Dear Alumni, Supporters and Friends

Many of you have been in touch with colleagues and members of the College and may have received news from our various communication channels.  I wanted to write to you today to share an update from College and to thank you for your support.

I have now been President of Wolfson for about two and half years.  This past month has been the most difficult time - more difficult than I could imagine.  We have been working, almost round the clock, to prepare the College for the coronavirus outbreak:

• How to keep our students and staff free from infection?
• How to give our students support and reassure them that, come what may, they will get the best education we can offer, and help our students finish their degrees?
• How can we continue to support those students who are obliged by their personal circumstances to remain resident in College?
• How can we ensure the health and continued employment of our staff?

I need to thank and pay tribute to all the members of our Wolfson family for their support over the past couple of weeks.  I think together we have found qualities we didn't know we had.

Thanks go to all colleagues and all staff of the College, who have been working tirelessly together to help us ride this crisis. 

Real heartfelt thanks go to our students who have understood why we are asking them to take steps to leave when they feel that Wolfson is their home - where their friends and work are.  They have been gracious and kind to each other and to us.

I am looking forward to welcoming our continuing students back when we can open our doors again.  What has really broken my heart this past week has been to say goodbye to students for whom this is the end.  Third-year students who started on the same day that I did, but will be denied this final, glorious summer term and one-year masters' students who contribute so much to the College, who I was beginning to know, but who have had their time here cut so short.  It feels almost unbearable.  I have promised them all a special welcome back when they return to graduate.

It is only in times like this that we realise fully the importance of community, and that we discover unknown strengths in ourselves and our colleagues and friends.  I have every confidence that Wolfson College, which has such a wonderful, supportive ethos, will come through the crisis stronger - maybe poorer in cash terms, but far richer in community spirit.  

Keep well.