The college announces with deep sadness the death of its Fellow, Professor Kenneth Wallace.

Professor Wallace was a Fellow for 40 years. During that time he won the respect of colleagues and students alike as a gifted engineer, an excellent teacher – and a man of considerable charm, warmth and genuine modesty.  

Ken was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1944. He took his undergraduate degree at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology, and he worked in the aero-engine division of Rolls Royce and at Oxford Polytechnic before being appointed lecturer in engineering design at Cambridge in 1978. It was then that he became a Fellow of Selwyn.

In the college, he was a supervisor and a tutor – and a colleague whose wise counsel was much valued. In the university he co-ordinated the setting up of the Engineering Design Centre and was its first director. In 1999 he was appointed Reader in Engineering Design, and he became a Professor in 2001. He had been elected in 1991 as a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers; in 1994 a Fellow of the Smallpeice Trust and a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering Designers; in 1999 a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering; and in 2007 an Honorary Fellow of the Design Society. In 2011 he received an Honorary Doctorate (HonDEng) from Brunel University.

Ken was married to Annette, and they have two daughters. His life outside academia was rich and varied, encompassing swimming, mountain biking and windsurfing – and a prolific amount of home-brewing. He and Annette were regular attenders at the college chapel.

We will miss him greatly, and we extend our deepest sympathy to his family and friends. 

This announcement has been made by his family:

Ken’s funeral will be held at the West Chapel, Cambridge City Crematorium, CB3 0JJ on Wednesday 28 March at 2.15 pm. All are welcome.

Light refreshments will be available afterwards - details will be in the service sheet.

There will be family flowers only but donations, in lieu of flowers, can be made to either Addenbrookes Charitable Trust Fund or Arthur Rank Hospice Charity by contacting our Funeral Director, Peasgood and Skeates, 617 Newmarket Road, Cambridge, CB5 8PA. Tel: 01223 415255. Donations can also be made via ’Ken’s in Memory profile’ which can be found at:

The college is delighted to announce that the distinguished journalist and broadcaster Frank Gardner OBE will give this year’s Ramsay Murray lecture. Mr Gardner is the BBC’s security correspondent, and also a best-selling author. You can read more about his life on his website: http://www.frankgardner.co.uk/.

His title for the lecture will be ‘Behind the headlines in the Middle East’. The Ramsay Murray lecture is an annual prestigious event at Selwyn, and previous speakers have included Professor Amanda Vickery, Sir Michael Howard, Sir Keith Thomas, Professor Ian Clark, Ms Bridget Kendall, Professor Lawrence Freedman, Baroness Onora O’Neill, Professor Niall Ferguson and Professor David Cannadine.

This year’s lecture will be on Friday May 11^th on the Sidgwick site, and further information will be available nearer the time.

In the year that we celebrate the 100th anniversary of the extension of voting rights to some women, here's a portrait of one of the great Selwyn figures involved in the suffrage movement.

(Mary) Kathleen Lyttelton was a co-founder of the Cambridge Women's Suffrage Association in 1884, and she worked closely with her friend Millicent Fawcett. Kathleen took on a national role in the campaign for women's votes and she was president of the National Union of Women Workers. After the death of her husband Arthur, the first Master of Selwyn, she became editor of the women's pages of the Guardian, a weekly journal. There she nurtured women writers, including Virginia Woolf.

Kathleen died in 1907 without ever being allowed the right herself to vote; but she made a major contribution to the campaign. Later this year, the college will be announcing plans to recognise her achievements.

Arthur Lyttelton was also a strong supporter of women’s right to vote. The involvement of both Lytteltons in the campaign meant that a number of meetings in support of women’s suffrage were held in Selwyn, shortly after the college’s foundation. The traditions continued. In 1913 the Master of Selwyn, then the Rev John Murray, conducted a devotional service for suffragists in Cambridge as part of the movement to change the law.

Remembering greatness: a plaque was unveiled in Westminster Abbey on February 1st commemorating our former Master Owen Chadwick and his brother Henry.

They were both priests. They were both heads of House: Owen at Selwyn, and Henry at Christ Church in Oxford and then at Peterhouse in Cambridge. They were both scholars and authors of considerable distinction, and became Regius Professors. Owen was a member of the Order of Merit, and both were knighted. The college is therefore delighted that they will be remembered together in the Abbey - along with so many other famous figures from British history.

Among those attending the ceremony were Andre Chadwick, Owen's daughter; and the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, a Selwyn alumnus.

The Westminster Abbey news release can be read here: https://www.westminster-abbey.org/press/news/2018/february/memorial-to-chadwick-brothers-dedicated

Selwyn Fellow Dr James Keeler is one of the authors of the latest
edition of a key textbook for student chemists. Atkins' Physical
Chemistry is acknowledged by students and lecturers around the
globe to be the textbook of choice for studying physical chemistry, and
it’s now being published in its 11th edition.

James tells us: "At the start of the month I was very pleased to
receive from the publisher (OUP) copies of the book I’ve been
working on for the last two years. It’s an undergraduate text
which is used widely in the UK, the rest of Europe, and in North
America. The first edition came out when I was an undergraduate in
Oxford, and since then the book has developed edition-by-edition by
Professor Peter Atkins, and then latterly with his co-author Professor
Julio de Paula. I have joined them as the junior co-author for the 11th
edition. Getting up to speed with such a large book and with two very
experienced co-authors has been a hard job, but ultimately very
rewarding. It's immensely gratifying to finally have the book in my
hand, and I am honoured to be part of the author team for this
well-known text.

