BALLIOL COLLEGE NEWS

   
   

January 2016

 

New Year honours

 
   

We congratulate the following Balliol Old Members who received awards in the New Year honours list 2016:

Clare Moriarty (1982), lately Director-General, Rail Executive, Department for Transport: Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB), for services to transport

Professor David Tregar Ulph (1968), Professor of Economics and Director, Scottish Institute for Research in Economics, University of St Andrews: Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), for services to economics and social sciences

Amanda Helen Ariss (1982), lately Chief Executive, Equality and Diversity Forum: Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), for services to equality

Ivan Rogers (1979), Permanent Representative to the European Union: Knight Commander of St Michael and St George (KCMG), for services to British European and international policy

We invite Old Members to let us know of any omissions.

Balliol hosts lunch for Oxford's new Vice-Chancellor

 
 

Professor Richardson (right)
& Lord Patten (left) at Balliol

Following the swearing in of Oxford Univeristy’s new Vice-Chancellor, Professor Louise Richardson, at the Sheldonian Theatre on 12 January 2016, members of Congregation attended lunch in Balliol Hall. At the ceremony Professor Richardson was welcomed by the Oxford Chancellor,The Rt Hon the Lord Patten of Barnes (1962). In her address she called on the University to show ‘agility’ in an era of globalisation and technological change and called for ever-greater efforts in attracting the world’s best students and scholars to Oxford. She is the 272nd Vice-Chancellor in Oxford’s history, and the first woman to hold the post.

Lifetime Achievement Teaching Excellence Award for Piers Nye

 
   

Congratulations to Piers Nye, Emeritus Fellow and Lecturer in Systems Biology, who has received a 2015 Teaching Excellence Lifetime Achievement Award from Oxford's Medical Sciences Division. The award acknowledges academics for ‘the high quality and sustained commitment to education demonstrated throughout their career at Oxford’. Dr Nye was Lecturer in Physiology at Balliol 1984-1987, and Fellow and Tutor in Physiological Sciences 1991-2011.

Balliol people contribute to quantum technology research

 
  Professor David Lucas

Balliol Fellow David Lucas (Professor of Physics and Tutor in Physics), alumni Professor Derek Stacey (1956) and Tom Harty (2005), and graduate student Vera Schafer (2014) are among the authors of a recently published paper in the journal Nature which demonstrates how the work of the Networked Quantum Information Technologies (NQIT) Hub, based at Oxford, is progressing. As part of a government-led drive to get quantum technology out of laboratories and into the marketplace, NQIT is working towards the goal of a fully functioning quantum computer - a machine, Professor Lucas explains, which ‘processes information according to the rules of quantum physics, which govern the behaviour of microscopic particles at the scale of atoms and smaller’. Professor Lucas gives more detail about the experiments, and their significance, in an article on the University website.

Interview with Balliol author Samuel Shem

 
 

Samuel Shem (Photo by
Piers Nye)

Keith Farrell-Dillon (2002) spoke with American psychiatrist Dr Stephen Bergman (1966) who, under the pen name Samuel Shem, is the author of House of God (1978), which has sold over two million copies in 30 languages and was named by The Lancet as one of the two most important American medical novels of the 20th century. They discussed Shem's House of God, as well as his other writing, and how his time at Balliol influenced it. Read the entire interview here.

Gaudy for the years 2000-2002

 
 

 

Old Members who matriculated in 2000-2002 are reminded to book their place for the Gaudy online before 4 March. There are already over 80 other Old Members from this cohort attending, and we look forward to seeing you all there.

If you didn't receive your invitation, please email Ginny Matthews with your contact details.

Powell Essay Prize winners

 
   

Many congratulations to Balliol student Laurence Warner (2013), and alumna Zoë Slater (2012) who jointly won the Powell Essay Prize 2015.

Laurence, who is in his third year studying PPE, took as his theme the following quotation: ‘We are going to destroy the basis upon which they have built for decade after decade a system, a network, that viciously sucks the energy and economic power from everybody else in society’ (Yanis Varoufakis on Channel 4 television, January 2015). His essay can be read online here.

Zoë completed her degree in English in Trinity Term 2015. The title of her essay was ‘“O for a life of sensation rather than of thoughts!” (John Keats). What role does, or should, feeling have in a thinking life?’

New Research Projects Receive BII Awards

 
   

The Balliol Interdisciplinary Institute (BII) is pleased to announce that four new research projects have recently been awarded funding, representing a broad range of interdisciplinary collaboration within Balliol College, and across Oxford. The Institute provides opportunities for Senior Members and graduate students to propose and lead pioneering research projects.

SIGNIFICANT PUBLICATIONS BY OLD MEMBERS

If you would like us to mention in this section any significant work published this year or last, please contact Ginny Matthews.
Elizabeth Paton (2006) has written an article in Oxford Today magazine, 'What will the world of luxury look like in 2016?' In it she explains how sales in the luxury sector have seen a downturn, and it will face a struggle to recapture hearts, minds and wallets in 2016.
Jamie Dow (1990) has published a monograph 'Passions and Persuasion in Aristotle's Rhetoric (Oxford University Press, 2015)' which is the first major monograph on this work in twenty years. In it he explores, through careful examination of the text of the Rhetoric, what normative standards must be met for something to qualify in Aristotle's view as 'proper grounds for conviction', and how he supposed these standards could be met by each of his trio of 'technical proofs' (entechnoi pisteis)―those using reason, character and emotion. A full review by Eugene Garver, Saint John’s University, can be read in the Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.
Michael Fullilove (1997) has had his ABC Boyer Lectures published in 'A Larger Australia: The ABC 2015 Boyer Lectures (Penguin, 2015)'. Within these lectures, he examines Australia's place in the world, arguing that Australia must shape its international environment.

FORTHCOMING EVENTS

SAVE THE DATE

    • Oliver Smithies LectureWednesday 4 May at 5.00pm, Lecture Hall, History Faculty Building, Oxford - ‘1914 and the Enigma of Causal History’ by Professor John Horne
    • Deans' Dinner - Friday 6 May - Please note change of date - By invitation
    • Master's Seminar in Rome, 'Britain and Ireland in Europe' - Tuesday 17 May
    • Young Alumni Garden Party and Summer Eights - Saturday 28 May - By invitation to all who matriculated in 2003 or later
    • Balliol Boathouse Grand Opening - Saturday 28 May - Details to follow
    • Memorial Service for Carol Clark - Saturday 11 June
    • Gaudy for the years 1978-1980 - Saturday 25 June - By invitation
    • Donors Day at Balliol - Saturday 2 July - By invitation to all donors in 2015. Details to follow

 

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