Who benefits?

£100,000 Donation to History Invests in Academics of the Future

The College is pleased to announce the launch of new Herringham Scholarships within the History Department, named after Christiana Herringham, one of Bedford College's early benefactors and an ancestor of the donor. Many of Christiana’s personal collection of paintings were bequeathed to Bedford, and are now part of the Secondary Collection that is hung all over the College. The gift for the scholarships was facilitated by a mature history postgraduate who was amazed to discover that he was related to Christiana, whose husband, Sir Wilmot, was Chairman of the Committee of Management for Bedford for many years between the two world wars. When the student's own mother passed away, he kindly enabled a deed of variation to be drawn up from her estate to celebrate the connection between his mother and the Herringham family.

Dr Sarah Ansari, Head of the History Department says, “This is a wonderful gift to have given to our students.  By enabling us to attract the very best scholars to our MA courses, all of whom want to go on to study for PhDs, it really is creating opportunity for those interested in a career in academia. We know that MA students can struggle to finance their postgraduate studies as they’re not entitled to a student loan, so this will encourage talent and foster a new generation of historians, all whilst honouring our own Bedford history.”

 A Grateful Parent donates £27,000 to enable another Student to study Classics

Alex will receive £27,000 to pay his fees over the next three years thanks to the generosity of a grateful parent. The donor’s child had such a wonderful time studying Classics with us that they were compelled to encourage more Classics students and provide a scholarship to be given to the 2012 first year student with the greatest potential and enthusiasm for Classics.

We met with Alex during his first term to ask him what he Scholarship meant to him.

The idea of free tuition fees were hugely tempting so I applied for the Grateful Parent Scholarship. It seemed like an opportunity too good to miss and I had nothing to lose!

I had paid for my own private Latin tuition though my A levels as Latin and Classics were not offered by my sixth form college. I had always been the only one of my friends into Classics which was a private passion for years. Coming to university has been great as suddenly I’m surrounded by people who love Classics too. It’s been really refreshing to be part of a collective rather than a lone activity I did!

I’m studying Roman Literature in my first year and I’m really looking forward to Ancient Philosophy modules in the second year. It’s great to be around like-minded students and the professors’ knowledge of their areas of expertise is amazing. Their lecturers are insightful and really challenge me but in an enjoyable way. The department is very cosmopolitan and not what I had expected of a Classics department in my mind but it’s all been good surprises so far.

I want to join the Classics society and also get involved in the annual play the department put on. It’s difficult to imagine myself anywhere else right now so perhaps a career in academia might be where I’d go but it’s early days.

I had previously considered not going to university at all. My father didn’t go to university and he did OK so I seriously looked into finding a job. When I heard that I’d be awarded this scholarship, It totally made my mind up. Royal Holloway was always my first choice but this meant that I could actually get to university. I will continue to work part-time during my studies in order to finance my accommodation and books but this scholarship has made the difference to me. I really feel it’s not just a gift of free fees, it’s the gift of education and opportunity for me. Anything is possible now!

It seems somewhat of a small gesture to say thank you to my anonymous donor but it’s a real testament to the quality of the department that a parent would do such a thing to say thank you for their child’s experience at Royal Holloway.  

Bedford Still Pioneering Education For All In 2012

The College have welcomed more than 450 Bedford Scholars this year. All first year undergraduate students who have gained AAB or above in their A levels or equivalent this summer and put us as their first choice university have been awarded with £1000 to aid their living costs in the first year.

This commitment to academic excellence and maintaining the Bedford name has meant that many able and talented students have been drawn to us.

Bedford was selected as the name of the Scholarship due to the College’s roots in widening access to education, when the College formed it was a pioneer in women’s education, today we pride ourselves on offering a university education to all, regardless of financial means.

Faces of the Future

This year we have been able to award 3 Future Leader Scholarships thanks to the generosity of our Alumni Fund donors. Three recipients will have their fees paid for them, a scholarship of £27,000 each 

 

Robin Campbell -

“I’m really excited to get stuck into the practical work of my Media Arts degree, editing, producing content to add to the YouTube Channel I have already set up.

The first half of my week is practical and then the second half is theory to put it all into context and grounds it all.

