Skip to main content


  • The Memorial Service for Professor Chadwick will take place at 2pm on Saturday 30th January 2016 at Great St Mary’s Church,
    Senate House Hill, Cambridge CB2 3PQ. Refreshments will follow the service in the Hall, Selwyn College.


    There is some reserved seating (eg for family, College and University officials), but attendees are welcome to sit anywhere
    else. Ushers will be pleased to guide you. Please be seated by 1.45pm. Dress: black gowns (no hoods) may be worn.


    Great St Mary’s bells will be rung before and after the service by members and friends of Selwyn College. Before the service
    a quarter peal will be rung to celebrate Owen’s life, commencing at 1.00pm. If you are coming, do listen out for it as
    you arrive.


    Parking: there is very limited parking only at Selwyn College at Cripps Court (entry from Cranmer Road or Grange Road). There
    will also be limited parking available at the University’s Sidgwick site, entry off Sidgwick Avenue (opposite Newnham
    College). King’s College has kindly given permission for those attending the Memorial Service to pass through
    King’s College between the Backs and King’s Parade.


    Owen Chadwick cared deeply about students and about the future of Selwyn College. The retiring collection after the service
    will go to two causes dear to his heart: supporting Selwyn students of limited means, through the established Owen Chadwick
    Fund; and for the benefit of the College Chapel, which was so important to his life here. If you would like more information
    about either of these causes please contact the Master’s office at the College: master@sel.cam.ac.uk.


    Donations by those not attending may be sent to the Owen Chadwick Fund, c/o the Alumni and Development Office, Selwyn
    College, Cambridge CB3 9DQ; or if you prefer to make a donation by credit card, please telephone Ann Farrell, Development
    Officer, on 01223 767845.


  •  

    The actor Tom Hollander became the latest Honorary Fellow at Selwyn in an installation ceremony in the Chapel on Thursday 21 January. Tom came to the College in 1985 to read English, and since leaving Cambridge he has become internationally known for his acting roles in television, radio and film. His work ranges from the comedy drama “Rev” on BBC Two to the “Pirates of the Caribbean” series, and last year he won a Best Actor award from the Royal Television Society.

     

     

    Tom was welcomed back to Selwyn by Dr Jean Chothia, who was his director of studies in the 1980s.


    Jean-Tom-x300 

     

     

    Before the installation, Tom went into Chapel for a quick rehearsal – to the delight of the choir who were practising for Choral Evensong. He is pictured with them and with the college chaplain, Hugh Shilson-Thomas, and our director of music Sarah MacDonald.


    Tom-choir-510x 

     



  • Viv Groskop-200xThe comedian Viv Groskop will be bringing her Edinburgh Festival show to Selwyn on Saturday January 30th for one of the opening events in the College’s celebration of 40 years of co-education. Viv is a Selwyn alumna who’s also known as a festival director, writer and broadcaster, and her comedy routine “Say Sorry to the Lady” was acclaimed by audiences when it was first performed last year.



    For more information about this and other attractions in 2016, please visit our online calendar:  http://www.selwynalumni.com/eventscalendar. Viv Groskop’s website can be found at http://vivgroskop.com/




  • Selwyn is staging a series of events in 2016 to mark the 40th anniversary of the admission of women as students and Fellows. The College was one of the earliest in Cambridge to change its statutes to make co-education possible, and the first female undergraduates arrived in October 1976. Forty years on, there will be reunions, debates, speaker sessions, music and comedy to mark this milestone. Details can be found at https://www.selwynalumni.com/eventscalendar.



    The College has also commissioned a series of portraits of Selwyn’s women of today by the award-winning photographer Jeff Overs. Some of them are now on display in the Hall, and all of them are online: https://www.flickr.com/photos/selalum/albums. The current photograph on the homepage and below shows Dr Jean Chothia, who was the first woman Fellow in 1976 and went on to become Vice-Mistress of Selwyn.



    chothia-510x



    We’ll be launching a special section on this website soon giving details of all the activities that are planned, as well as some of the history and achievements of the last four decades. In the meantime, the Cambridge News published a feature on January 6th about the photographic project: http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/Selwyn-College-Cambridge-puts-women-wall-mark/story-28469398-detail/story.html. It includes a portrait of our head porter Helen Stephens, the first woman to take that role in a Cambridge college, and of women officers of the JCR.



    stephens-510x



    womenlodge-510x



     




