Student Life
‘The only woman in Hall’: Gender and college governance
When Baroness Alexandra Freeman became Principal of Hertford College last month, she did not initially realise she was the first woman to hold the role. It was a detail that, she says, came as a surprise, given that Hertford had begun admitting women in 1974, amongst the earliest of the formerly all-male colleges to do so. The significance of this fact has emerged gradually since. At one of her first gaudy dinners, she hosted some of the college’s first female students, including its first female JCR President. “I was really surprised how much it meant to them to have a female Principal”, she reflects. “More than one said that they had wondered whether it would happen in their lifetime.”
That sense of something both long overdue and yet only newly realised runs through Oxford’s recent shift in college leadership. Women now make up 47% of Heads of House, a figure that would have been difficult to imagine even a generation ago, and the University itself is led by a female Vice-Chancellor. At a glance, the change appears to be substantial. But it isn’t evenly distributed. 13 colleges have never had a female Head. Nine current Heads are the first women to hold their roles. And among the Permanent Private Halls, there has yet to be a single female Head. The result is a pattern that feels less like a clean transition into the modern day but rather a series of staggered steps, shaped by the histories of the individual institutions.
Timelines and trends
The emergence of women in senior college leadership is, in many ways, a recent phenomenon, best understood by considering the long individual institutional histories of each college. Women’s colleges have, unsurprisingly, a long history of women in senior leadership roles from their founding, with male heads historically the exception rather than the norm. St Anne’s and St Hilda’s, for example, have both only ever had one male Principal. Lady Margaret Hall’s first male Principal, Duncan Stewart, took the position the same year that the college became co-educational.
In most other colleges, however, many of the first female Heads were only appointed towards the end of the 2010s, with 13 colleges appointing their first female Heads since 2015, as though the University as a whole is, belatedly, catching up with itself. While most male colleges started to admit women in the 1970s, changes in gender inclusivity have been gradual, often just layered onto existing structures. Colleges admitted women as students, gradually appointed women as fellows, and at last saw these changes reflected at the level of leadership. The delay between these stages can’t be ignored and highlights just how much historical influences and entrenched norms still shape colleges today. This can also help explain why colleges like Hertford, early adopters of co-education, have nonetheless only recently appointed their first female Heads.
But this acceleration hasn’t produced uniformity. Some colleges, such as Mansfield, have moved quickly, appointing multiple female Heads in succession. Others have yet to appoint one at all. Despite being amongst the first male colleges to go co-ed, Wadham has never been led by a woman. Brasenose and Jesus have only just appointed women as their Heads of House, both of whom will take up their roles later this year.
The persistence of the ‘first woman’ phenomenon is revealing. These appointments are often framed as milestones; celebrated by colleges as markers of progress that signal a break with the past. But they also point to how long that break has taken, and how dependent it remains on the particular trajectories of individual colleges.
Yet these appointments also reflect larger trends within the university culture. The fact that the initial appointment of women to these roles is clustered, for instance, suggests that many colleges may be attempting to keep pace with one another. The growth in leadership inclusivity during the late 2010s also means that many of the first female Heads of House faced the additional challenge of responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, which Dinah Rose, President of Magdalen College, described as “tough for everyone” regardless of gender.
These changes also illustrate broader societal trends in women’s professional leadership in academia and beyond. These changes have also resulted in the way in which women hold themselves in positions of power. Rose noticed these shifts firsthand: “In earlier years, [women] often adopted a rather stiff and formal persona, perhaps compensating for some anxiety about whether they’d be accepted in their role. It is a joy to me now to be friends with a number of senior women who are funny, irreverent and relaxed, as well as being brilliant and accomplished. It seems to me that they own the space of leadership in a way that was more difficult for an earlier generation.”
The appointment
These patterns are shaped, in part, by how Heads of House are selected. Most rely on internal elections among fellows, others on appointment processes involving the University Council, and in certain cases – most notably at Christ Church – the position is decided by an external authority. The Dean of Christ Church is appointed by the Crown on the advice of the Prime Minister.