I’m looking forward to playing trombone in Holloway’s jazz band, utilise my leadership skills as class representative within Media Arts and generally tone my skills. I love the thought of making a documentary this year on the course and building my portfolio.

“I applied to a couple of other universities but Royal Holloway stood out for me on the open day as a friendly, welcoming campus and the wonderful Media Department staff pulled me into practical work and made me feel part of things straight away.

I’m keen to contribute to the student print media so I’m looking to sign up to The Founder newspaper and Orbital Magazine at Welcome Week.

This scholarship will put me in a fantastic position. I can use my spare time to build my portfolio and I will be able to look at internships within the media industry without the pressure of finding a job that pays off rising debts.

I’m really looking forward to my three years here and intend to really get involved!”

Jenny Maddalena –

 

“I’ve had a pretty busy summer completing my A Levels and grade 8 saxophone but I’m really looking forward to my degree at Royal Holloway. As a Physics and Philosophy student I get the best of both worlds. The factual, scientific approach of Physics and the open minded debate of Philosophy. I feel they enhance each other and will combine to make me a rounded graduate. I’m keen to get involved in volunteering and charity work as I’ve been lucky enough to get involved with a community project in the Himalayas as well as a disability charity here in the UK. It’s something I hope to be able to keep up through community Action on campus. There is so much choice in terms of how to volunteer here! I’ll be playing netball and enjoying living in Gower Hall. I’m pretty organised with my time so I’m going to be filling up my already pretty packed timetable.

“I am already thinking about staying here to study for a Masters and then PhD, perhaps with a year abroad, working in industry. I like the idea of being self employed in the job market and this scholarship will enable me to have less debt when graduating and a better chance at being able to set myself up as a self employed, early on in my career. This scholarship will help support that dream.”

Georgina Brookes –

“I was really surprised to have been award this scholarship. I read about but didn’t think I stood much of a chance so it’s really flattering and a huge help for me in the coming three years. I am a local girl but I’ve chosen to live in halls whilst a student so I can really become independent and this scholarship will help with this added cost to enable me to really live the university life away from home.

It’s early in my university experience but I’ve already been struck by how friendly everyone is here and how welcome I’ve be made to feel. I have students from all over the world in my corridor in Kingswood and that’s all part of the Holloway experience.

Before deciding on Royal Holloway as my first choice university, I looked at Bath, Surrey, LSE and City, all to study Economics but I visited an open day here and instantly felt at home. I am looking forward to opting into modules on other courses such as French so I can keep up my French. That option just wasn’t offered at other universities so having researched widely, I knew that the university just a few miles down the road was for me!

I’m interested in pursuing a career in International Development, perhaps working for the Foreign Office or in overseas aid, so I’ll be looking to keep my languages and perhaps join Amnesty International through the College’s reps.” 

 A sweet surprise - a new bursary from the George Cadbury Trust for 2013

Alumnus Mark Cadbury (Geology, 1986) has kindly facilitated a gift of £9,000 per year from The George Cadbury Trust which will continually support a student throughout their studies beginning in 2013. The Trust hope to support a student from a low income background who has overcome adversity in order to succeed academically

The trust was set up by Mark’s great-grandfather, George Cadbury, a founder of Cadbury's with his brother Richard. George Cadbury was a philanthropist and believed strongly in looking after the workers in the factory.

George Cadbury built houses for the workers each with their own garden, a hospital, reading rooms, sports & recreational facilities, a work's canteen, medical and dental treatment facilities and a pension fund for the workers - none of which had been in place before.

The George Cadbury Trust today aims to ensure that needy individuals, charities and communities are given an opportunity to grasp an alternative future and to develop their sense of philanthropy.

It is the hope of the College and Trust that recipients of the new George Cadbury bursary will not only go on to make the most of this opportunity but also to give something back to society after graduation, continuing George’s philanthropic aims.

If you are interested in applying for this bursary or you know someone who would be applicable, please email Louisa Mairlot|.

 

The Freda Iris Wadsworth Bursary

The Mathematics Department are pleased to be able to offer  The Freda Iris Wadsworth Bursary for the first time in September 2012.