  • kencoutts
    Selwyn Fellow Ken Coutts, along with former Fellow Graham Gudgin, published a UK economic forecast report in
    December, taking issue with the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) for the way they do their forecasts, and coming up
    with a less optimistic view about economic prospects. You can download the report here
    href="http://www.cbr.cam.ac.uk/publications/special-reports/"
    target="_blank">http://www.cbr.cam.ac.uk/publications/special-reports/
    and there's a summary along with an audio blog
    also online:
    href="http://www.blogs.jbs.cam.ac.uk/cbr/uk-economy-forecast-report/">http://www.blogs.jbs.cam.ac.uk/cbr/uk-economy-forecast-
    report/
    . The report was covered by a range of media including The Guardian and the Evening Standard, and there were
    further pieces on the Social Europe blog http://www.socialeurope.eu/ and on the
    Policy Research in Macroeconomics site
    href="http://www.primeeconomics.org/articles/">http://www.primeeconomics.org/articles/
    .


  •  


    The Master of Selwyn, Roger Mosey, gave one of the Madingley lectures towards the end of 2015. He spoke about his
    time in broadcasting and some of the challenges facing the BBC. The video is now available online href="http://www.ice.cam.ac.uk/what-we-do/madingley-lectures/broadcasting-past-and-future">http://www.ice.cam.ac.uk/what-we-d
    o/madingley-lectures/broadcasting-past-and-future
    ; and you can read more about the series of lectures on the Institute of
    Continuing Education's website target="_blank">http://www.ice.cam.ac.uk/what-we-do/madingley-lectures.

     



  • This has been an exceptional year for the Selwyn College Choir. The summer saw their sell-out tour of the Pacific Northwest, and they arrived home to find that their latest recording was album of the week on Classic FM – and then in the top 10 of the specialist classical chart. Concerts in the UK, and appreciative reviews, have confirmed that this is a choir that excels.



    To mark the busiest time of year for the Choir – with Carol Services in Cambridge, London and beyond – we’re releasing a video of a performance of ‘Once in Royal David’s City’, specially recorded in the Chapel. It’s a chance for College members and friends, wherever they are in the world, to share some of the spirit of Christmas.



    Click the image below to open the video on youTube.



    chapellodge



    If you want to support Selwyn students, to ensure access to the College whatever an individual’s financial circumstances, you can make a gift of £5 by texting SELW37 £5 to 70070. Thank you.



     




  • Selwyn's Novice Women rowers came second in Division 1 at this year's Emma Sprints. The crews row in fancy dress, and Selwyn opted for the Von Trapp family look. Our correspondent on the Cam tells us:



    “In fabulous fancy dress, we stormed our first three races, winning all of them by over two boat lengths. An unfortunate technical issue in the final straight meant Fitz gained a length on us, and although we put in a determined performance and closed the gap considerably it wasn't quite enough to win.”



    Many congratulations to those involved for a very promising performance. You can read more about the Boat Club’s activities on their Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/SelwynCollegeBC/?fref=ts
     



    VonTrapp-510x



     




  • Selwyn College is pleased to announce that its former student Tom Hollander has been elected as an Honorary Fellow by the Governing Body. Tom, who came to the College to read English in 1985, has had a distinguished acting career. This year he was named the Royal Television Society Best Actor for his portrayal of Dylan Thomas in ‘A Poet In New York’; and he won considerable acclaim for the BBC comedy series ‘Rev’ which he co-created. His film roles run from the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ series through ‘In The Loop’ and ‘Gosford Park’ – and he has also starred on the stage and on radio. He will soon appear on BBC Television in ‘The Night Manager’, written by John Le Carré and co-starring another Selwyn alumnus, Hugh Laurie. Tom Hollander regularly returns to Cambridge, and he was one of the speakers at the 2015 Selwyn English Society dinner. We offer him many congratulations on his Honorary Fellowship.



    TomHollander-510x



     


  •  


    All Selwyn’s first year undergraduates are invited to a series of informal dinners in
    the Master’s Lodge during their early weeks in College. It’s a chance for students to talk to the Master and
    some of their tutors or directors of studies about how they’re finding life at Selwyn, and it also
    enables different subject groups to have a lively conversation with food and drink supplied. Our
    picture shows some recent visitors with the Master, Roger Mosey; and this group was made up
    predominantly of students studying medicine or veterinary medicine, with the addition of one
    economist.

     

     


    Supper-2015-510x