Welcoming the new Principal: Professor Katherine Willis joins the College

2 Oct 2018

Guests at the reception for the new Principal, in the Old Dining Hall
Vice-Principal Stuart Ferguson handing over the keys to the College to new Principal, Professor Kathy Willis

Fellows, lecturers, student representatives, alumni and staff came together yesterday to warmly welcome our new Principal, Professor Katherine (Kathy) Willis, and her family to St Edmund Hall. A cross-section of the College community joined the Vice-Principal, Professor Stuart Ferguson, as he made an official speech of welcome and handed over the ceremonial keys to the Hall.

Kathy’s first day at St Edmund Hall was marked by beautiful autumnal sunshine and the reception spilled over into the Quad from the Old Dining Hall as she, together with husband Andrew and sons James and Harry, chatted to the many guests.

The event was largely an informal opportunity for people to meet Kathy, but also included a brief speech by Stuart in which he expressed the College’s pleasure at her arrival. He not only presented Kathy with the ceremonial keys but also a model of a train (named the ‘Saint Edmund Hall’ and part of the Great Western fleet in the 1930s to 1960s) which he used as a metaphor to describe the College’s influence as travelling far beyond Oxford.

Kathy responded by noting that it had been a long but enjoyable recruitment process. “It is a huge honour and pleasure to be joining all of you here at the Hall as a colleague,” she said. “I’m enormously proud to be able to contribute to the long and distinguished history of St Edmund Hall and to be making a small piece of history as the first woman to hold this post.” She also noted that it is “a particular pleasure to be joining this community at exactly the moment that a new generation of students is joining too. I look forward very much to getting involved in all aspects of College life.”

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