In theory, the internal election approach is a more democratic form of governance, but in practice, it can often reproduce the existing imbalances which have become deeply embedded within higher education. Fellows – often the group responsible for electing Heads – remain disproportionately male in many colleges. At Balliol, for example, whose first female Master, Dame Helen Ghosh, took up the post in April 2018 and remains in the role today, less than a quarter of fellows are women. Similarly, at Jesus College, whose first female principal will assume the role this August, less than a third of the Governing Body are women. Where leadership is determined internally, it is perhaps unsurprising that outcomes tend to reflect these underlying demographics.
This is not necessarily the result of explicit bias. Instead, it is perhaps better understood as a form of pipeline inequality, where imbalances in representation at junior levels accumulate, resulting in a lack of diversity in senior leadership. Academic career progression, fellowship appointments, and informal networks all play a role in shaping this pipeline. In many cases, these dynamics are subtle: the product of long-standing imbalances, uneven progression rates, and the weight often placed on particular forms of academic experience or institutional familiarity.
The result is a landscape in which progress depends less on overarching institutional reform than on the internal dynamics of individual colleges. Even where colleges attempted to widen the field, appointments remain shaped by internal culture as much as formal criteria. As Helen King, Principal of St Anne’s, notes, each college brings its own “personality and values and history” to the process, with governing bodies weighing candidates differently depending on what they see as most important at a given moment. Whilst search processes – often outsourced to headhunting agencies – may begin with a broad pool, decisions are ultimately made within comparatively small groups, drawing on shared understandings – both explicit and implicit – of what leadership should look like.
King is cautious about drawing firm conclusions from this, emphasising the complexity of the system itself. Fellows, she says, approach these decisions with a strong sense of responsibility, weighing a range of factors. “Different fellows put different weights on different things”, she explains – whether that is academic record, leadership experience, or the ability to represent the college’s identity. But that breadth of consideration also means that no single factor – including diversity – is ever likely to be decisive on its own.
What’s in a name?
Language offers another window into these dynamics. Across Oxford, the titles given to Heads of House vary widely: from Warden to Provost, Master to Principal, and President to Dean. Whilst these distinctions often appear superficial and ceremonial, they reflect deeper histories of authority and institutional identity.
Older colleges tend to retain titles such as ‘Warden’ or ‘Provost’ whilst newer or reformed colleges have tended to adopt terms like ‘Principal’ or ‘President’. The variety of Oxford college titles is particularly notable, as 20 of the 31 colleges at Cambridge use the term ‘Master’ to describe the Head of the college. The only college in the Oxbridge system to use a title that is gendered feminine is Girton College at Cambridge, which has used the title ‘Mistress’ since the college was founded in 1869.
Issues of language extend beyond titles themselves. In some college statutes, such as those of Keble College, the Head is still referred to using explicitly male pronouns. Elsewhere, especially amongst former women’s colleges, the reverse pattern is clear with female pronouns regularly used as the default in these governance documents. While subtle, the use of gendered pronouns may change the way students and faculty of colleges understand how accessible leadership pathways may be to them.
At the same time, it is also notable that simply having more gender-inclusive titles does not always correlate to actual gender inclusivity in appointments. For instance, of the eleven colleges that have never appointed female Heads, only one uses the gendered title of ‘Master’. At Cambridge, where the term ‘Master’ is used much more often, there also does not seem to be a significant practical connection between the gender of the title and the gender of the title holder. This is not to suggest that the title of leadership roles is unimportant, but it does appear that, in practice, the gendering of a title may not limit the gender of the appointee.
Lived experience
These historical contexts can often be highly significant in determining the experience of current-day female Heads – although the wider picture remains more nuanced. Freeman notes that even before taking up her role, she had “already heard stories” of discrimination within the university. Rose, in comparison, suggested that leading a college represents, in some respects, a “refreshing change” from other institutional environments, noting particularly her previous experience as a barrister in which she was “conscious of the need to establish my credibility in court in ways that men don’t have to”.
