I felt privileged this weekend to have been invited to and attended the official opening of the brand new building housing the wonderfully named Department of Life and Mind at the University of Oxford. The new building is absolutely stunning and stands on the site of the old Department of Zoology and Experimental Psychology – a brutalist, concrete edifice inside which I spent many happy hours – and also quite a lot of unhappy ones – as an undergraduate in the late 1990s/early 2000s.
The Life and Mind Building is incredible – I’m sure the visit would have been an inspiring experience for architects, artists and engineers alike but I was attending, along with the four other people I studied Biological Sciences with at The Queen’s College, as a one-time biologist and therefore former department member. I couldn’t help but be inspired, not only by meeting with my former contemporaries and mingling with other alumni, but by the guest lecture series we were privileged to be able to attend, delivered by some of the researchers currently working in the department.
There were three short lectures covering, amongst other things, the ongoing learnings from longitudinal studies conducted during the Covid pandemic, the remarkable evolution of ciclids in Lake Malawi, and gene expression in certain plant crops! They were all fascinating but the latter was my favourite and the most inspiring – it made me realise that there are some incredible people in the world doing incredible things from which humanity will benefit and thrive; people who go unnoticed and unheralded at a time when there appears to be so many of the worse elements of humanity on display in the current news agenda. The researcher presented the work of his team who had, essentially, identified a genetic solution to conditionally increase the rate of leaf-growth in crop plants, such that when (and only when) they are in waterlogged soil, they are stimulated to extend beyond the level of the water enabling the plants to continue to grow and be able to convert the sun’s energy into food for humans. Given waterlogging and submersion are increasingly common problems In some exceptionally poor regions of the world affected by climate change, this would seem to be time well spent by the research team.
That same night I shared a drink in a bar in the city centre filled with memorabilia commemorating Sir Roger Bannister’s running of the first ever sub-4 minute mile at the Iffley Road running track in Oxford in 1954. Before Bannister’s achievement, many thought it wasn’t possible for a human to run that fast. My friend and I were chatting about what the next similar athletic feat might be and concluded it was likely to be the running of an in- competition, sub-2 hour marathon. I don’t think either of us expected to turn the TV on the next morning and watch it happen, live on our screens! Even the least sporty among us can’t help but be inspired by the feat of human endeavour achieved by Sabastian Sawe in the London Marathon on Sunday morning (spare a thought too for Yomif Kejelcha who, 11 seconds later, became the second human to achieve this feat running inside the old world record on his debut marathon and yet finished in second place!).
Inspiration, therefore, can be found anywhere and at unexpected times. If I have a message to our students, many of whom leave us next week for study leave, it is this: you are special, incredible and inspiring people. Your focus now, of course, is on the immediate term (exams, university and the summer ahead) but remember – you are powerful and have so much to give. I truly believe you will each go on to do something great, perhaps in academia or sports, but perhaps also and, arguably more importantly, in life as people and as role models. I am sure that your greatness will inspire others as I have been inspired this weekend and as I am by having worked with all of you. Who knows yet what your story will be… perhaps don’t think about it too much… just let the opportunities come, and when they do, take them, and be inspired!
Good luck to all Brampton students sitting exams over the next two months.
John, Principal
