St John's College Alumni eNewsletter - August 2025
Dear Friends,
Reflecting on the end of my third year as President, I have been thrilled to see so many successes across the St John's community, with outstanding achievements from students, Fellows, alumni and professional staff alike.
It has also been a year of much sad news. It is with a heavy heart that we announce the death of Dr Oliver Jacobs, Emeritus Fellow and former Fellow and Tutor in Engineering Science, on 5 August. A memorial event to remember Dr Jacobs’ life will be held at St John’s on Saturday 20 September. Please see further information below.
Looking forward, we are excited to launch our Masterplan for the College, which will champion sustainability and play our role in attaining carbon neutrality. And we will continue to focus on our academic standards and student welfare, in conjunction with reaching out to the communities around us to ensure St John’s remains inclusive.
This year has been a busy one, with many wonderful opportunities to meet our alumni. I do hope to welcome more of you back to St John's soon, whether to attend an event or to Oxford Open Doors in September!
All best wishes,
Sue
Professor Lady Sue Black, Baroness Black of Strome
President
Snapshots of College Life: Trinity 2025
Green Impact Awards
The University's Environmental Sustainability team held its end-of-year celebration at William Osler House in Headington in June and we are delighted to have been awarded a gold for green impact at the University's Sustainability Showcase 2025. Building on its Bronze award in 2024, the Gold award is a real testament to the exceptional contributions of our staff and students in advancing environmental sustainability.
Earlier in the year, we also ran our first Carbon Literacy training session, with 10 members of staff from across the college receiving their certificates! The training aims to increase knowledge about the causes of climate change, raise awareness of the carbon costs and impact of everyday activities and create a positive shift in our daily life, work and behaviours to reduce our environmental impact.
Visiting Scholars
We were pleased to announce our Visiting Scholars for the Long Vacation (July–September) 2025. This year, St John's has awarded six scholarships to senior academics working on a range of interdisciplinary projects encompassing Art, Classics, Philosophy, Sociology and Theology. We are delighted to be joined by Katarzna Andrejuk, Sebastian De Haro, Bernd Goebel, Jinjoon Lee, Jeffrey Murray and Sławomir Sztajer, and look forward to their contributions to College life over the summer.
Access and Outreach
St John’s welcomed 90 local primary school pupils across two days for the annual Primary Science Festivals on 17 and 18 June, hosted by the Access Team. The event included a carousel of three engaging workshops led by the Departments of Materials Science, Maths, and Biology.
We continue to have huge success with our Inspire programme for access and outreach, which is funded by alumni. The programme for 9 - 11 and 12 - 13 year olds has expanded even further: this year we have over 800 scholars from 38 non-selective schools attending extra-curricular classes and workshops, as well as over 1,600 pupils on our online critical thinking programme.
Dr Oliver Jacobs
Oliver Jacobs read Engineering at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge University (1955–62) and, after a lectureship at Edinburgh University, he joined St John’s in 1967 as Official Fellow and inaugural Tutor in Engineering Science. He retired in 2000. You can find out more about Dr Jacobs here.
A memorial event to remember Dr Jacobs’ life will be held at St John’s on Saturday 20 September at 2pm. Please email presidents.pa@sjc.ox.ac.uk for further details.