Professor Lady Sue Black, President of St John’s College, described Oxford as “a good standard for other institutions” as women have many roles in senior leadership within colleges and across the university. However, Oxford lags slightly behind Cambridge, where only 5 out of the 31 colleges have never had a female Head, about 16%. Rose also noted that her position as a female Head of a formerly all-male college puts her in “some striking situations” such as when she “presid[ed] over an all-male gaudy of alumni who matriculated before the College became co-educational in 1979. On at least one occasion, I was the only woman in Hall, apart from members of the choir and the serving staff”.
An ongoing process
Viewed in isolation, the rise in female Heads of House suggests meaningful progress – compared to even just a decade ago, the landscape has changed significantly. Fundamentally, women are no longer the exceptions with college leadership in the way that they once were. And yet, the persistence of the ‘first woman’ phenomenon points to a process that’s still largely incomplete, with around a quarter of colleges having never appointed a woman as Head. Oxford also has yet to appoint a female Chancellor – a reminder that some of its most visible positions of authority remain shaped by tradition.
This unevenness is also visible beyond gender. Whilst the number of women in leadership has increased, progress across other forms of representation, such as ethnicity and religion, remains limited. Baroness Valerie Amos became the first-ever Black head of an Oxford college upon her appointment as Master of University College in September 2020. She remains the only Black Head of House to have ever led an Oxford college.
At the same time, the positive changes in the inclusion of female Heads speak to what Professor Dame Julia Black, Warden at Nuffield College, describes as a “transformed” landscape for women in leadership roles. Speaking about the entirety of her professional career in academia, Black also emphasised that the shifts in inclusion are also highly intentional: “This change hasn’t happened by accident, however, but is the result of a concerted effort by an extraordinary number of people in multiple sectors over a long period of time. So it’s essential to keep supporting women to be successful leaders.”
St Edmund Hall has opened new, sustainability-focused accommodation in Norham Gardens, one of Oxford’s most affluent neighbourhoods.
The College describes the buildings, which took three years to construct, as an “exemplar” of sustainability. Designed by architects Wright & Wright LLP, they are certified with a Passivhaus standard, widely regarded as the industry benchmark for energy efficiency, and were built using “sustainably sourced and low-embodied carbon materials”. According to a press release on the Teddy Hall website, the buildings will use 70% less energy than the typical modern building.
It contains 127 en-suite study rooms, split across three new buildings: Willis House, Ashton House, and Elliott House, on the nearly 50-year-old Norham St Edmund site. The buildings, which back onto University Parks, are powered at least in part by solar panels and are heated by air-source heat pumps.
The rooms include heated towel racks, big double beds, and dimmable lights. Despite the luxury, the College kept the nightly rate in line with the rest of its Norham housing. The College told Cherwell that it “recognises the need to keep rents as low as possible” and that its accommodation costs are “below the median of all Oxford colleges”. By that standard, tenants are expected to pay around £30 a night.
Rooms on the site will be reserved for Teddy Hall returning undergraduates. They will not be available to postgraduates and, by extension, not be offered through the Oxford University Collegiate Accommodation System, now in its second year of opening college rooms to students from other colleges. The accommodation will allow Teddy Hall to accommodate all undergraduates for their whole degree.
The development’s outdoor spaces are boasted as climate-resilient and biodiverse, with landscaped gardens and lawns. For budding geographers and biologists, the most intriguing feature may be an ecology pond.
Chancellor William Hague said in a press release: “Norham St Edmund is a world-leading blueprint for future student accommodation projects and sustainable building design, both in Oxford and beyond. I look forward to seeing it serve a thriving college community for generations to come.
Human rights experts called for stronger legal protections against the risks posed by artificial intelligence (AI) at an Oxford AI and Human Rights Summit, with speakers arguing that human rights standards must be embedded into AI governance and technology.
