Bridging Course 2025

Alongside the offer letters that we sent out to our prospective new undergraduate students at the end of January, selected offerholders also received invitations to Selwyn’s bridging course. We are running this initiative for the second time in early autumn 2025, following a successful pilot scheme in September 2024. Again, the course will be generously supported by the Isaac Newton Trust’s Widening Participation and Induction Fund. The programme is not a replacement for the full induction that all incoming students receive at the start of October, but provides additional and more tailored support to students who meet certain criteria.

The bridging course is designed for incoming students, identified through the contextual data collected as part of the standard admissions process, who come from schools and colleges and/or areas that don’t traditionally send many students to Cambridge, or whose education has been otherwise disrupted. Being invited is not a reflection on students’ ability or potential – they have been given offers through the same rigorous process as all other students at Selwyn, and have the capacity to thrive here. However, we recognise that not all of our incoming students have had the same opportunities up to this point. We want to use the bridging course to address some of those potential imbalances by introducing participants to life at Cambridge and to its styles of teaching and learning with the aim of giving them the best possible start to their time here.

Our first bridging course cohort of 15 students (pictured with course director Dr Tom Smith at their undergraduate matriculation dinner in October) are now halfway through their first year at Selwyn. We asked a few of them to reflect on their experience of the bridging course now that they are some way into their studies.

Arran, a historian, said that the chance to experience social and academic life at Selwyn before the start of his degree was important to him: “It broke down misconceptions about Cambridge.” He thought the course was particularly helpful in introducing him to the form of small-group supervisions – one of the main modes of teaching and learning in Cambridge: “Mock supervisions deconstructed the fear I had of having an actual supervision. The bridging course had the supervision environment, but without the stress, so the awkwardness was minimised when I had my real supervisions in term.”

Monesha, who studies HSPS, agreed that “the supervisions were definitely helpful,” and also that the more “granular parts” of the course, for example on how to access Moodle (a commonly used virtual learning environment in Cambridge) and library catalogues were valuable: “It made coming to university a bit easier as it meant I wasn’t having to plant my feet whilst simultaneously grasping how to use online resources.” Monesha picked out the end-of-course formal dinner as a highlight – one of a number of opportunities to explore “Cambridge customs” and everything the college, university, and city have to offer.

Asha, a geographer, agreed that the mock supervisions and the formal were enjoyable and valuable experiences, and that just being in Cambridge to “get used to the general layout of the schedule and how a day runs” was excellent preparation for degree studies.

We’re sure that our incoming cohort of bridging course participants for 2025 will have similarly positive experiences, and we’ll look forward to welcoming them.

Election of the Next Master of Selwyn

The Fellows of Selwyn College are delighted to announce that Suzanne Raine has been elected as the next Master of the College.  She will take up the role on 1 October 2025 when Roger Mosey steps down from office.

Suzanne Raine graduated from Peterhouse, Cambridge with a double first in History. She served for 24 years in the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office on foreign policy and national security issues, including postings in Poland, Iraq and Pakistan. She was Head of the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre from 2015-2017 and Director of Counter-Terrorism from 2017-19.  Since leaving the civil service in 2019 she has engaged with academia through the Centre for Geopolitics in Cambridge and as a Visiting Professor at Kings College London, where she lectures on risk anticipation and warning.  She is a member of the Public Interest Board of EY.  She is currently also Deputy Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Imperial War Museum and a member of the Board of Trustees at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), the world’s oldest think tank.

The election process was led by the Vice-Master of Selwyn College, Professor Janet O’Sullivan, who commented, “I am thrilled that Suzanne Raine has been elected as our next Master. In addition to her hugely distinguished career in public service, the fellows were impressed by Suzanne’s inclusive leadership style, her warmth, empathy, and charisma.  We are very much looking forward to welcoming her into Selwyn’s very special community.”

Suzanne Raine said, “It is wonderful to have been elected Master of Selwyn College.  Its distinctive and confident approach has made it a vibrant community, of which I am excited to become a part.  The college has shown clearly that it is possible to be academically excellent and open and welcoming to all; I look forward to working with every element of the community to learn and shape what comes next.”

Our outreach programme to schools continues at a hectic pace. Recent visitors to the college were from St Joseph’s School in Slough. We’re told that the Year 12s were inspired by their visit, and the staff were so impressed that they have booked a second visit later in the year.

We have also hosted visits for schools from our key area of West Yorkshire. While we welcome hundreds of prospective students on visits to Selwyn each year, we're also regularly around the country ourselves visiting schools and meeting people on their home ground.

A recent example: our northern schools liaison officer Shireen Nawaz, who's based in Yorkshire, spoke at an HE+ event hosted by Elliott Hudson College in Leeds. Students from a number of other schools in the area attended too.  

We also hosted the first of three proposed visits from The Brilliant Club. Six schools were involved in a graduation ceremony, which included a keynote speech from Ellie Montague, 2nd year History student from Selwyn. It was a great success with the teachers visiting especially pleased by the welcome they received and the wonderful work from our student ambassadors.

Read more about how work, and how to contact us, here: https://www.sel.cam.ac.uk/ug-study/outreach-and-admissions

Selwyn is hosting more big names from the world of academia, politics and media as our popular events programme for students, alumni and friends continues through 2025.

