Message from the Dean

We’ve now made it to the end of Trinity Term. How quickly the year has flown past! It has been a very energetic but hugely rewarding time. People frequently ask me, “what’s it like, being Dean?” I tell them that generally I feel very lucky, and quite humbled, to have the opportunity to interact with so many exceptional people in our community—colleagues, students, and alumni. It’s really enabled me to appreciate the breadth of brilliance that we have clustered across the Faculty. I’d also like to acknowledge the extraordinary humanity all members of our community have shown one another throughout this year, in which many have been divided.

This year, we have been fortunate to make several excellent new appointments to Faculty positions. These include Dr Ian Williams (legal history), who has been appointed to an Associate Professorship of Law in association with St John’s College; Dr Jordan English (private law), appointed to an Associate Professorship of Law in association with Magdalen College, and Dr Rory Gregson (private law), to an Associate Professorship in Law in association with Merton College. We have also made offers to groups of outstanding young students to read for our undergraduate and graduate programmes, starting in Michaelmas Term. Our student body continues to become more diverse, both in terms of social background and ethnicity. At the last admissions cycle, just under a quarter of our UK domicile undergraduate intake came from less economically advantaged areas, and just over a third were Black or from another minoritised ethnic group.

The Faculty has continued to increase the funds we make available to support graduate students, but although this support has grown by over 500% since 2018, around half of these brilliant students to whom we make offers for graduate study are unable to take them up, usually for financial reasons. In response to this challenge we have created the Dean’s Scholars Fund, to which many alumni—including myself—are contributing, and which is making a big difference to the ability of the students who receive its funding to participate in their programmes. You can find further information on the Law Faculty website. Regular contributions from so many of you—no matter how small individually—add up to a significant positive impact on the opportunities of our talented scholars. Please do join me in supporting this.

One of my happier tasks this term has been to introduce the inaugural lecture of our colleague Timothy Endicott as the Vinerian Professor of English Law. Many of you will have benefited from being taught by Timothy over the years and/or from his service as the Faculty’s inaugural Dean. He is now the sixteenth incumbent of this chair, first held by Sir William Blackstone. Timothy’s lecture, to a packed Gulbenkian Lecture Theatre with simultaneous online broadcast, was entitled Aristocratic Elements in a Democratic Constitution.

I’m also delighted to announce that from Michaelmas Term 2024 Donal Nolan will take on the Office of Vice-Dean. The Vice-Dean’s key responsibilities are to lead on recruitment of academic colleagues below professorial level, to oversee our teaching requirements, to oversee the review processes for colleagues in their initial period of office, and to serve as a main point of contact for the concerns and problems of individual Faculty members. Donal has considerable prior academic leadership experience, having previously served as Vice-Chair of Law Board from 2007-10, a role which entailed many of the key aspects of our current Vice-Deanship, and having chaired, from 2020-22, the Academic Strategy Committee in Worcester College, which is responsible for developing and monitoring the College’s strategic aspirations for size, shape, performance and provision of teaching and research. In between, he has contributed widely to Faculty life through participating in all of our significant committees, giving him an exceptionally good understanding of the Faculty in the round. On behalf of all of us, may I say how fortunate, and how grateful, we are that he has been willing to take on this role.

Finally, the St Cross Building celebrates its sixtieth birthday this October. It enjoys Grade II* listed status because of its adherence to modernist design principles on an ambitious scale. However, its architects – principally Sir Leslie Martin – conceived it in warm coloured brick to resonate with neighbouring older buildings such as St Cross Church and Holywell Manor. The wide steps at the front, which provide a central theme for the building and our experience of it, do over time change colour to a dull brown. For a building whose conception emphasises clean lines, this is a shame, and so over the Easter vacation we had the steps pressure-cleaned. The result has been quite striking – as can be seen in the photo, which was taken part-way through the process.

John Armour