News and updates from Balliol College                                                                    

April 2020

‘Our priority over the vacation has been to create for the new term as supportive and productive an environment for our students, academics and staff as possible. Arrangements for sitting Final examinations or equivalents “virtually” are now in place, with clear guidance on how examiners will take the extraordinary circumstances into account. Our academics have been preparing to teach online, and 94 students have just taken 117 Collection papers remotely. College Officers have been dealing with a number of challenges, including supporting those suffering from anxiety or financial hardship, and ensuring the wellbeing of students who are unable to leave Oxford. I believe that the College has shown itself at its best in these challenging times. It is clear that there will be no sudden return to "normal" life here, but I am confident that we will work with the same flexibility, community ethos and focus in the months to come. And the wisteria is in bloom in the Front Quad!'
Dame Helen Ghosh DCB, Master

 

Oxford fights COVID-19 

From vaccine development to mapping, researchers across the University are at the forefront of global efforts to understand the coronavirus (COVID-19) and protect our communities. Read more

Professor Wilfred Beckerman

The College is greatly saddened by the death of Emeritus Fellow Wilfred Beckerman, Professor of Economics. Read more

Vinerian Professorship

Timothy Endicott (Professor of Legal Philosophy, Blanesburgh Fellow and Tutor in Law) has been appointed to the Vinerian Professorship of English Law. Read more

Paper on testing strategy

Balliol Fellows Dan Susskind and David Vines, with others, have published a paper on ‘A Workable Strategy for Covid-19 Testing’. Read more

Outreach goes online

Remote teaching for the Floreat access programme is one of the ways in which Balliol is maintaining its outreach offering to schools during the lockdown. Read more

Restored paths 

The paths in the Fellows' and Master's Gardens have been restored, in order to improve safety and access for all those who use them. Read more

Fellowship for astrophysicist

Professor Deepto Chakrabarty (Visiting Fellow 1998-1999) has been elected an inaugural Fellow of the American Astronomical Society. Read more
ALUMNI NEWS

Maths professorship

Professor Sarah Hart (1993) has been appointed Gresham Professor of Geometry – a maths professorship thought to be the oldest in the UK. Read more

Election to American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Professor Ngaire Woods (1987) has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as an International Honorary Member. Read more

Online lecture series

We were delighted that our first webinar was so well attended and received. More are in the pipeline - put the dates in your diaries now. Read more

Oxford resources

Don't forget that there are many excellent online Oxford resources available to alumni which may divert you during lockdown. Read more
STUDENT NEWS

COVID-19 Support Hub

Prince Abudu (2016, DPhil Computer Science) and Itai Muzhingi (2019, DPhil Sustainable Approaches to Biomedical Science) set up a Zimbabwe COVID-19 Support Hub. Read more

Pandemic ends year abroad

Joseph Al-Khalili (2017, Modern Languages and Linguistics) describes how, like many students, he was on his year abroad when the pandemic began. Read more

Helping a Senagalese refugee

Josh Penollar (2017, Modern Languages) won the Lidl Year Abroad Prize and went to Munich, where he helped a refugee learn German. Read more
ON THE WEB

On COVID-19:

#Archive30: daily Facebook posts from Balliol Archives for the month of April

John Carey (Honorary Fellow) chooses poem by Arthur Hugh Clough (1937) as his Times poem of the week

Julia DeVoy (2016), Dean of Undergraduate Students and Programmes in the Lynch School of Education and Human Development Archives, recorded a video message for her students

PUBLICATIONS

John Hamwee (1963), Experiencing Acupuncture (Singing Dragon, 2020)

William Outhwaite (1968), Transregional Europe (Emerald Publishing, 2020)

Robin Edward Poulton (1969): with Ana Edwards, Sister Cities: A Story of Friendship from Virginia to Mali (Brandylane, 2019); Sunjata – Children of the Mali Empire – Then and Now: Stories about Malian Children (some of whom grow up), 2nd edition; and Paroles sur les Crises au Mali et les Limites de la Démocratie: Expériences et Analyses pour favoriser la Paix (Bamako: La Sahélienne, 2019) 

Stephen Saint-Leger (1974) writing as Daniel Ritter, The Failure of the Free Market and Democracy, and What to Do About It (Profile, 2020)

Stuart Weeks (1983), A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Ecclesiastes, Volume 1: Introduction and Commentary on Ecclesiastes 1.1-5.6 (T&T Clark, 2020)

If you would like us to mention any significant work published this year or last, please contact Anne AskwithPreviously submitted publications are listed here.

 
Please see www.alumniweb.ox.ac.uk/oao/dataprotection for information on the way in which your personal data are held and used in DARS. If you no longer wish to be contacted by Balliol College and/or the University by email, wish to alter the way your data are held and used, or no longer wish to receive Balliol e-News, please send a suitably worded email to database.manager@balliol.ox.ac.uk. If you have an Oxford Alumni Online account, you can manage your preferences by logging in using the link below.

Privacy Policy | Update email preferences | Unsubscribe