The award will be open to undergraduate Mathematics students who are from low income households.

Freda obtained a place to study Mathematics at Royal Holloway in the mid-1930s but was unable to obtain a scholarship. Instead, Freda attended a local college and obtained a distinction but was always disappointed not to have attended Royal Holloway.

When Freda passed away recently her granddaughter remembered her grandmother's story and in her honour has decided to set up a bursary for able Maths students who are unable to finance their studies here. This touching donation has come from Freda's granddaughter who is now studying for her PhD, encouraged by her grandmother's story and enduring support.The award of £400 a year for the full duration of study will be available to students studying any Mathematics undergraduate courses.

Freda's grand-daughter Wendy says, "I chose to donate to Royal Holloway after learning the poignant details of my Grandmother's struggle to study Mathematics. My family have always been very supportive of my academic development, and I think my love for science and mathematics was strengthened at an early age by my grandparents and their extensive collection of textbooks. During my masters degree my grandmother was able to help me financially, and without her help I would not have been able to fully fund the course. Sadly she never lived to see me achieve my dream of studying for a PhD, which I am now doing.

"I am fully aware of how difficult it is to fund education and therefore I would like to try and help someone, in the small way I can, to achieve their dream of studying at University."

If you would like to apply for Freda's bursary, please click here|.

If you would like to contribute toward this bursary, please contact Kathryn Griggs|.

 

The Paul Tyne Memorial Bursary Awards

These began after Paul Tyne, an alumnus of the College, passed away last year. His work colleagues and friends decided to remember him by setting up a bursary to help those from less financially-able backgrounds to study with us. We have now chosen our third recipient, Shabana Faqeerzada, a first year Management and Accounting student, who will receive £2500 per year for the whole three years of her undergraduate study. 

The first recipients were Ali Aliyu and Caroline Scapin who have both come from overseas to study with us, Both have since graduated, Caroline securing a First Class degree. 

 

Individual donors are welcome to talk to us about setting up bursaries or scholarships themselves, as a thank you for your time at the College, or perhaps in memory of a friend or relative who spent time at the College. Its a great way to support the College and its students.

 

 

We are pleased to be able to report that thanks to Alumni Fund donations and a contribution from the College, we are able to clean and restore both the North and South Quad statues. Both the Holloways and Queen Victoria statues have been delicately and painstakingly cleaned and missing pieces are currently being restored in the second phase of work.

Donations have been able to ensure this symbolic and important work could go ahead, in addition to the constant upkeep of Founders and our other buildings.

Other gifts to campus have included benches to commemorate the wedding anniversary of married couples who met as students here and the recent renovation of a Founder's bathroom.

 

Community Action – Big Spring Clean Community Day

£2360 was given to support a spring clean of Englefield Green with an aim, not only to improve the clean the area, but also to build a sense of community and to promote volunteering to a wide range of people.

The initiative enabled our student volunteers to engage with the local community whilst making a difference on projects requested by a variety of schools, care homes, churches and other community organisations. Volunteers and residents alike were all pleased with the how the day went and the cleaner and well-kept look of the area afterwards.

 

In the 2010/11 year, the Alumni Fund has committed £10,000 towards sports equipment, training competing costs.

A new scrummage machine for the men's and women's rugby teams is being purchased thanks to Annual Fund help as well as helping towards the travel and physiotherapy costs for the teams competing in the annual BUCS championships held in Sheffield this March.

The eight man rowing boat has been refurbished thanks to Alumni Fund help as well as travel costs towards several teams who travel the country representing the College. 

Cricket Pitch Covered

£4,200 was granted for the purchasing of covers for the pitch at Nobles. These enable the grounds man to prepare better pitches without being adversely affected by the weather. The importance the covers have upon the quality of the pitches produced and subsequently the quality of cricket played have had a huge impact on the matches played.

In addition to the improvement in playing conditions, it provides the opportunity to play matches, which in prior years would not have been feasible due to the weather conditions, increasing the number of games we can offer students, staff and the local community who hire the facilities.

The covers themselves comprise of 3 units of 7.3m by 3.9m, which means the entire pitch and the important part of the run up can be covered. They also provide a fantastic guttering system which gathers the water and through the use of 50m worth of hosepipes, the water is then distributed well away from the important areas.

