprofound debates of our time. What isjustice? Do women have equality anywhere– formally, substantively? What is freedom?

‘Every human being alive today will have alife that is at least in some fashion shapedby sex, gender and sexualities. Whetherthat’s through the choice of our partners,the opportunities presented to us in schools,the opportunities that we take, the waypeople respond to us. Those are just someof the obvious ways in which these issuesshape our lives.

‘We know that social change doesn’t comeabout from pointing out irrationality; it comes about through people standing up and saying what is acceptable. It is a progressive step in having the Centre to create research-led social change.’

Kathryn Stockton’s book The Queer Childor Growing Sideways in the TwentiethCentury is available online.

If you would like to learn more about theCentre for Sex, Gender and Sexualities,please visit www.durham.ac.uk/csgs

20

IS HE GAY OR IS HE BRITISH?‘Playful, even entertaining, possibly wrong’another highlight from the inaugural lecture

‘If you compliment a young straight man in the US on his clothes, he will claimhe has no relationship with the shirt that he is wearing. He will then tell youhow his girlfriend bought it, or claim that he has no idea how this shirt goton his body. You even see this strategy on the red carpet. I saw LeonardoDicaprio interviewed at a premiere recently, and he literally made it seemthat he had no idea who the fashion designer of the suit he wore mightbe. They just simply have to disavow any relationship to their own maleclothes. This is why, given how dapper many British men seem to be,it does give rise to the phrase in the US – Is he gay or is he British?’

UPCOMING LECTURESAT THE CENTRE FOR SEX,GENDER AND SEXUALITIES

OCTOBER 2012Topic: Hedgefunds and gender scripts –becoming an adult in financial services

Prof. Jo Brewis, School of Management,Leicester University and Kat Riach,Essex University

JANUARY 2013Topic: Evangelical Christians and USpolicy on traffic in women

Prof. Elizabeth Berstein, Barnard College,New York

MAY/JUNE 2013Topic: Families, law and equality

Prof. Martha Fineman, Emory University

ProfessorJo Phoenix

Six Durham alumni are in contention to feature in the 2012 Olympics, reports Tim GuinanONES TO WATCH AT THE OLYMPICS

21

Durham Powerhouse: Women’s Eight, with Taylor, Reeve, and Maguire at 4, 5 and 7.

PARALYMPIANS Current Durham University students Lily van den Broecke (Philosophy, Politics & Economics, Castle, 2011- ) and Gemma Collis (Law, St Cuthbert’s, 2011- ) are also likely to feature in the Paralympics.

KEY DATES FOR 2012

• 6th JuneOlympic squadannounced

• 17th JuneWorld Cup III, Munich

• 28th JulyStart of OlympicRegatta

• 1st – 4th AugustOlympic rowing medalevents

• 31st AugustParalympic rowing

• 4th – 8th SeptemberParalympic fencing

Durham University has the mostsuccessful undergraduate rowingprogramme in the country.

Led by Senior Rowing Coach and formerOlympic Sculler Wade Hall-Craggs(Archaeology, Grey, 1985-88), Durhamhas won the British UniversitiesChampionship nine years in a row. The Olympic Regatta starts on 28thJuly, these are our likely Olympians:

WOMEN’S EIGHTEMILY TAYLOR (BA Economics with French,Hatfield, 2005-09)World Cup Silver medallist in 2011, World University Rowing Champion in 2010and U23 World Champion in 2009.

LOUISA REEVE (BSc Natural Sciences,Hatfield, 2003-06)Finalist in both the Women’s Pair and Women’sEight at the Beijing Olympics and Silvermedallist in the 2011 World Cup.

LINDSEY MAGUIRE (MSc DevelopmentalPsychopathology, Ustinov, 2003-04)World Rowing Championships Bronzemedallist 2011, Lindsey was won Gold, Silverand Bronze in the 2010 World Cup Series.

WOMEN’SDOUBLE SCULLSOPHIE HOSKING(BSc Natural Sciences,Trevelyan, 2004-07)World Cup Gold anddouble World Cup Silver

in 2011, Sophie was the fastest in theLightweight Single Sculls at GB rowing trialsin 2010 and 2011.

