News roundup – February, 2023
Each month we bring together all of the latest news from our extended Univ family. From Alumni and College news, to updates on Univ North and our Profile and Treasure features. We hope you enjoy this month’s news from Univ — all in one place…
If you have news to share or ideas for features please email communications@univ.ox.ac.uk
College News
• Read the Old Members’ Trust Graduate Conference and Academic Travel Fund Report by Max McCrea (2021, DPhil Physical and Theoretical Chemistry) on the Stereodynamics conference in Rethymnon, Crete.
• Three Univ students are in the running to play in this year’s Varsity matches on Saturday 25 March at Twickenham Stadium.
• On Thursday 26 January, the Shakespeare Society, Univ’s literary society, held an unstructured evening with Robert Shearman.
• Professor Daniel Freeman has just been appointed as Chair of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford.
• Read the Old Members’ Trust Graduate Travel Report by Judy Sayers (2019, DPhil Chromosome and Developmental Biology) on the International Congress of Developmental Biology.
• Part-funded by Univ, Ukrainian writer and historian Dr Olena Stiazhkina has been announced as the second Ukrainian Writer in Residence.
• Our latest Roger Short Memorial Fund Travel Diary, by Lucie de Gentile (2018, BA Literae Humaniores), is Turkey – Travelling in trust.
• From 22 February, The University’s Environmental Sustainability team is hosting their first ever Green Action Week.
• The Univ Seminar, “Culture Wars: Who Owns History”, took place on 2 February 2023 live from The House of Commons.
• Univ is considering joining with other colleges and the University in trialling arrangements with a cargo bike courier service.
• On Friday, 3 February, Univ held its inaugural International “At Home” Day for the whole College community to enjoy.
• This month’s Treasure explores women’s literacy & participation in book culture by taking a look at the College’s Books of Hours.
• Our latest Travel Report is by Hannah Asiki (2020, Chemistry in Cells – New Technologies to Probe Complex Biology and Medicine) on the SCI-RSC Workshop on Computational Tools for Drug Discovery.
• Sunday 12 February saw UCBC take our Men’s and Women’s first VIIIs up to Bedford for a day of racing; read the race report.
• We welcome a “tricky’ visitor to Main Quad, in our feature Then and Now: A Visit from Nixon.
• Meet five amazing Univites involved in LGBTQ+ activism in various fields from law and journalism to geophysics in Spotlight: 5 LGBTQ+ Univites.
Read all of Univ’s College news or explore Univ’s Treasures.
Alumni News
• Charlotte Bunney’s artwork (2017, Classics) is being auctioned as part of an online silent auction to fund the University’s second-ever student feature film, Breakwater.
• Last month, Euan Friend (2017, MEarthSci Geology/Earth Sciences), alongside his brothers Jack, Hamish, and Arthur, completed the Talisker Whisky Atlantic Rowing Challenge.
• Last year, Christina Lamb OBE (1983, PPE), Honorary Fellow, was named Foreign Correspondent of the Year in the Society of Editor Awards.
Read all of Univ’s Alumni news.
Profiles
• Meet artist, printmaker, published poet, filmmaker, lecturer, cultural provocateur and occasional musician, John Fox MBE (1959, Education and PPE).
• Our latest Profile is on student ambassador Becky Pinnock, (2019, Earth Sciences).
Explore all of our Profile Features.
Reviews
• Charlotte (Chemistry) reviews Rachel Ignotofsky’s inspirational book Women in Science – 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World.
• Zoe (English Literature) reviews Arundhati Roy’s 1997 semi-autobiographical novel The God of Small Things.
Discover more student-led Reviews.
Publications
• Alex Braslavsky (2018, Modern Languages – Slavonic Studies) published her first book of translations of Polish poetry: On Centaurs & Other Poems (World Poetry Books, 2023), the first selected volume in English of Zuzanna Ginczanka, a visionary Polish-Ukrainian-Jewish poet.
• Dr Seán Haldane (1961, English) published An Evil Tale I Heard – sequel to the award winning The Devil’s Making.
In Brief
• ‘The Thaw’s Provincial Margins: Place, Community and Canon in Pages from Tarusa’, Slavic Review, 80.4 (2021), 792-815 by Professor Polly Jones, was awarded an honourable mention in the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies Women’s Forum Prize.
• Speaking on BBC Radio Oxford Trish Greenhalgh (1980, Medicine), Professor of Primary Care at the University of Oxford, argued that mandates on facemasks should be reintroduced for public transport. Her reasons include high current Covid-19 rates; the fact that public transport is one of the most risky places for transmitting Covid-19; and that if everyone wears a mask, transmission rates of Covid-19 would fall dramatically.
• Writing in The Independent Alex Benn, Senior Lecturer in Law, argues that classism is a prolific form of discrimination, and deserves equal billing with the better-known forms such as racism and sexism.
Sarah Harper, Supernumerary Fellow in Gerontology, comments in Ageing planet: the new demographic timebomb (The Independent, 22 Jan) which explores the physical, political and financial challenges facing us as the global population ages. She has also made recent contributions to the BBC’s Newsday and to LBC.