 

Photographic Society's New Enlarger

Just over £700 has been given to the Photography Society to go towards improving the facilities in the College darkroom. A 6x6cm enlarger has replaced the previous faulty one allowing members of the society who have not previously been able to use the facilities due to having cameras that do not match the requirements of the current machinery to produce some brilliant work.

Last year the Society won RAG Event of the Year for their exhibition. They hope that this was the first of many great exhibitions that can now be carried out on a larger and more professional scale. These exhibitions are valuable not only to the society, but to the college community as a whole as well as the charities who benefitted from RAG contributions.

New Lacrosse Mobile Training Goals

The Alumni Fund has provided £300 for two Mobile Training Goals for the Lacrosse Club. These goals enable the Club to be easily played on other pitches on and around campus. They will last long into the future and provide the Club’s 75 members with many enjoyable benefits.

Balkan Ensemble workshops and music library

The RHUL Balkan Music Ensemble is an ensemble of RHUL students and staff members dedicated to promoting the awareness of the diversity of cultures in Eastern Europe and the Balkans through music.

Thanks to funding of £400 from the Alumni Fund the Royal Holloway Balkan Ensemble were able to fund a number of projects this year including a Bulgarian Singing workshop with Desslana Stefenova of the London Bulgarian Choir. £100 of the funds was used to create a new music library which will enable The Ensemble to perform an even greater variety of music. The Alumni Fund also supported a trip to London to participate in the London Gypsy Orchestra’s Annual Gypsy Heritage day at the Cecil Sharp House. Thanks to the kind support of Alumni Fund donors the Ensemble have been able to vastly improve access to the music of Eastern Europe and the Balkans and the popularity of the group is rising fast with over 30 members.

Laptop Stock Bolstered Thanks to Annual Fund Donors

70 laptops are now available to hire in both Bedford and Founder’s Libraries which means more students are able to research and write their essays, dissertation or thesis without having to buy their own computers.

Katie Blow, Sabbatical Officer and Vice President for Education and Welfare 2011-2012 said, “The laptops are a real boost to the resources within our libraries. Whether students’ laptops break or they just can’t afford one, this is a wonderful facility. They’re a great idea so thank you to donors for making it happen!”

The Creation of Maths Café

£4800 was granted by the Alumni Fund to provide second and third year students with a well defined and professional evening study group. The Maths Café takes students from informal study groups where they help each other and learn from each other and provides help to any student in a well defined place and time.

The student teaching their peers also benefit enormously from this opportunity both by improving their own mastery of mathematics and by experience in teaching others.

Biological Science Videos

The Alumni Fund has provided the funds for new recording equipment for The Bioscience Society to allow them to produce tutorial videos that will target topics relevant to their courses. One example is the illustration of laboratory methods and protocols. Other than by actually running an experiment, one of the best ways to grasp the details of a lab protocol is through video demonstration, which can be observed over and over again long after the laboratory class has finished, effectively supporting the understanding of scientific methodology.

They will begin producing a library of instructional and informative videos, initially addressing experiments covered within specific courses and then branching out to demonstrate techniques that are also important in bioscience research but are perhaps (due to time and resource constraints) unable to be covered in the labs first hand by all students.

 

Intel support new ISG course with $50,000 gift

Intel's charitable Foundation have leant their support to an innovative new approach to fighting the issues in Economics surrounding information security by making a $50,000 gift towards our development of a new Information Security course.

The course in Economics and Security has been recognised as a much needed enhancement of knowledge and teaching in these two overlapping sectors. Security practitioners and economist alike have celebrated the launch of this course, filling a gap in the current security curricula. The potential beneficiaries of this new ISG course include the users and the providers of computing services and infrastructure at large, including the leaders like Intel, who depend on maintaining a stable and capable work force.

The course will involve an innovative approach to teaching involving the notes and teaching being available online through multimedia, web interactions, and diverse labs and practicals in order to create an exceptional level of teaching support available worldwide and truly addressing this gap internationally.