QUADRUPLE SCULLORSECOND MEN’SSINGLE SCULLSTEPHEN ROWBOTHAM(BA Business Economics,Collingwood, 2000-03)

Olympic Bronze medallist in the Double Scullat Beijing in 2008, Steve won double WorldCup Bronze in 2010 and Silver in 2011.

COACH:LIGHTWEIGHTMEN’S FOURROB MORGAN (BA History,St Cuthbert’s, 1986-89)World Champion Coachwith the GB Lightweight

Men’s Four in 2010, Rob coached them to a Bronze in 2011 having also coached LouisaReeve at the Beijing Olympics.

Rowing for Gold: Quadruple Scull,featuring Rowbotham at stroke.

22

Would you consider leaving a gift to Durham in your will?

Christine Reay wanted to commemorateher husband by making provision in herwill to establish a financial support fund for Law students.

“My late husband Gordon was born in Durham and I can’t begin to tell you how passionate he was aboutthe City and the University. He had very strongfeelings for bright people who had missed theopportunity to advance their learning due tofinancial difficulties.

‘As Gordon was a barrister and I am a solicitor, it waseasy to decide to assist students with financial needwho are studying Law. I trust the University to keepthe memory of my late husband alive by awardingthis gift where it will make a real difference.”

If you choose to make a gift, it could be directedtowards the aspect of your time at Durham that youtreasure most, from supporting academic endeavoursto cherishing college life or enabling the pursuit of sporting excellence.

Whichever cause you choose to direct your gifttowards, making a gift in your will can be an enduringand fulfilling way to support Durham and to rememberyour time at the University.

We already know what a loyal and supportive alumnicommunity you are, and we are keen to help those ofyou who feel the time is right to put Durham in yourwill. If you would like to speak to us about directingyour gift to a particular area, please contact Louise McLaren, Legacies Officer, at University Office,Old Elvet, Durham, DH1 3HP. Or email her atlouise.mclaren@durham.ac.uk or phone her on +44 (0)191 334 6313.

This is an ideal way to give a gift that would not bepossible during your lifetime, and so make a lastingpositive impact on future generations of students.

Leaving Durham a Legacy

23

RESEARCH + IMPACT = MONEYCan you help solve the equation?

Universities are changing. The way universitiesare paid for is changing. You probably knowall about the way student funding is beingrevolutionised this year, with the financialburden moving from the tax payer to a long-termloan taken out by individual students and paidback during their working lives. But somethingelse is going on. Professor Andrea Noble,Professor of Latin American Studies and Deputy Head of Faculty (Research) for Arts and Humanities explains what is happening.

The way research is paid for is alsochanging. In the past, panels of academicshave made judgements about the qualityof research done by departments inindividual universities and the amount of government research funding was thenallocated according to their decisions. Thissystem is also about to be revolutionised.Instead of research money coming toDurham simply because of the quality ofour research – and that has always beengood, as we hope you know – in the nextfunding round, a significant proportion of research money will come to Durhambecause of the impact of our researchbeyond academia. And this is where we need your help.

Impact is difficult to define. This is thefirst time it has been measured, and noone really knows how the assessors aregoing to interpret it. But there are somethings we do know.

• It is not about ‘hoopla’ in the papers or on the television

• It is measurable

• It has to change the world – ‘an effecton, change, or benefit to the economy,society, culture, public policy or services,health, the environment or quality of life’

• It could be a spin-out company or someother commercial activity

• But it could be something we haven’tthought of, and this is where you come in.

Did a piece of research by Durhamacademics change your professional life?Did it change the way that you or youremployer did things? Did it give you newtools for thinking? For example:

• Research on counter-terrorism byacademics in Law has informed UK government policy debates

• Durham historians have run workshopson governance and local justice in Kenyaand Sudan for governmental and non-governmental organisation staff from a range of different countries

• Science spin-out companies haveemerged from scientific research and are trading internationally in sectors as diverse as fine chemicals, artificialintelligence, pipeline technology,semiconductor materials and life sciences

• Research into Islamic banking andfinance is helping to increaseunderstanding between countries,

especially the Western world and the Middle East, and is furthering the interests of international trade.

