Somerville College

We are proud to announce the winners of this year’s Pat Harris Spirit of Somerville Award: Reuben Smith (2023, Chemistry) and Ishani Mookherjee (2022, Law). This award was established in memory of our long-serving lodge porter, Pat Harris, to recognise current students who embody the spirit of Somerville. The award was first set up in 2018 by Aaron Maniam (1998, PPE), who was an undergraduate during Pat’s time at the College. Read more about this year’s winners: https://buff.ly/Tm7VSBI

Somerville is delighted to announce that the Grammy-award winning composer and conductor Eric Whitacre will be our Musician in Residence next academic year. The accompanying event programme will begin in October 2026, with a special performance of Eric’s work Eternity in an Hour, performed by The Choir of Somerville College, Oxford and conducted by Eric himself. The residency will also include a series of workshops and talks, as well as a special Choral Contemplation on Sunday 17th January. Find out more: https://www.some.ox.ac.uk/news/grammy-award-winning-composer-eric-whitacre-to-be-somerville-musician-in-residence/

Somerville is delighted that Moonrise, the new album composed by Christopher Churcher and performed by The Choir of Somerville College, Oxford, has been selected as Georgia Mann’s Essential Classics Album of the Week on Radio 3. Read more and listen here: https://www.some.ox.ac.uk/news/somerville-college-choirs-moonrise-is-album-of-the-week/

Congratulations to all our students, staff and academics who competed in the Oxford Town & Gown yesterday! We hope you're very proud of yourselves and resting up today. Thanks to Professor Colin Phillips for this photo of some of our Runnerville champions before the race, complete with new t-shirts!

Ten points to anyone who can identify all of these flowers! We’re mesmerised by these photos taken in college by our music student Eliam Lau.

They grow up so fast! The mistle thrush chicks have fledged the nest already. Thanks to our music student Eliam Lau for capturing them so beautifully, alongside one of their parents and another tiny feathered friend!

Three Somervillians Appear at Schwarzman Centre's Inaugural Open Day, This Saturday 📣📖🎼📣
The Schwarzman Centre for the Humanities opened in October 2025. In April 2026, the Centre launched its first ever public programme. This Saturday, as part of that programme, they will host an academic showcase ‘Big Ideas Talks, Tours and Activities’ featuring three Somervillians. Details below, all most welcome to drop-in to Seminar Room 4!

11:45-12:00 – ‘When Shakespeare met Trump’. Somerville College’s Honorary Fellow and the University of Oxford’s Professor of Shakespeare Studies, Professor Emma Smith (1988, English) discusses analogies between contemporary and Shakespearean demagogues.

14:00-14:15 – ‘Linguistic illusions: now you say it, now you don’t’ featuring. our Professorial Fellow in Linguistics and current Chair of the Linguistics Faculty, Professor Colin Phillips, speaking about his latest research.

15:00 - 15:15 A lullaby in three journeys. Our Tutorial Fellow in Music, Professor Samantha Sebastian, discusses her continuing work on the personal and social resonance of lullabies.

More info here: https://www.schwarzmancentre.ox.ac.uk/whats-on/big-ideas-talks-tours-and-activities-hkwz

Somerville fellow Enid Starkie died 56 years ago today. Enid Starkie was a phenomenal academic and a progressive figure in French studies. She published ground-breaking biographies of Baudelaire and Rimbaud, and a critical edition of Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal. A diminutive yet flamboyant figure, distinctively dressed in trousers and jackets of Prussian blue and scarlet – in France she was known as ‘Mlle Perroquet’ – Starkie came for generations of undergraduates to symbolise Bohemian feminism.

Somerville's mistle thrush chicks have hatched! This has come to be a highlight of every spring in College.

Our second-year Biologist Nel Wickins has written a lovely piece about these beautiful birds, and the fascinating history of their name. Read it here: https://www.some.ox.ac.uk/news/mistletoe-mythology-and-somervilles-mistle-thrushes/

Photo credits: Douglas Lewns (nest) and Charlotte Darvill, Fisher Studios (lawn).

Summer suddenly feels just around the corner! Fisher Studios have captured Somerville in full bloom, only awaiting the return of our students for Trinity to begin.

Credit: Charlotte Darvill