1) What is your current position?
Principal of Homerton College, Cambridge University’s newest and largest college. As a Vice-Chancellor’s deputy I also have some University roles, for example as Chairman of the Fitzwilliam Museum.
2) What are your proudest achievements?
Your readers may think I’m being glib or sentimental, but in truth the answer is bringing up our sons, 21 and 17, and seeing the personal qualities, skills and confidence with which they outshine their father at the same age. Professionally, I am proud to be Principal of a college which is firing on all cylinders, and which has marvellous Fellows, students and staff, all facing a bright future.
3) What inspires you?
Working in collaboration with others – with the Fellowship, the University and new partners in (for example) the fields of Public Health and Medicine generally– on new projects that show us to be more than the sum of our parts.
4) What has been the biggest obstacle in your career?
When I was a young university lecturer in my twenties nobody offered any advice or career guidance at all. You were somehow supposed to just know everything – and also, importantly, know your place. Universities are much better now at mentoring, encouraging, and nurturing talent.
5) Who has been the biggest influence on your career to date?
Poetry is my field and my fascination. If Mr Rees, who taught me French at school hadn’t introduced me to the poems of Charles Baudelaire in 1968 in Manchester, I might not be leading Homerton or answering your questions now.
6) What is the best aspect about your current role?
Seeing students go through the door into the world of work who are not the same people as they were when their studies began, and knowing that I helped guide that journey, and in a place which they will never forget. Plus the constant surprises and chance meetings as well as planned ones that take the College somewhere new. I can’t recall the meaning of the word ‘bored’, anymore.
7) And the worst?
I’ve had to learn that in a large and complex university I can’t always get events to fit my well-laid plans snugly and get others to respect my impatience. Sometimes the only way to get from A to C is by way of a slog through B – and that’s that.
8) What are your long term goals?
The best College in the best University in the world, Cambridge. The second is readily attainable. The first is attainable with vision and hard work, and we don’t lack those attributes.
9) If you were Prime Minister, what one aspect would you change?
When I’m not in Cambridge I live in London, and love its vibrancy and multiplicity – it’s a world city that happens to sit in England. I think we should celebrate that, roll it out to the regions, and make the UK an even more vibrant and colourful world-nation. We can do it.
10) If you were marooned on a desert island, which historical figure would you like to spend your time with and why?
If I were marooned on a desert island I’d work to get off it, not worry about historical figures!
