General Admission 2025 took place on Friday July 4^th, with Selwyn students gathering in Old Court with their families and friends before the traditional procession to the Senate House to receive their degrees. The college warmly congratulates its new graduates.

In a speech to graduands at a dinner on the previous Wednesday evening, the master Roger Mosey quoted from a work by Peter Hall about the great cities in civilisation and what made them work. The reason for success, according to Hall, was that they were junction points: places that encouraged global interaction. “People meet, people talk, people listen to each other’s music and each other’s words, dance each other’s dances, take in each other’s thoughts. And so, by accidents of geography, sparks may be struck and something new come out of the encounter.”

Roger added:  “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if people said that about 21^st century Cambridge and London and the UK? You can sometimes see the shape of something in modern Britain that makes you hope it might be possible, and it does depend on us all: that we open our minds, that we retain an intellectual curiosity; and we don’t stick our fingers in our ears in response to each other’s music or boycott a dance festival we don’t like. Instead we try to spread what we do here: based on excellence and knowledge; and wisdom and a concern for each other.” 

A large selection of photographs by Howard Beaumont is available on the Selwyn Facebook and Instagram pages. www.facebook.com/Selwyn.College.Cambridge and www.instagram.com/Selwyn1882

The college is delighted by the success of its academics in this year’s University of Cambridge academic promotions.

These are our newly-promoted professors:

Professorships (Grade 12)
Professor Shaun Thomas Larcom, SE, assigned to the Department of Land Economy 

Dr Eloy De Lera Acedo, SE, assigned to the Department of Physics


Professorships (Grade 11)
Dr Ronita Bardhan, SE, assigned to the Department of Architecture

Dr Kai Liu, SE, assigned to the Faculty of Economics

Dr Christopher Daniel Briggs, SE, assigned to the Faculty of History

Dr Marta Halina, SE, assigned to the Department of History and Philosophy of Science

Congratulations to them all.
 

The distinguished Cambridge academic Professor Mary Beard spoke at Selwyn on May 27 about current issues ranging from President Trump to the purpose of museums in a conversation with the master Roger Mosey. At the heart of the discussion was freedom of speech and thought: how do we dial down the outrage in modern life and understand that issues are complex – and that we may disagree?

You can watch the video in full, including questions from the audience in the Quarry Whitehouse auditorium, here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMBIzr5gbQs

The 2025 Ramsay Murray lecture was given at Selwyn on May 6^th by the distinguished historian Professor Sir Richard Evans. His title was “Hitler and Putin” and he examined the historical parallels – and the differences – between Germany in the Nazi era and Russia today. You can watch the lecture in full, including the question and answer session which followed, on our YouTube channel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltWcXEVsG9E

The Ramsay Murray lecture is an annual event organised by the college following a bequest from the late Lt Col Alexander Ramsay Murray (SE 1936). The first lecture was given in 1996, and in the years since it has become established as a prestigious series, delivered by a wide range of internationally distinguished academics and experts. They have recently included Frank Gardner, Anand Menon, Bridget Kendall and Lyndall Roper. The lectures have reflected Ramsay Murray’s wishes in that he wanted them to be of historical or general interest and ‘preferably of an interdisciplinary nature’.

Some of the previous lectures, along with a wide range of college events, are available to view on demand:

https://www.youtube.com/@selwyn1882

The college is thrilled to report that fellow Dr Marta Halina, a member of the Cambridge Department of History & Philosophy of Science, has been awarded a Pilkington Prize.

The Pilkington Prize awards were endowed and inaugurated in 1994 by Sir Alastair Pilkington to acknowledge excellence in teaching. The prizes are awarded to individuals who make a substantial contribution to the teaching programme of a Department, Faculty or the University as a whole.

The citation reads:

Dr Marta Halina has almost single-handedly overhauled our History & Philosophy of Science Tripos to make Cambridge one of the foremost places in the world to study philosophy of cognitive science, comparative cognition and AI. Prior to her arrival, there was no dedicated teaching on these topics: a major gap. Marta developed 48 hours of new lectures and 8 hours of new seminars, including seven entirely new courses. She has also, since long before lockdown and the pivot to remote teaching, been a leader in the use of innovative pedagogical strategies and technologies in the classroom.

At the postgraduate level, Marta led a major restructuring of our MPhil as well as changes to the support we offer our postgraduate students. She has introduced a very popular MPhil module, AI in Healthcare, and is in high demand for supervising both MPhil and PhD students. Most importantly, Marta's teaching is always marked by a concern to improve diversity and equality. Through her careful dedication to teaching, she has not only broadened the range of topics we teach and discuss but also who gets to discuss them. Marta's students rightly view her as a role model of how to do philosophy.

The college's 3-minute thesis competition is an annual highlight: a chance for students to explain their academic work to an audience in 3 minutes with the help of just one slide.

The standard this year, over the two nights of the contest, was exceptionally high. Congratulations to the winners:

•    Ranjana Ram, 3rd year (medicine)
•    Harriet Palmer, 3rd year (medicine)
•    Cian Williams, 4th year (natural sciences) 
•    Charlotte Phillips, 1st year PhD (atmospheric chemistry)

Charlotte and Cian are photographed after the March 20th event in the Quarry Whitehouse auditorium.

The Lent Bumps this March saw a terrific week on the river for the Selwyn College Boat Club.

They report:
*We are very proud to have won the Marconi cup - the award for the club with the most successful Lent Bumps campaign, calculated by the number of bumps per crew.
*Our second women’s crew W2 (pictured) won blades, bumping on 4/4 days.
*W1 won technical blades, bumping 4 times over 5 days.
*The men’s crew M1 went up +3 and M2 maintained at +0.

The college congratulates its rowers on this success.

If you want to support the Boat Club, read more here: https://www.sel.cam.ac.uk/alumni/supportselwyn/ergathon