Whether Durham research has impactedon your professional life or not, it is certainthat the relationship between theUniversity, its students and its alumni willbe forever changed by this new emphasison the impact of research. It means thatthis University, like every other in the UK,will be more outward looking; there will be a stronger intellectual relationship withalumni as the work we do here informsyour life; while at the same time, yourexpertise transforms our understanding of what professionals want from their alma mater.

An example of this at Durham is the waythat the Faculty of Arts and Humanitieshas recently created a Faculty AdvisoryBoard. Made up of Durham graduates whohave gone on to occupy key positions inrelated industries, the Faculty AdvisoryBoard will meet on an annual basis for aday of exploratory workshops with Durhamacademics. The aim is to exchange ideasand for our alumni to bring back toDurham some of the wide and variedprofessional experiences and perspectivesthey have gained since graduating.

If you can help please let us know.durham.editor@durham.ac.uk

Did Durham’sresearch change your

professional life?

Prof Stefan Przyborski (Department of Chemistry, School of Biological and Biomedical Sciences) at Reinnervate, a leading company specialising in enablingtechnologies for use in cell growth and function.

24

Images by George Ledger/Yoursportsphoto

As term drew to an end, our sportsmen and women had reason to celebrate as Durham currentlysits second in the British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) points table, with onlyLoughborough ‘the sport’ University ahead of us. The BUCS Championship (knock-out cup)Finals in Sheffield were dominated by the Palatinates who won eight national titles over the five day period, during which there were some extraordinary team and individual performances.

Lacrosse and HockeyThe first national title for Durham was wonby the men’s lacrosse team who resoundinglybeat Manchester University 17-0. For thefirst time ever, both our men’s and women’shockey teams played in the Championshipfinals; the men lost out to a very strong teamfrom Exeter 4-3, but the women held on ina nerve-wracking game to beat Birminghamto take the title. The women’s futsal teamhad a titanic tussle with Northumbria intheir final, but Durham clinched the title in extra time.

Fencing and TennisThe women’s fencing team faced difficultcompetition and lost to Imperial in thesemi-finals, but Kira Roberts won her thirdindividual national sabre title. In tennis,our men’s team lost out in the quarter finalsand our top men’s player Slavko Radmanfaced a hugely challenging match in thesemi-finals, eventually losing in the finalset. In the women’s competition, Durhamdominated, with both the singles and doublesfinals being all-Durham affairs more nationaltitles were claimed for the Palatinates!

Volleyball and Basketball Our volleyball team dispatched theiropposition from St Andrews and KingswayCollege, resulting in yet another nationaltitle. Finally, it was time for our basketballteams to take to the courts and they didn’tdisappoint. The women took on competitionfavourites and defending championshipsUniversity of Wales Institute Cardiff, butthis didn’t faze them, with Durham puttingon a remarkable performance and winningthe title with a score of 74-35. Unfortunatelyfor the men’s team, they lost a magnificentbattle against Worcester, 88-81. Worcesteris currently second in the elite professionalBritish Basketball League, which puts such a close game into perspective.

RugbyTen days after the BUCS Championships it was the turn of our Men’s Rugby Club totake centre stage. The first team returned to Twickenham for the second year insuccession but there was to be no fairy taleending this time around as Hartpury turnedout to be far too strong on the day. Therewas a national title for the second teamthough, who defeated a host of universityfirst teams on their way to defeatingUniversity of the West of England first team in the Trophy Final.

RowingOn the water, it was another great year forUniversity and College crews at the Head ofthe River races in London. In the women’srace 287 crews completed the course andour women’s 1st VIII finished in 11th place,winning the Intermediate One Pennant.

The Colleges were well represented andthere were excellent performances fromCollingwood finishing 107th and Grey whofinished 144th. Other Colleges finishingpositions were: St John’s 188, Butler 196,University College A 211, Van Mildert 218,University College B 223, St Aidan’s 262,St Hild and St Bede 263.

In the men’s race 394 crews completed the course and the University 1st VIII hadan excellent row finishing in 8th place, up from 18th last year and winning theChurcher Trophy. This is one of our highestever recorded finishes.

Hatfield College 1st VIII had an excellentrow finishing in 148th place. Hild Bedewas another College to get into the top halfof the field finishing in a very strong 177th.University College 1st VIII finished 225,Grey College 231, Collingwood College277, St Aidan’s 281, Van Mildert 286,Hatfield 2nds 293, University College 2nds322, St Chad’s 368, Van Mildert 2nds 376,St Cuthbert’s 383 and St John’s 385.