The summit was hosted at the newly redeveloped Rhodes House in Oxford and organised by the Institute for Ethics in AI. It built upon Professor Yuval Shany’s consultation on a white paper, published in 2025, on the need for and feasibility of an international AI Bill of Human Rights, which proposes ways to adapt existing human rights standards so as to better address some of the unique challenges posed by AI systems and their uses.
An opening video address from the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk outlined how AI policy can keep pace with a fast-developing technology. He said that “great power demands responsibility on the same scale, and when the two don’t match, we have a problem”. Corporate control, he explained, means that AI policy stretches beyond existing national borders. He continued to praise this summit for bringing together leaders and representatives at the forefront of the discussion.
Speakers called on the UK government to establish legislation, recalling Labour’s manifesto commitment to an AI Bill of Human Rights. The panellists broadly agreed on the importance of human rights, but appeared less aligned on what enforcement should look like in practice.
In an exclusive interview, Michael O’Flaherty, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, told Cherwell that political short-termism Continued on pg. 2 risks undermining efforts to address the long-term consequences of AI. “We are infected across our societies with shorttermist responses to the great issue of our societies and politics,” he said, adding that electoral cycles make it difficult for politicians “to think beyond the next election”.
O’Flaherty also noted that younger generations no longer take the international human rights system for granted. “There is no longer an assumption that the human rights system is safe, that it will survive,” he told Cherwell. He argued that political leaders increasingly treat human rights selectively, saying: “Increasingly, leaders are treating human rights, if they are respected at all, as an a la carte buffet. We take those rights because they serve our goal. We’ll ignore others because they get in the way.
The summit also heard concerns about the effects of AI-generated misinformation on communities that may have limited access to, or awareness of, the technology itself. An audience question asked human rights experts to consider the impacts of AI on populations, such as those in India, who might be unaware of its existence. The focus on the impact of AI on populations in developing countries more vulnerable to the power of big tech was a key theme of the summit.
Eileen Carter from the South African Human Rights Commission warned that underrepresentation of African languages in large language models could exacerbate existing inequalities. She also raised concerns about the effects of misinformation and deepfakes on elections, referring to more than 360 deaths associated with unrest and the amplification of narratives.
The third panel, which offered a civil society perspective on promoting human rights in AI systems, offered some hope. Across all speakers, the potential for AI to transform the beliefs that underpin human rights, including the rights to water, education, and an interpreter, was debated. When asked about AI’s potential to unravel and alter the definition of human rights, such as what is included in the ‘right to education’ O’Flaherty told Cherwell: “The damage that can be done by AI has hit more dramatically and more visibly than perhaps any other sector within education through the phenomenon of cognitive loss, of cognitive transfer. We’re only beginning to realise the extent to which we have allowed education to be fundamentally undermined for an entire generation.
“It’s time to seize that now and engage it. I’m not sure that the classic understanding of the human right to education is particularly well-framed for this extraordinary development.”
In a discussion on different countries’ regulatory approach to AI, Suresh Venkatasubramanian, professor at Brown University and former AI advisor to US President Joe Biden, argued that AI systems should not be treated as inevitable developments beyond human control. “We continue, I think, to talk about AI as a thing that emerged out of nowhere that we just have to deal with,” he said. “We forget that these aren’t coming from an alien planet and they were built by entities that choose to build them in a certain way.” He called for pressure on technology companies to make different choices about how AI systems are developed.
Questions of accountability also emerged during discussions about AI’s potential to improve access to justice. Research presented by Philippa Webb said that only 10% of people who have access to a lawyer can get one while there are thousands of bookings for an interpreter in a court covering 150 languages. However, this progress is not cemented as “general-purpose chatbots hallucinate 58% of the time on a legal task”. The use of AI in moderating legal proceedings raised fundamental questions about humanity and authority. Thompson Chengeta from Liverpool John Moores University said that “human rights is the last line of defence so when we say we want a human rights based governance… human rights is not an idea, it is an obligation. There is a gap that can only be recovered by a legally binding instrument”.