The BBC director-general Tim Davie, a college alumnus, faced questions from an audience in the Quarry Whitehouse auditorium on February 6th. Among the topics: is the licence fee the best way of funding the corporation? And how should the BBC cover the presidency of Donald Trump and the interventions of Elon Musk? Watch the whole session here:  

https://www.youtube.com/live/LAow3LD7aaM?feature=shared

We also heard from a member of the Conservative top team, the shadow attorney general Lord Wolfson of Tredegar (another alumnus), on February 11th in association with the college Politics Society. He tackled the balance between law and politics, including whether a strengthening of the power of the courts is necessary to stop the rise of populism. Click here to view:

https://www.youtube.com/live/vZ65KyslPdw?feature=shared

Later in the year one of our guests will be the renowned Cambridge academic Dame Mary Beard.

You can watch our previous live events on the Selwyn YouTube page: www.youtube.com/@selwyn1882

And if you’d like to be on our mailing list to hear about events as they become available for booking, just click here: www.sel.cam.ac.uk/L/mailinglist

It’s a recent tradition at Selwyn that the college Christmas card is designed by students. There’s a competition open to all JCR and MCR members during the Michaelmas term after which the best entry is chosen, and it then becomes the image for the card that is sent to hundreds of people.

This year’s winner was Harriet Palmer, a third-year medical student. She created the picture of a snowy Old Court – with a hint at the Master’s dog-walking across the lawn – using pastels. We congratulate her on her artistry.

It also gives us the chance to wish “season’s greetings” to all Selwyn students, staff, fellows, alumni and friends. All the very best for 2025.

Selwyn’s MCR, our representative body for postgraduate students, has elected a new president. He is Jeffery Pendleton, and he will join the college’s council and governing body in 2025.

We asked Jeffery to introduce himself:  

“I am a second-year PhD candidate in Psychology at Selwyn College, originally from the United States (Southern Kentucky).
Previously, I completed a research-based MPhil in Biological Anthropology at Girton College and an Anthropology BA with Arizona State University.
This past year I served as MCR Secretary, and also currently hold the role of Selwyn exchange officer at our sister college Keble in Oxford — where I’m an associate member. 
As MCR President, I aim to draw on my previous experience — both at Cambridge and other institutions — to advocate for the MCR, further enhance the postgraduate student experience, and strengthen ties with our sister college as well as others.”

The college has formally admitted its newest Fellow Benefactor, John Bamford. The role of Fellow Benefactor was created by Selwyn in 2016 to mark exceptional philanthropy. Mr Bamford, who has particularly supported our school outreach activities, becomes the 10th in this category of college members. He is an alumnus (SE 1962) and a retired chemical engineer.

Our other Fellow Benefactors are:

Jim Dickinson 
Robert Martin 
Katya Speciale 
Robin Jeffs (who sadly died in 2021) 
Tom Bartlam 
Gareth Quarry 
Jill Whitehouse 
Peter Dawson 
Christina Dawson

The photograph, taken on Friday December 13th, shows from left to right: Professor Janet O’Sullivan, vice-master; Roger Mosey, master; Mr Bamford; and Professor Stewart Sage, praelector, who oversaw the admission ceremony.

Selwyn is hosting prospective students throughout December for undergraduate admissions interviews. Most of our interviews take place in person, and applicants are welcomed to the college by existing students who staff a helpdesk. The photo below, by schools liaison officer Shireen Nawaz, shows some of our team poised for action.

You can read more about Selwyn’s practices on interviews, and there are links to useful videos, here: https://www.sel.cam.ac.uk/joining-selwyn/undergraduates/applying-admission/interviews

We wish all applicants the best of luck.

Selwyn College and Cambridge United Foundation (CUF) have agreed a new partnership between their two organisations to give students the opportunity to participate in Foundation community activities including volunteering and fundraising.

This forms part of the wider Club and Cambridge University agreement announced last year which has seen some colleges work with the Club on outreach for prospective students and also led to the Abbey Stadium hosting the Varsity matches in March. The Foundation and Selwyn are keen to use this as a pilot to see what might be possible with a view to other Colleges potentially becoming involved in the future.

Cambridge United Foundation works with over 10,000 individuals on an annual basis across the city and in all parts of the community. It aims to use the power of sport to tackle inequality, provide sporting opportunity to those who may be excluded from it and to bring the communities it serves closer together.

Roger Mosey, Master of Selwyn, said: “We are very pleased to be partnering with Cambridge United by opening up new opportunities for Selwyn students to volunteer their time on Foundation programmes.”

“Civic engagement is vitally important for Selwyn, and we believe for the wider University and we value the partnership with Cambridge United. We know how much the football club matters to many of our staff and the community and what important work it does more widely so it is great that there is now this chance to actively participate in it.”

Tim Walker, Head of Programmes at CUF added: “We are very grateful to Roger and Selwyn College for their commitment to the Foundation and their enthusiasm to pioneer this initiative. The wider partnership between the football club and Cambridge University has been very positive in a number of different areas and this is a chance now to extend this work. We ultimately want to give more opportunity to students from many more colleges to work with us and this initiative is a great place to start. We are excited about the future and look forward to welcoming Selwyn students onto our programmes in the coming months.”

The work of Cambridge United Foundation takes many forms, from sport-based mentoring programmes in schools (photo) to open-access football for vulnerable groups and monthly Seniors’ Lunches. These programmes are ever evolving, and it is hoped that the support of Selwyn student volunteers through this new partnership will be vital in increasing their impact.

For further information about the work of Cambridge United Foundation, please visit www.cufcfoundation.com or email foundation@cambridgeunited.com

Cambridge United Foundation mentoring in action with local children