Newnham College

       Named after Newnham Village, Newnham College was the second of Cambridge's 31 Colleges to admit women.  It was established in 1871 by Henry Sidgwick and Millicent Garret Fawcett.  Many of the lanes and buildings in and around the college are named in their honor. 

       Henry Sidgwick, originally a fellow at Trinity College--one of Cambridge's oldest--was known as a mover and shaker, giving up  his fellowship at Trinity in a dispute after refusing to take an oath of faith to a God he didn't believe in.  Henry Sidgwick spent his life challenging University policies (including that which kept women from attending the University proper) and legend has it that some of his peers coined the term "Sidgwickedness" in reference to his antics and sense of mischief.  

       Originally a single house, where rooms were rented out to young women under the supervision of Anne Clough (who never attended secondary school or college herself) Newnham was a response to the overwhelming demand for accommodation near the University after women's lectures were begun in 1870.  By 1875 Newnham's first building--Sidgwick Hall--had been constructed, and the archetict Basil Champney's was in the process of designing what today makes up the bulk of Newnham's campus.  A series of graceful Queen Anne Style red brick buildings linked together by Europe's second longest indoor corridor---so that young women studying would not have traipse out of doors to get from their rooms to their meals to some of their courses.  

       Newnham is also home to one of the most extensive College Garden's in Cambridge, in addition to a beautiful historical library that is a protected site.  Said library has an extensive collection, and many alcoves for study and work---a vestige of days when female students were not allowed in the Main University Library, and needed separate resources of their own.  Newnham even has a series of buildings which once housed science labs for women studying who were not allowed in dept. laboratories.  Today this space, fittingly titled "the old labs' is used mainly for performance.

       It wouldn't be until 1948 that women gained full acceptance at Cambridge (Oxford admitted women in full in 1920) and as late as 1921 male undergraduates destroyed an ornamental gate at Newnham in celebration of their "victory" when women campaigned for, but were denied, full admittance to the University.  Today Newnham is one of three remaining all-female colleges not only in Cambridge, but in all of the UK.  Lucy Cavendish and Murray Edwards make up the triad of women's only colleges at the University of Cambridge.

       Today Newnham is home to approximately 400 undergraduate students, 150 graduates, and 70 academic staff.  The college fields a competitive crew team, and has sent rowers onto compete in the Olympics.  Women at Newnham participate in a variety of extracurricular activities, including a termly lecture series organized by students and share in chapel and music services at the nearby Selwyn College.  Considered one of Cambridge's "new colleges" Newnham graduates include Emma Thompson, Mary Beard and Ruth Cohen.  The College has an active and engaged alumna society that frequently hosts events on the college campus for current Newnham students, or "Newnhamites" as they are fondly referred to within the walls of the college.    
       Newnham students pursue degrees across all academic fields, from science and engineering to literature, sociology, art and music, and at all levels from first undergraduate through to PhD or even post-doctoral fellowships.  Each spring Newnham provides students with hands on opportunities to present and share research through a graduate fair--designed to both expose undergraduates to the opportunities awaiting them, and to give Newnham's vibrant graduate community a chance to practice the presentations that will in part earn them their degrees from Cambridge University.
       

       Academic life at Newnham is managed through the Junior, Middle and Senior Common Rooms.  Each of which provides meeting space, study space and events for the students and fellows which they serve.  Events such as Formal Halls frequently extend to include individuals from all walks of college life.  Newnham is also known for it's support of students pursuing music in addition to their other work.  Providing ample opportunity and even some limited funding to students who wish to continue pursuing an instrument or vocal instruction through the University Music Dept.  Less well advertised, although perhaps occassionally capable of also being heard throughout the halls of Newnham are the Newnham Nuns.  The College's renowned drinking society.
Less important to the general history of Newnham College, but seared forever into my memory is this tree and this lawn.  It is where I watched the slow degredation of a pigeon's body over the course of six days.  Six days during which I was exceptionally vocal about the state of the bird, it's location and suggestions as to an appropriate course of action that could be taken at the Porter's Lodge, or P'Lodge, the general entrance to the College, where students keep their Pigeon Holes (mail slots) and interaction between Newnham College and the general public ostensibly begins and ends.                    

Upon admittance to a program within Cambridge University students applications are forwarded onto the 31 colleges for consideration.  All students are promised at least one offer of placement froma  Cambridge College, however if you turn down your primary offer, you may not be given a second.  Students have the opportunity to rank their first two choices on their application. Yours truly knew nothing about the Colleges, nor the ranking system and as a result ended up in Newnham either through blind luck or simple happenstance.

       Living in an all-female environment takes my last job (for Girl Scouts of Oregon and SW Washington) and makes the gender breakdown there seem absolutely diverse.  While the general subset of human knowledge present on the internet seems to agree that gender segregated environments foster educational attainment in girls aged 13-17, I'm not sure that it extrapolates to people in their late twenties to early thirties.  However, since my program (MPhil in Gender Studies) is one that has essentially self-selected to be over 90% female, that's a hypothesis that I get to suss out personally.  I'll let you know.  I will admit that I am certainly far more likely to wander around the halls of the college barefoot and in my pajamas than I did as an undergraduate where there were (GASP) boys.   That said, my general level of personal shame drops a few notches every year, so while I might be able to chalk tht up to a gendered environment, I might also be able to chalk that up to "Callie has gotten older, realized more thoroughly that we're all just biological organic goo smeared on a rock, and gives less of a shit about the little stuff." 

All that said, Newnham seems to be a good fit for me.  Everyone is either nice, or I haven't figured out how to read British-not-super-niceness and as long as you are competent enough to figure out your own problems (there is a lot of hand wringing if you need help) it's an easy place to get people to slowly come around to solving those problems if you can provide clear easy steps and an understanding of what went wrong and why.  If you are patient.  Patience is key.  Housekeeping does leave mildly passive aggressive notes whenever something is found to be out of order and the cleaner comes to the house I am living in at 8am---making morning prep either early or awkward.  (In 10 years no one besides me has brought this to the attention of housekeeping.  They claim that means it's not a problem.  I claim it means they haven't put enough pushy US citizens into this house in the last 10 years).  

       One way, or another, Newnham is "home" for the next 8-10 months.  And it's another reminder to me that "home" is not a static place, thing or idea.  Home can move with you, or not.  Or bits and pieces of home can come and bits and pieces can stay.  Our ancesters, unless we are grossly misled by the historical record, didn't really do a whole lot of picking up and moving half way around the world.  So it is up to us, in our vague, odd modern epoch, to create new definitions of "home" and new forms of "community" that stretch beyond geographic boundaries in many cases.  We get to relearn what it means to be happy.  What it means to be connected, and what it means to be whole in a wide open world of uncertainity.

       Good luck on your quest.  Whatever it may be.

      Much of the information gathered for this post was gleaned from walking tours of Newnham provided during Freshers Week, the venerable Wikipedia, signs in and around campus, and of course the official website of Newnham College.