New Heads of House

Sheila Forbes, CBE, took up her appointment as Principal of St Hilda’s College in August 2007. Ms Forbes read Modern History at St Hilda’s and then qualified in Human Resources Management at the London School of Economics. Her business career spanned electronics, food manufacturing, retailing and publishing, and she became Human Resources Director for Unigate, Storehouse and Reed Elsevier UK, and a non-executive Director of Lloyds TSB. She has also worked at senior level in the public sector as a Civil Service Commissioner. Ms Forbes has been a governor of the University for the Arts, London and Chair of the Board of Governors of Thames Valley University. She was a member of the Independent Review of Pay and Conditions in Higher Education. She is also Deputy Chair of the British Library. 

Robert Ellis took up his appointment as Principal of Regent’s Park College at the beginning of Michaelmas term. He was a student at Regent’s Park and received his DPhil there in 1984. He is an ordained Baptist minister and has served congregations in Milton Keynes and Bristol. He taught at Bristol Baptist College before taking up the post of Fellow and Tutor in Pastoral Theology at the college in 2001. He has been active in denominational and ecumenical life, and is currently the Moderator of the Baptist Union of Great Britain’s Ministry Executive. His academic interests lie in pastoral theology and systematic theology and the interface between them, as demonstrated in Answering God: Towards a Theology of Intercession, and in Exploring Aspects of Christianity and Culture – including theology and film, and theology, religion and sport, which is the area of his current research. 

Margaret MacMillan, Provost of Trinity College and Professor of History at the University of Toronto, became Warden of St Antony’s College in July 2007. After taking her undergraduate degree in history at the University of Toronto, she studied for a Bphil in Politics at St Hilda’s College and then a DPhil at St Antony’s on the British in India. From 1975 until 2002, she was a member of the History Department at Ryerson University in Toronto and she also served as Chair of the Department. In 1993 she returned to St Antony’s as a Senior Associate Member and was elected to an Honorary Fellowship in 2003. Her most recent major work, Peacemakers: The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 and its Attempt to End War, won Duff Cooper Prize for outstanding literary work in the field of history, biography or politics and the Samuel Johnson Prize for the best work of nonfiction published in the UK. Her latest book, Nixon in China: The Week That Changed the World, was nominated for a Gelber Prize, awarded to the best book on international affairs published in English. In 2006, Professor MacMillan was invested as an Officer of the Order of Canada. 

Fr Felix Stephens, OSB, took up his appointment as Master of St Benet’s Hall in September 2007. Educated at Ampleforth College, he then became a Monk of Ampleforth Abbey in 1961 and read Modern History at Oxford (St Benet’s Hall 1964). At Oxford he was in the XI for the Blues side (OUCC) on six occasions and Secretary/Captain of the Authentics in 1966, reintroducing cricket college cuppers after a lapse of 40 years. He was a schoolmaster at Ampleforth College (1967–90), as well as Housemaster (1977–90) and Deputy Head (1987–8). Fr Stephens was editor of the Ampleforth Journal for 26 years and Secretary of the Alumni for 25 years. Between 1982 and 1986 he was Director of an Appeal for £2.5 million (which raised £4.25 million) and Bursar of the Abbey and College in 1990–3. In 1993 he was appointed curate in a Liverpool parish and from 1996 as parish priest of St Mary’s in Warrington. He was editorial compiler for Cardinal Basil Hume’s Searching for God (1977). He is a governor of an independent school, a sixth-form college and a comprehensive school.