Selwyn celebrated the 40th anniversary of the admission of women students with a reunion and dinner on Saturday September 24th. There was an excellent turnout from the 1976 year group, the first to be co-educational. The Master, Roger Mosey, used the occasion to salute the pioneers – and to underline the College’s commitment to diversity. Here’s an extract from his speech:
“The admission of women was part of a movement for equality that has made Cambridge and our country better places. It is, happily, impossible now to imagine that we could lock out more than 50% of the population and deny them access to our education. The women of Selwyn have gone on to distinguish themselves in a wide range of fields, and – like our men students – they have enriched their communities and their families and friends because of the doors that were opened to them, and the learning they undertook.
“They started out in a world still very different to today. In 1976 it was illegal, under the threat of prison, for gay undergraduates to have a sexual relationship. The age of consent remained at 21 until 1994. Race relations had a long way to go too. As a small example, The Black and White Minstrel Show was broadcast on television until 1978. Awareness of disability was low, and it wasn’t until 1995 that we got a Disability Discrimination Act.
“And yet we also know in 2016 that we still have a long way to go. It was only a tiny minority of the population who vented their xenophobia in the aftermath of the Brexit vote, but the hurt to immigrant communities and the damage to our national reputation were significant. We do have our second woman prime minister, but women are seriously underrepresented in our FTSE 100 companies. Even here in Cambridge University, we can’t be said to have achieved equality: there simply aren’t enough women in senior positions. We have also seen the bravery it requires for students to say that they’re transgender, and the amount of pastoral support that’s required to help any of our community if they face individual challenges or decide to take a less conventional path in life.
“I therefore want to renew the commitment which was made by the decision to admit women, and which is still needed today: we are open to everyone irrespective of gender, ethnicity, sexuality, religion… and the most important thing of all is that people have the right to be themselves. Our chaplain always says at the Freshers’ service that Cambridge can be about finding out who you are, an important step in a long journey – and we want to nurture whatever it is that our students want to become, with the values that have sustained the college since its foundation.
“There is something vital to add to that, too. None of this qualifies our commitment to free speech or to intellectual inquiry. Respecting people as individuals doesn’t mean that we can’t discuss the big issues of our time openly – and we don’t want to retreat into a place where there are taboos around thinking about our society, and debating whether we’ve got the balance right between our national community and personal rights. Selwyn and Cambridge are lively, disputatious places; and I hope we show every day that we can provide exhilarating exploration of ideas and respectful behaviour towards our colleagues.
“So we have here a College which is proud of its diversity – proud of what 40 years of women, and men, have added to our lives.”
Graduation at Selwyn, 2016
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