New Heads of House

Professor Colin Bundy was appointed the first Principal of the newly created Green Templeton College on 1 October 2008, having been Warden of Green College since 2006. Educated at the Universities of Natal and the Witwatersrand, Professor Bundy was a Rhodes Scholar at Merton College and a Beit Senior Research Scholar at St Antony’s, graduating as a MPhil and DPhil. In a distinguished academic career, his appointments have included Vice-Rector of the University of Western Cape (1994–7), Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of the Witwatersrand (1997–2001), Director and Principal of the School of Oriental and African Studies (2001–6) and Deputy Vice-Chancellor of the University of London (2003–6). His chief research interests are contemporary South African history and higher education policy formation.

Sir Ivor Crewe, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Essex, took up the post of Master of University College on 31 July. Sir Ivor read PPE at Exeter College and was a Junior Research Fellow in Politics at Nuffield College. Following this, he held a series of academic appointments, becoming Professor of Government at Essex and then Vice-Chancellor. He is a former President of Universities UK, the national association of universities, and a former Chair of the 1994 Group, a coalition of smaller  research-intensive universities established to promote excellence in  research and teaching. His research interest is British and American politics, mainly elections, parties and public opinion. He has been a regular political commentator on television, radio and in the press, and directed the British Election Study from 1973 to 1981. He has published numerous books on elections, parties and public opinion, including a leading textbook, The New British Politics. 

Hermione Lee, CBE, FBA, FRSL, Goldsmith’s Professor of English Literature at Oxford, took up the post of President of Wolfson College on 1 October. Professor Lee read English Literature at St Hilda’s College and then took an MPhil at St Cross College. She began her academic career as a lecturer in Williamsburg, Virginia and at Liverpool University. She taught at the University of York from 1977, where over 20 years she was lecturer, senior lecturer, reader and professor in the Department of English Literature. She is an Honorary Fellow of St Hilda’s and St Cross Colleges, has honorary doctorates from Liverpool and York Universities and is a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She has written widely on women writers, American literature, life-writing and modern fiction. Her biography of Virginia Woolf won the British Academy Rose Mary Crawshay prize. Most recently, she has written a biography of Edith Wharton. 

Paul Madden, FRS, FRSE, Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Centre for Science at Extreme Conditions at the University of Edinburgh, was appointed Provost of The Queen’s College from 2 August. After studying theoretical chemistry as an undergraduate at the University of Sussex, he undertook research at UCLA. He returned to Sussex to complete a DPhil. In 1984, after holding positions in Cambridge, where he was a Fellow of Magdalene College, and at the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment, he was appointed lecturer in the Physical Chemistry Laboratory at Oxford and a fellow of The Queen’s College. He was appointed to a professorship in 1996. He took up several positions in the college and University, most notably a short spell as senior tutor and as vice-chair of the University’s Information Technology Committee. He moved to Edinburgh in 2004. His main research interest is developing methods for atomistic and ab initio computer simulation of material properties, especially ionic materials. 

Jonathan Michie, Professor of Management at the University of Birmingham and Director of Birmingham Business School, was appointed Director of the Department for Continuing Education and President of Kellogg College, with effect from 1 April. He was educated at Balliol College and Queen Mary College, University of London, where he received a Master’s degree with distinction. Previously, he held the Sainsbury Chair of Management at Birkbeck College, University of London, where he was Head of the School of Management & Organisational Psychology. He is a member of Council of the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS), whose audit committee he chairs; a member of the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform (BERR) Advisory Forum on the implications of employment regulation; and a Director of Mutuo, a think-tank for the cooperative and mutual sector. He is currently running an ESRC seminar series on 'complexity economics for sustainability'. 

Sir John Vickers, formerly Drummond Professor of Political Economy at Oxford, became Warden of All Souls College in October 2008. After studying PPE at Oriel College, he worked as a financial analyst in the oil industry before returning to Oxford as a Prize fellow at All Souls to pursue graduate work and then teach economics. In 1991 he was appointed Drummond Professor of Political Economy. From 1998 to 2000 he was Chief Economist at the Bank of England and a member of the Monetary Policy Committee – an interest he continues to pursue by teaching the first-year undergraduate Macroeconomics course at Oxford – and then spent five years as head of the Office of Fair Trading. He is currently President of the Royal Economic Society, a Delegate of Oxford University Press and chair of its finance committee. His current research concerns the economics of competition and regulation. 

The Reverend Brendan Callaghan SJ, Senior Lecturer at Heythrop College, the specialist philosophy and theology college of the University of London, was appointed Master of Campion Hall with effect from September 2008. After teaching in Southern Africa and two years’ Jesuit novitiate, Fr Callaghan studied philosophy and theology at Heythrop, and psychology at the Universities of Oxford and Glasgow. He was ordained a Catholic priest in 1978. From 1985 to 1997 he was Principal of Heythrop, and Acting Principal from 1998 to 1999. He is a chartered clinical psychologist and an associate fellow of the British Psychological Society. For many years he was involved in medical ethics education and practice, and was general secretary of the Institute of Medical Ethics and vice-chair of the Local Research Ethics Committee at St Thomas’s Hospital. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine. His research interests focus on developmental issues and the contribution of object-relations theory to the psychology of religion