“I've also been working on a solutions manual to go with the
text together with a team of recent graduates, including two Selwyn
members Stephanie Smith (now a Teaching Fellow in the Department, and
Bye Fellow of Pembroke College) and Aimee North.  We have not quite
finished this huge task as yet, but are almost there."

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Another new face in the college for 2018: Dr Kirsty McDougall joins us as admissions tutor for the arts and social sciences. She will become part of the team which manages our outreach programmes and selects new undergraduates, working alongside the science admissions tutors Dr Daniel Beauregard and Dr Stuart Eves.

Kirsty comes from a similar position at Clare College, and her academic subject is Linguistics. We offer her our customary warm welcome to Selwyn.

The start of 2018 marks a change in command in Selwyn's gardens. Following the retirement of Paul Gallant, our new head gardener is Andrew Myson - who began work on January 2nd.

Andrew has a lot of Cambridge college experience: he was previously head gardener at Trinity Hall. We welcome him to Selwyn, and wish him every success in his work here.

Selwyn was featured in the 2017 Christmas special editions of ‘University Challenge’. The match against the University of St Andrews was shown on BBC2 on December 26^th.

Our team is: Sophie Wilson – a computer scientist, and honorary Fellow of the college; Robin French – an award-winning playwright and screenwriter; David Wilson – a criminologist and former prison governor; and Viv Groskop – a writer and comedian. You can watch the episode on the BBC iPlayer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09l933l. It’s also on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvcawc5iOyk

Selwyn welcomed back two of its best known alumni this December: television & film star Hugh Laurie and top-selling novelist Robert Harris. They're pictured alongside the Christmas tree in Hall.

Hugh Laurie has a strong family connection with Selwyn: his father Ran Laurie was a student at the college, who went on to win an Olympic gold medal in rowing. Hugh was a member of the Boat Race crew in his time as a student, and it was in Cambridge that he met his long-term comedy partner Stephen Fry. He became the most-watched man on television according to the Guinness Book of World Records through his series ‘House’.

Robert Harris was at Selwyn just before Hugh, and he is now one of Britain's most popular authors with his Cicero trilogy currently being staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company and his latest novel 'Munich' another success.

Hugh and Robert have taken part in separate Master's Lodge events this term in which they've shared their career experiences with current students.

For some time now the JCR has been running a ‘Students of Selwyn’ series, profiling some of the undergraduates at the college. We’re delighted that the MCR is now working to expand the series, so that in future it will include graduate students too.

The first representative of our MCR is Hiba Salem, who talks about her journey from Syria to Selwyn - and her research among refugee communities.

Q: Where are you from? Where did you study before coming to Cambridge?

A: I am from another ancient city, Damascus. I studied and lived in Syria until I was accepted by Cambridge in 2014 for an MPhil. I am now in the third year of my PhD.

Q: What motivated you to pursue postgraduate study at Cambridge?

A: I was living in Damascus during the first three years of the war. Our lives were transformed beyond recognition within mere months. Our home changed so violently and so rapidly. One day, I saw the phrase “a lost generation”, a term used to characterise the millions of Syrian children who would grow up with very little or no education whatsoever. It was devastating to know that this would be written into Syria’s future. While I always wanted to study for a postgraduate degree in Education, it was during those years that I became certain of what it is I wanted to work on.

Q: In a few words (although there will soon be 80,000 of them) can you describe your research project? Is there anything in particular about your work that you'd like to share with a wider audience, especially prospective students to Cambridge?

A: I research the well-being of Syrian refugee students in Jordan using innovative visual methods to engage their own interpretations of their schools. The impetus behind my research stems from the high dropout rates of refugee students in Jordanian schools. Last year, I interviewed 80 refugee students across secondary schools in Jordan to discuss the students’ reflections on their lives. Specifically, my research works to understand how the students’ educational experiences in Jordan, such as being segregated from their Jordanian peers, impact their sense of well-being, feelings about the future, and their own perceived likelihood of dropping out of school.

Q: What do you think is the potential broader impact of your research project? Are there things that you'd like to do in the future that build upon your PhD in education?

A: One of the most challenging issues faced today is the staggering number of refugees across the globe. Experiences of refugees are often underrepresented despite decisions being made on their behalf daily. When decision-makers speak of the struggle to provide refugees with quality education, we ultimately know very little about their experiences and what we can do to improve their well-being. I hope that my research shows the importance of individual voices and contexts. I hope that my future research will encourage the inclusion of the voices of refugee students in assessment and policy-making processes.

Q: How has being at Selwyn influenced your experience of Cambridge? Do you think that the College, or in the MCR, have contributed anything unique to your experience of Cambridge?

A: Selwyn has a fantastic community spirit and is one of my favourite things about Cambridge. It is an incredibly colourful community made up of so many interesting and genuine people from all over the world. Being away from home has been made easier by the friends I have made through the MCR. Oh, and dinner parties.

Q: Anything else you'd like us to know about you?

A: I really like this whole English tea & cake in the afternoon thing.

Keep in touch with all our Students of Selwyn on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Selwyn.College.Cambridge/