News from Team Durham

Experience DurhamBringing Sport, Music, the Arts and Volunteering togetherby Quentin Sloper, Head of Sport, Music and Theatre

The ArtsThe Assembly Rooms, home of DurhamStudent Theatre, was packed for end ofterm performances including DurhamUniversity Light Opera Group’s (DULOG’s)production of hit musical RENT, therewas also an Oscar Wilde extravaganza,with ACT Theatre Company in Durhampresenting Dorian Gray, while students at Queen’s Campus produced TheImportance of being Earnest at the ARC Theatre.

College theatre companies were busy too:Collingwood performed Cabaret!; VanMildert turned their talents to Guys andDolls; Trevelyan belted out Cole Porter’sAnything Goes; Hild Bede staged the Little Shop of Horrors, St Chad’s GreenDoor Theatre Company put on Love andUnderstanding, Castle Theatre Companyentertained with Dracula and Durham’syoungest college, Josephine Butler optedfor Chatroom, a play that documented the ups and downs of life online.

VolunteeringFollowing the success of the Team DurhamCommunity partnership with Sport inAction Zambia, seven current studentsinvolved with Durham Student Theatretravelled to Zambia over the Easter break

to work with children and young peoplefrom disadvantaged communities.Through the medium of drama, thestudents developed and deliveredworkshops and activities to young peoplewithin the Zambian capital, Lusaka. Theirtime in Zambia was a huge success andwill certainly be emulated next year.

Music Durham University Orchestral Society,Chamber Choir and Choral Society allperformed at Durham Cathedral onseparate occasions throughout March.Durham University Big Band wowedjudges and audiences alike at the GreatNorth Big Band Festival, being the firstband ever to win the festival for a secondyear running, beating off national andsemi-professional competition to retaintheir title Best Band. Florian Cooperbassist in the jazz trio which performs live at Summer Congregation and MusicalDirector of Durham University Big Bandand current student at CollingwoodCollege said: Our final piece, ‘Crusin’ for bluesin’ showcased our saxophonesection which led to the adjudicatorscomments of “fearless” and “I simply putmy pen down and listened” – our saxessubsequently won the award for bestsection of the day!

Alumni and friends are always welcome at any student theatre and musicproductions or sporting events. For more information please seewww.durham.ac.uk/whatson

Image captions, from top left to bottom right: Rent – DULOG, Hild Bede Poster, Little Shop of Horrors, Dracula – Castle Theatre Company,Rehearsal, Little Shop of Horrors – Hild Bede. Images courtesy of the Student Theatre Manager and Music Coordinater. Rent – DULOG.Durham University Boat Club student volunteer coaching local school children, part of the Junior Rowing programme.

25

We know Durham University has some of the most loyal alumni in the world, and this life-long bond startswhen you are a student. Durham students excel at multi-tasking, not only achieving the highest academicstandards but also performing in all areas of sport, music the arts and improving the lives of the communitiesaround them through voluntary work.

News in Brief26

Honorary Graduates Durham University awards Honorary Degrees to individuals with a Durham linkwhose achievements in their chosen fields have been outstanding. Their uniquecontribution must be meritorious and highly regarded over time. This summerDurham is pleased to be awarding nine Honorary Degrees to the followingdistinguished individuals for their incredible achievements.

BIDDY BAXTER (BA Social Studies, St Mary’s,1952-55) joined the BBC in 1955 and is bestknown as the Editor of children’s televisionprogramme Blue Peter. She helped transformthe programme into a national institution withfar-reaching national and worldwide influence.Biddy believed that children were entitled tothe best that was available, and throughouther BBC career she fought hard and tirelesslyto achieve this.

IRINA BOKOVA is the Director-General of theUnited Nations Educational, Scientific andCultural Organization (UNESCO). Elected in2009, she is the first woman to head UNESCO.A Bulgarian national, she has served as hercountry’s Secretary of State for EuropeanIntegration and Minister of Foreign Affairs.She has been actively engaged in internationalefforts to advance education for all, genderequality, human rights and cultural dialogue.

