Our JCR President, Thomas Bainbridge (2024, English) reflects on the student experience of college, and what it is that makes Somerville special.
Over the summer, I had the pleasure of reading all the letters written to the new freshers by their college parents (‘mentors’ in the year above). Whilst I had assumed that this would be a relatively arduous task, involving little more than reading the same time-worn snippets of advice and empty introductions over and over, I was shocked to find myself genuinely enjoying going through each and every one. Despite their shared purpose, the sheer range of voices, identities and experiences that these letters brought to life was genuinely fascinating to me.
Thomas Bainbridge, JCR President
One letter delved into the importance of a good Lebanese wrap in surviving at university. Another letter dedicated an entire section to praise for the Magdalen Street “Tescalator”. In fact, across the letters, halloumi was mentioned two times, cinema four times. Football was mentioned eight times, writing nine, and music eleven times. Everything from benchball to traditions was seemingly being identified with this idea of the ‘Oxford experience’, and I found myself really rather enthused that ‘life at Somerville’ could mean so many things to so many people.
But if the lives followed here really are as disparate and varied as the letters seemed to suggest, it begs the question: what actually is it that Somerville, and the JCR, stands for? What is it that unites our students, beyond mere location of residence?
To go about answering this somewhat, it made sense to me to have a look at what words and ideas continued to underpin these letters. Although unsurprisingly the three most frequent words were Somerville, College and Oxford, with 240, 277, and 231 uses respectively, the fourth most popular word was the one to really grab my attention. In fact, the word ‘great’ appeared 230 times across all the letters, most often describing ‘Somerville’ and ‘College’. The most consistent common ground agreed to by the college parents was that this elusive ideal, their ‘college experience’, had indeed been positive; ‘fun’ appeared 71 times, and ‘best’ 99 times.
But what does this mean? Although these findings could just reflect the arbitrary relating of people’s enjoyment of their university experience to life at Somerville, I think there is something more going on here. What I find, time and time again, is that for our students, the college represents a space where they feel comfortable and supported in the different endeavours they choose to undertake; the college was described as a ‘safe space’ on 20 different occasions, with 13 of these uses suggesting that this safety had been the reason that something positive was enabled, from the ability to make friends, the opportunity to develop one’s own interests, or even the ability to feel proud of individual experiences and identities.
The current JCR committee
We are, after all, a College of Sanctuary, one where students and tutors alike can walk, or even take classes, on the quad. We are a college which has always sought to ‘include the excluded’, and we a college which ultimately champions individuality, with our JCR Gender Expression Fund and Access Roadshow being just two examples.
And it in is this ability to hopefully embrace and foster individuality where, I think, the college’s real value lies. It is ultimately the people who make the college, with 148 different instances within the letters making clear that the people within our student body are indeed an important feature, whilst 78 ascribed happiness to the friends that they had been able to get to know.
The real privilege of my role as JCR President, therefore, is the ability to facilitate and support the individual interests and ambitions of our common room members. It is more important than ever in my work to help foster and embrace opportunities afforded to us as Somervillians; to encourage and support our students in throwing themselves into whatever it is that most interests or best represents them. Just as the most common location of the words ‘Somerville’ and ‘College’ fell at the beginnings and ends of the letters, Somerville represents the beginning of our adult lives, and the experiences we foster here will, I hope, continue to shape us to the end of our own stories.
So, members of the JCR: try new things, or throw yourselves into old passions. Love your subjects, and feel proud that you live in an environment where this is something to be cherished – after all, there is nowhere else I could be where I would have felt comfortable basing this entire introduction on linguistic analysis skills learnt within college as I do here! And, as members of our wonderful community, choose to be kind to those around you, and interested in the lives of this body of genuinely fascinating people, of whom you are one, and by whom you will be surrounded for three, or four, or even six years. Because, as the college family letters made clear, this is conducive to something truly ‘great’.
For non-Somervillians, the JCR, or Junior Common Room, is both the undergraduate community here at Somerville, as well as the committee who represents these students within college. The JCR consists of elected officers whose roles consist of representing student views, concerns and interests to the college and the university as a whole. It is our aim to ensure that we provide the necessary resources and mandates to allow for lives which are academically and personally fulfilling, exciting, and meaningful, both within our community, and beyond – the importance of which I hope has been made overt here, and is especially central to life at our beautiful college. The JCR committee are extremely passionate, friendly and keenly united in this aim, so if you want to learn more about the work our officers do, or get in touch, everyone’s details are listed below! We would love to hear from you!