Much looking forward to my visit @somervillecollege.bsky.social #Oxford on 12 Oct to talk about Victorian #badass #BarbaraBodichon www.some.ox.ac.uk/news-events/...

We've always known Margery Fry was a work of art... and this beautiful print by Oxford printmaker Sally-Anne Stewart proves it!

Our Emeritus Fellow Barbara Harvey is featured on today's episode of Last Word. Barbara's former colleague Professor Emeritus Joanna Innes speaks about her life and career, alongside her former student, Professor John Blair.

Somerville's final Open Day of 2025 is this Friday! If you're thinking of applying to Oxford, please come and visit us between 8.45am and 5pm. It's a great opportunity to meet some of these friendly faces, learn about the college, and talk to our fantastic tutors.

Blades never looked so good! Somerville College Boat Club are delighted that their new sets of blades have arrived, commemorating their successes at Torpids and Summer Eights.

If you are applying to Oxford this year (exciting!), don't forget to register if your subject requires an admissions test as part of the application process. buff.ly/oUbyeLd

On Saturday 6th September, we will be hosting the final day of the Anglo-German Colloquium's international conference on German Medieval Studies, alongside @somervillecollege.bsky.social Follow the link below for more details about the conference (running 3rd-6th September), and to sign up!

Mary Somerville was many things: a scientist, writer, and polymath. She was also prolific collector of shells. Her collection of shells - and other natural history specimens - has recently been catalogued and is available to view via our Library website. Read more here:

Save the date! On Sunday 14th September, Somerville will take part in Oxford Open Doors weekend.

This year's Somerville Magazine is now out in the wild! Featuring alumna Tessa Ross, producer of 'Conclave' (2024), a history of Jane Austen and Somerville for her 250th centenary, an introduction to AI Scientists - and much more! Read it online here: buff.ly/B1y7w8y

And the winner is.... Vaughan! Thank you so much to everyone who voted in our search for the next Somerville collectible, following the success of our mini Somerville Library earlier this year. Thanks to your support, we have raised over £20,000 for the Somerville Fund.

I'm delighted to see this article published in Arts Education Policy Review (🔑OPEN ACCESS🔑) with my wonderful colleagues @thomasbreeze.bsky.social and Viv John. #MusicEd #CardiffMet @somervillecollege.bsky.social doi.org/10.1080/1063...

OUT NOW: Divine Light! Somerville College Choir is incredibly proud to introduce our new album, Divine Light, released today. Available here: buff.ly/05SQssu

Graduation season might be over for the summer, but we couldn't resist sharing one last photo...

Good luck to everyone opening their A Level results today! We hope you are proud of yourselves, and can't wait to welcome our incoming freshers this autumn - Somerville Library is quietly waiting for you. Please share if you are #GoingToOxford and tag us! Photo credit: Fisher Studios

We are deeply saddened by news of the death of our Emeritus Fellow Barbara Harvey, CBE, FBA, at the age of 97. Barbara was a Fellow and Tutor in Medieval History at Somerville from 1955 to 1993. Read more here: buff.ly/X9SANFs

We’re counting down to the release of Divine Light, the new album from Somerville College Choir, launching 22nd August. Pre-save the album: buff.ly/DATjkrG

We’re proud to share the work of Somerville Associate Dr Liliia Bespala, who recently set up the Clinical Communication Club. The initiative aims to introduce Ukrainian medical students and early-career researchers to evidence-based communication science. Read the full story here. buff.ly/xnG0f4q

Was Jan your Principal? If so, this Gaudy is for you. Join us on Saturday 6th September for a chance to say goodbye to Jan - and reunite with your Somerville friends! Book tickets here: buff.ly/8PbFx9a

We’re delighted to see our recent graduate Holly Cobb (2021, French and Linguistics) feature in the University’s new information pages for young carers. To read Holly's story, and find out about the support available to young carers at Oxford, visit buff.ly/xD5zASE

The beautiful @somervillecollege.bsky.social fellows’ garden is alive and buzzing with busy pollinators. 🐝

Graduation - what a day of pride, nostalgia, and all manner of emotion! We're so proud of all our students who have graduated from Somerville this year.

Today is Yorkshire Day! We had a fantastic time visiting our wonderful Yorkshire alumni in June, with a trip to the Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield. Recent Somerville events have taken place in Newcastle, Edinburgh, and Lyme Regis. Let us know where we should hold one next!

We’re just £1,000 away from hitting our fundraising target for the Somerville Fund! Your donation could be the deciding vote in our collectible building showdown: Maitland vs Vaughan – and they’re currently tied! Support Somerville’s most urgent needs and make your vote count 👉 buff.ly/j0YhzGt

It's not too late to donate to the Somerville Fund to help meet college’s most urgent needs. Contribute to our current fundraiser to support sanctuary scholarships, bursaries, and Access and Outreach work. buff.ly/Q1GL2dM

The Somerville Remembrance Garden is now a vibrant space, dedicated to the remarkable women of Somerville who supported the efforts during WWI and WWII. To accompany the garden, we have created a booklet of all the Somervillian women who served the war effort in some way.