BRENT CHESHIRE (Geology, St Cuthbert’s,1973-76) has become a leading figure in the energy industry in the UK over the last 36 years. He has worked for a number ofinternational companies, and in 2004 becameDONG Energy’s first UK employee, a companynow spearheading the development of the UKoffshore wind industry. He was instrumentalin supporting and advising DONG Energy to fund new posts in Earth Sciences and inthe School of Engineering and ComputingSciences at Durham.

GARY FILDES was born and brought up inSunderland. Seventeen years ago, he joinedSunderland’s astronomical society and, afterobserving the dark skies above Kielder, helobbied hard to build an observatory there,and was appointed as astronomical advisor to the project. In April 2008, the KielderObservatory opened to the public. It now runs14 events per month, hosts star camp parties,and has been visited by over 18,000 peoplesince it opened. He is a fellow of the RoyalAstronomical Society.

DAVID INSHAW is considered to be one of the great modern British artists, particularlyknown for the impressive The BadmintonGame, which now resides in Tate Britain. He has taught at the West of England Collegeof Art, Bristol, and has held a two-yearfellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge. He is an inspiration for developingappreciation of modern art.

PHILIP PULLMAN is the best-selling authorof numerous books, including the criticallyacclaimed trilogy His Dark Materials. Hestudied English at Oxford University and wasan English teacher at various Oxfordshiremiddle schools. He taught BEd at WestminsterCollege and became a full-time writer in 1996.He was the first children’s writer to win theWhitbread (now Costa) Book of the YearAward. He was appointed a CBE in 2004.

JOHN RUTTER is well known as a nationalfigure in choral music. He first came to noticeas a composer and arranger of Christmascarols. Today his compositions, including suchconcert-length works as Requiem, Magnificatand Mass of the Children, are performedaround the world. He is active as aninternational conductor and choral ambassador.In 2007 he was awarded a CBE for services to music.

JEREMY VINE (BA English Language, Hatfield,1983-86) is presenter of the Jeremy VineShow on Radio 2. He studied English atDurham, where he also edited the studentnewspaper Palatinate. After graduating, he became a BBC news trainee, later joiningRadio 4’s Today programme and thenNewsnight as one of three permanentpresenters. He returned to Radio 2 in 2003 and has won three Sony Gold Awardsfor his work.

CHARLES WILSON (Geography, Grey, 1983-86) transformed the fortunes of bothMarks & Spencer and (as Chief ExecutiveOfficer) of Booker Ltd, the UK’s largest foodwholesaler. His business flair was in evidenceduring his Durham days, where he set up arecord-selling business while at Grey College.His philanthropic contributions continue tohave a huge impact on the Institute of Hazard, Risk and Resilience at Durham. He is also the current President of the Institute ofGrocery Distribution.

BIDDY BAXTER BRENT CHESHIRE JEREMY VINE CHARLES WILSON

New Chair of CouncilRobert Gillespie(BA Economics,Grey, 1974-77)takes over as thenew Chairman of UniversityCouncil in August this year,succeeding AnneGalbraith CBE(LLB Law, King’s

College 1960-63), who has served asChairman since 2006. Robert is an activesupporter of sport in the University, havingbeen involved in the development of theUniversity Rowing Club and of Universitysport more generally through the Friends ofDurham Sport Steering Group since 2000. He joined the University Council as a laymember in August 2007 and is Chair Elect of Council, Acting Vice-Chair of Council andActing Chair of Finance and General PurposesCommittee until 31 July 2012.

New College AppointmentUniversity CollegewelcomedProfessor DavidHeld as Master of the College in January. Davidis Professor ofPolitics andInternationalRelations at the University’s

School of Government and InternationalAffairs. His main research interests includethe study of globalisation, changing forms ofdemocracy, and the prospects of regional andglobal governance. He is a Director of PolityPress, which he co-founded in 1984. Held isalso General Editor of Global Policy Journal,an innovative and interdisciplinary journalbringing together world class academicsand leading practitioners.www.globalpolicyjournal.com

