The tulips are blooming, strains of music are drifting from the Chapel, and students are revising and chatting to friends on the quad. It can mean only one thing: Trinity term is in full flow.

There truly is little to rival the beauty of a summer in Oxford, when the red bricks of the library, the beautiful flowers in the borders and green and famously walk-able quadrangle lawn bask in sunlight. It’s a time of new growth and new beginnings, as our students take on their exams (good luck everyone!) and make plans for the bright futures that await them.

Perhaps they’ll be able to take inspiration from a few of the Somervillians in whose footsteps they follow, such as Professor Dame Angela McLean who has recently taken up her post as the first woman ever to serve as the UK’s Chief Scientific Advisor, or Catherine Royle, the diplomat turned NATO adviser who delivered such sharp, eloquent analysis of the war in Ukraine at our Somerville Association Spring Meeting. Maybe they’ll look to our new Honorary Fellows: the historian Professor Bolanle Awe (elected Dec 2022), the physicist Professor Julia Yeomans, the climate activist Farhana Yamin and the academic Professor Clair Wills (all March 2022). After all, it is one of the most Somervillian of traditions to inspire and strengthen each other to challenge boundaries, to dare to be more.