Professor Dusko Pavlovic of the Information Security Group, course lead and instrumental in securing the gift, said, "The Intel Foundation's gift (which was through the College's US Foundation|) has enabled us to develop the course and purchase crucial software for us to deliver the course dynamically and internationally. This gift goes a significant way towards tackling the knowledge and resources needed to address this exceptional task in today's economic and security conscious environment."

 

Politics and International Relations represent the College in New York

18 members of the Politics and International Relations Society travelled to  New York to represent the College at a model UN Conference thanks to a £250 travel bursary each. This money helped them with the cost of their flights and made the trip accessible for all delegates.

Coming away with a notable mention, many of our students took a senior role in the conference providing fantastic experience for their CV and a real life application to their studies.

Many students considering postgraduate study are often put off pursuing their academic goals due to the burden of their student debt from their undergraduate study.

Helene Raynesford graduated from her BSc in Medical Biochemistry in 2003 and after several years as a professional athlete and winning gold in the arms-only single sculls event at the Beijing Paralympics she has now retired from professional rowing to return to her studies back in Egham.

Now embarking on an MSc in Human Neuroscience at Royal Holloway, Helene found that her old wheelchair became uncomfortable after long periods of study. Thanks to a joint grant from the Alumni Fund and her county council, Helene now has a state of the art wheelchair which is light, durable and importantly far more comfortable for sitting in for long periods whilst studying for her Human Neuroscience MSc. Helene is pictured preparing for the Donor Event in March where beneficiaries met and thanked our donors this year. 

Christopher Moon-Little, Artistic Director at Opera Holloway, talks about how funding from the Alumni Fund has benefited the society:

"In December we mounted a very successful production of Hansel and Gretel by Humperdinck, in March we will be staging Handel's oratorio Samson in the Windsor Building, semi-staged, June will see our production of Cinderella and during June and July the core members of our group will be touring the UK performing a trio of short operas: Walton's The Bear, Barber's The Hand of Brdige and Menotti's The Telephone. We start the tour during the RHUL day at Windsor Firestation and the highlight of the tour will be a performance on the main stage of Buxton Opera House.

We are elated with how this is all going. The alumni funding has really helped us improve our educational benefit to the singers on campus. It has allowed us to hold two more masterclasses. In November we had a masterclass with renowned opera singer and teacher Janis Kelly, who is a professor at the Royal College of Music. This was with the entire cast and chorus of Hansel and Gretel. Also a couple of weeks ago we had a masterclass with Felicity Lott, photos of which are on our website www.operaholloway.co.uk.|

Both singers expressed their deep admiration for the project and the talent within it. Felicity Lott has booked tickets for the first night of Cinderella.

The funding also was used to fund a project with the Marist School in Ascot who provided the Children's Chorus for Hansel and Gretel and who we worked with intensly over the Autumn term. Principal Layzell expressed his admiration of well they performend when he came to see our last night.

We would all like to thank the Alumni fund for their support and hope the see that we used the money as well as possible."

Euan Strachan, 3rd Year Biological Sciences Student and President of Men’s Rugby talks about the difference the Alumni Fund has made to the Rugby Club:

"The donation from the Alumni Fund has made an incredible impact on the way we train as a rugby squad and forms the conduit for the inevitable enhancement of match day preparation and performance. Of particular note was the Scrum machine as an imposing new addition. To say briefly, scrimmaging has formed a massive part of our game this season and our benefit is very much the demise of our opposition......"

 

The Music Department has been granted over £21,000 towards new percussion instruments through the Alumni Fund this year. Instruments include a collection of different sized cymbals, tam-tams, and gongs, a new set of three orchestral timpani, a set of tubular bells, chromatic crotales, a drumkit and a variety of unpitched and hand-held instruments.

Professor Julian Johnson, Head of Music, said, ‘This very generous support from the Alumni Fund will allow the Music Department to establish a collection of percussion instruments that will serve us for many years to come. The instruments will be used by students from across the College in the various student orchestras and other ensembles we run and will considerably enhance the quality of our concerts. They will be very well used in the teaching of composition, help us to attract more percussionists to study here, and be a very visible – and audible – symbol of the high quality for which the Music Department at Royal Holloway is known.’