Olympic Torchbearers

Dr Naomi Hoogesteger (BA ModernLanguages, St Hild & St Bede, 2000-05) and Kira Roberts (BA English Literature,Castle, 2008-11) have been selected to carrythe Olympic Torch through County Durham on Sunday 17 June. Naomi set a world recordfor the fastest Atlantic rowing crossing as theonly female crew member in 2011 and topfive British fencer Kira won Gold at the 2010Commonwealth Games. They will be joined by England U21 hockey player and currentundergraduate, Steph Elliott (Sport Health & Exercise, Stephenson, 2009- ).Girl Power, Durham’s Olympic Torchbearers, L to R: Naomi Hoogesteger, Steph Elliott and Kira Roberts.

www.durham.ac.uk/shopwear it with pride

27

New Year Honours for Durham Alumni Our warmest congratulations go to those who received a CBE: Stephen Hammersley (Maths, Grey, 1980-83); and Thomas Worsley (BAEconomics and Law, Castle, 1966-69). Our very best wishes go to those who received an MBE: Ralph Allwood (Music, Van Mildert, 1968-72);and Denise Rowland (MA Leadership and Management in Education, 1993-98). Our best wishes also go to all those who received an OBE: Robin Hodge (Economics and Politics, Hatfield, 1972-74); Peter Latchford (BA Philosophy, Collingwood, 1982-85); and Ian Sumnal (Geography,Van Mildert, 1966-69).

For more information, please seewww.dunelm.org.uk/events ortelephone +44 (0)191 334 6305

CR

OM

/05

/12

/00

3

JUNE 2012THURSDAY 14TH Team Durham Alumni EventCelebrating Sporting SuccessPast and Present House of Commons, London

FRIDAY 15TH – SUNDAY 17TH Durham Business SchoolReunion Weekend Durham

WEDNESDAY 20TH Fifth Annual Hatfield AssociationSummer Lunch Leicester

SATURDAY 23RD Celebration Events Day forSt Cuthbert’s Catholic Chaplaincy Durham

FRIDAY 29TH – SUNDAY 1ST JULYVan Mildert AssociationReunion WeekendDurham

SATURDAY 30THHenley RegattaHenley-on-Thames

JULY 2012FRIDAY 6TH John Snow College Alumni Event London

AUGUST 2012FRIDAY 31ST – SUNDAY 2NDSEPTEMBER Hatfield Association 2012Reunion Weekend Durham

SEPTEMBER 2012FRIDAY 7TH – SUNDAY 9TH St Cuthbert’s Society Reunion Weekend Durham

FRIDAY 7TH – SUNDAY 9TH St Chad’s College ‘Decades’Alumni Reunion Durham

FRIDAY 14TH – SUNDAY 16TH Collingwood College RubyAnniversary Reunion WeekendDurham

FRIDAY 14TH – SUNDAY 16TH St John’s College Five Year Reunion Weekend, Class of 2007Durham

THURSDAY 20THTrevelyan College Alumni EventLondon

FRIDAY 21ST – SUNDAY 23RD St Mary’s College AnnualReunion WeekendDurham

FRIDAY 21ST – SATURDAY 22ND College of St Hild & St BedeReunion WeekendDurham

FRIDAY 21ST – SUNDAY 23RD St Aidan’s College AnnualReunion WeekendDurham

NOVEMBER 2012WEDNESDAY 7TH Durham University Convocation Middle Temple Hall, London

WEDNESDAY 7TH Dunelm Society Annual Dinner Middle Temple Hall, London

DECEMBER 2012SATURDAY 1ST Josephine Butler CollegeAlumni Reunion Manchester

SATURDAY 8TH St Chad’s College Advent ProcessionDurham Cathedral

FEBRUARY 2013FRIDAY 22ND – SUNDAY 24THJosephine Butler CollegeAlumni Reunion Weekend Durham

MARCH 2013FRIDAY 1ST – SUNDAY 3RD St Chad’s College ChadstideNorthern Festival Weekend Durham

FRIDAY 8TH – SUNDAY 10TH St Chad’s College ChadstideSouthern Festival WeekendLondon

FRIDAY 22ND – SUNDAY 24TH Grey College Reunion WeekendDurham

JUNE 2013FRIDAY 28TH – SUNDAY 30THVan Mildert CollegeReunion WeekendDurham

SEPTEMBER 2013FRIDAY 13TH – SUNDAY 15TH Durham Castle SocietyReunion Weekend Durham