The event culminated in a panel offering an industry perspective. Co-host Dr Caroline Emmer De Albuquerque Green questioned representatives from Meta, Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI. Michael Karimian, who works in digital diplomacy at Microsoft, discussed the role of private sectors in engaging with AI, defining corporate responsibility as something which “provides transparency and identified risks”.
All companies supported having formal programmes to ensure that they have an AI policy in place. Within their own companies, they suggested protective measures such as specialised training to ensure that policies, such as whistleblowing, are understood. Alexandria Walden from Google described how consultations with stakeholders could be used to identify when the product breached users’ boundaries. These assessments, according to OpenAI’s spokesperson, “feedback into tangible technical input” and “benchmark it”.
Fundamentally, understanding the rationale behind human rights is imperative, though lacking. Alexandria Walden from Google said: “Whether or not they understand human rights, they care enough to infuse it in their company… we might not always get it right, but it is something we care about.”
Where former panels discussed controls to ensure human rights are considered in the development and implementation of AI products, this panel focused on mitigation. A spokesperson from Google pointed out that technology is inevitably going to move faster, so multiple tools are needed. Companies, OpenAI’s representative noted, still encounter issues such as discrimination and free speech. Consequently, they regard this as an additional policy which companies have a structured model to deal with, but newer companies, and newer industries, haven’t learnt it yet.
In her concluding remarks, Green called for policy makers to “make the abstract actionable” at both governmental and corporate levels. She argued that, by framing the issues posed by AI as human rights issues, we gain a “foundation” for recognising AI’s many societal impacts.
Ugandan participants in a clinical safety study received an Oxford developed Ebola vaccine this week.
Researchers vaccinated the first participants on 6th October in Masaka, Uganda. The phase follows the launch of a first-in-human Phase I trial in the UK evaluating the same vaccine candidate.
They received the vaccine as part of an evaluation of the safety and efficacy of a ChAdOx-based Bundibugyo Ebola vaccine candidate developed by the Oxford Vaccine Group (OVG) and the Pandemic Sciences Institute at the University of Oxford.
Development for this vaccine began in May this year in response to the ongoing Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The research, led by OVG’s Professor Teresa Lambe and Professor Simon Drysdale, is funded by the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). No licenced vaccine for the Bundibugyo strain of Ebola virus currently exists.
In a statement to Cherwell, OVG said its involvement includes collaborating with the Ugandan research team to support “the study’s scientific design, clinical trial coordination, safety oversight, and evaluation of vaccine safety and immunogenicity”. The Phase I clinical trial addresses a rare strain of Ebola virus affecting communities in the DRC since May. The phase is a collaboration between the Medical Research Council/ Uganda Virus Research Institute and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM).
Dr Nicole Lurie, CEPI’s Executive Director for Emergency Preparedness and Response, told Cherwell: “It [the Bundibugyo outbreak] remains the fastest-growing and second-largest Ebola outbreak ever recorded – and we currently remain without a licensed vaccine or treatment.” The Bundibugyo Ebola epidemic in the DRC has surpassed 8,600 cases, with almost half of infections proving fatal.
The outbreak was declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in May.
OVG told Cherwell: “For more than a decade, the University of Oxford has performed many clinical trials of candidate viral-vectored vaccines. Some of the most promising vaccines used a modified chimpanzee adenovirus, a harmless version of a common cold virus. The Oxford-AstraZeneca (ChAdOx1) COVID-19 vaccine was approved for emergency use in the UK in December 2020 and was estimated to have saved six million lives during 2021 alone, and over 3 billion doses were used worldwide.” The adenovirus vector vaccine technology trialled in this study was successfully used worldwide as part of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine.
More funding is necessary to ensure the development and approval of the Ebola vaccine. Lurie told Cherwell: “Without sufficient additional funding, we are at risk of not being able to develop these promising vaccine candidates… CEPI urgently needs US$128M now to keep our Bundibugyo emergency R&D response moving. Without it, we are putting the DRC, and the world, at tremendous risk.”
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