Congratulations to our graduate-entry medics Frances England, Daniel Radford-Smith and Caitlin Ashcroft on their election as Foulkes Foundation Fellows. buff.ly/if6hhss

We are delighted to announce that three prominent Somervillians have been elected as Honorary Fellows of Somerville College: Professor Kamila Hawthorne OBE, Dr Anne Makena, and Professor Emma Smith. Our warmest congratulations to all three of our new Honorary Fellows.

Recent Somerville graduates, please join us for this year's networking event, where Alex Starritt will talk to Rebecca Jones about his new novel, Drayton and Mackenzie. The event takes place on Tuesday 23rd September at Diageo's Soho office, hosted by alumnus Dan Mobley. Sign up: buff.ly/l06ShWR

The first water lily has flowered on our new pond! Did you know water lilies were used by the Maya to tell whether their clean water systems were working well? Hopefully this is a good sign for our pond!

We’re calling on our incredible community to help meet Somerville College’s most urgent needs through The Somerville Fund. Let’s shape the future of Somerville, together. www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1Ut...

Congratulations to Corinne Clark @somervillecollege.bsky.social who has been awarded this year’s Lord Alfred Douglas Memorial Prize for her poem ‘1929-’. Sam Collier and Isabella Cho were runners-up for their poems ‘On a couple good concerts’ and ‘Aphid Monody’. Find out more >>

Congratulations to Somervillians Meryem Arik (2016, Physics) and Dr Jamie Dborin (2014, Physics) on securing over £9m in funding for their AI startup Doubleword (prev. TitanML). Doubleword is a homegrown UK start-up that offers companies the means to ‘self-host’ their AI functions.

For Refugee Day 2025, we are privileged to share a short talk by Dr Ammar Azzouz on his experience of returning to Syria after 14 years of being displaced by the Civil War. buff.ly/ZnhsPsU Photo credit: Anas Altaweel, 2025.

We’re very proud that our Junior Research Fellows Dr Andrea Kusec and Dr Giuseppe Gava have been awarded the Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences' Public Engagement Award. Read the full story here:

A fabulous interview with our outgoing Principal Jan Royall, by Somerville student Lucy Pollock. Jan reflects on her favourite memories from her time at Somerville, and how the college has changed over the past eight years.

Brilliant to read such a positive review of A Trick of the Mind by our alumnus, Daniel Yon (2010, Psychology). "This is a complex area of psychology, with a huge amount of new work being published all the time. To fold it into such a lively read is an admirable feat." @danieljamesyon.bsky.social

For Refugee Week 2025, we are proud to share the speech that Somerville MSc student Tabina Manzoor delivered at the Right Here, Right Now conference earlier this month. The conference aimed to advance the conversation around climate change and human rights. buff.ly/pJSJPiC

Somerville College Boat Club made College history at Summer Eights this year, with all three women's teams winning blades! Somerville rower Harriet Breakey gives a full report of the eventful few days here, with images from Lauren Hazel Photos: buff.ly/lhtgRgT

Did you know Somerville is iris-central? For our latest gardens blog, Somerville gardener Anna tells us all about irises, and the many varieties we have in College. buff.ly/x3gfetY

We can't wait to welcome prospective students to this year's open days! Please come and join us on 2nd July, 3rd July, or 19th September. Or, if you know anyone applying for university soon, send them our way - we would love to show them around. More info here: buff.ly/YtGN3sN

Somerville’s community gathered on Sunday for this year’s Pride Contemplation, titled ‘Queer Joy as Resilience’. In what is a difficult time for the LGBTQ+ community, it felt important to come together and listen to readings by students and staff, reflecting on the importance of queer joy.

We are proud to see our Research Fellow Ammar Azzouz in BBC News, talking about returning to Syria for the first time in 14 years. "I was aching for this day when I can walk the streets, touch the stones, meet the people, look at their faces, struggling to understand the scale of loss and grief."

Great to see our SRF and Research Director of The Oxford India Centre for Sustainable Development Professor Radhika Khosla in The Economist talking about sustainable cooling.

Yet another open-rank position in language in Oxford! This one is in Applied Linguistics. You get to join Oxford's excellent Dept of Education, and also be my colleague at the fabulous @somervillecollege.bsky.social , which I cannot recommend too highly. Details: my.corehr.com/pls/uoxrecru...

We are delighted that our second-year medic Amrit Rooprai and two Oxford friends were shortlisted in the inaugural Entente Cordiale Challenge. Her team placed in the top ten of 110 teams, with their proposed method for using block-chain technology to prevent corporate greenwashing.

This past Saturday, we welcomed more than 60 guests for the Penrose Society event. Arranged annually to thank our legators and their families, the event included lunch, talks by Ruth Boreham and Pauline Adams, an introduction to the new Remembrance Garden, and a concert.

There is community here for you - this was the message of this year's BAME Access Day at Somerville. Year 12 students from our link regions heard from our past and present JCR Ethnic Minority Officers who shared their experiences, emphasising that Somerville is a place where everyone is welcome.

It's fifth week in Oxford, which - naturally - means alpacas! Somerville JCR's welfare team organised the visit of these lovely guys, along with some sheep, goats, and other animals. We hope all our students got the chance to say hello!

It was an absolute delight to unveil the new portrait of our very own Jan Royall, as she comes to the end of her tenure at Somerville's principal. The portrait was painted by Tania Rivilis and was successfully submitted to the Royal Society of Portrait Painters annual exhibition.