Cambridge Colleges: Darwin

From my happy little Queen Anne style compound (aka Newnham College) on Sidgwick Avenue, across from the Sidgwick site (guess who they were named after?  Yup.  A guy named Sidgwick), the walk into town and the dept. where my degree course is located takes me down a hill that seems a lot shorter going down, across Ring Road, and between Queen and Darwin Colleges, before crossing the river and getting into the sort of downtown in and around some of the older colleges and University sites.
       In 1963 Trinity, St. John's and Cauis colleges banded together to found a new graduate college of Cambridge to help address the growing need for space for graduate students as interest in the University of Cambridge vastly outpaced it's ability to house and serve students in the post-war years of the 1950's and 1960's.  Education across the world was broadening in it's accessibility for people of all backgrounds, and Cambridge was not quite an exception to that rule.
       Named after the Darwin family, who used to own the land and a building where the college now sits (Newnham grange), Darwin College was founded on the 28th of July, 1964, meaning it's almost exactly five years older than the idea of a literal moonwalk, although it did not receive it's charter as an independent college until almost 12 years later in 1976. Darwin College holds the honor of being the first college founded in Cambridge as a mixed college that admitted both men and women from the moment of it's inception.  Darwin was also, perhaps not coincidentally, the first of Cambridges Graduate-Only institutions. There is an extensive collection of family portraits of various Darwin family members on semi-permanent loan to Darwin Colleges, which can be seen if you have the time to walk through the college hallways and meeting rooms.
       In the years since it's founding Darwin College has been able to acquire, in bits and pieces, a sizable chunk of land in and around it's original site, and with significant financial support from the Rayne Foundation, was able to turn an originally small ad-hoc college site, into something that very much resembles many of the more traditional looking Cambridge College sites, replete with a library completed in 1994.  It was in 2010 that with one final land purchase Darwin achieved it's current full size, stretching along Ring Road on the front, and bordered by the River Cam behind.
       Today Darwin is home to approximately 600 graduate students from all disciplines within the University in addition to 45 fellows who hold posts at the College at any given time.  Darwin stresses academic life within the college, and hosts the well-known through Cambridge Darwin Lecture Series on hot-topics each year.  Most of the last 2 years worth of Darwin Lecture Series have been published.
       Darwin College shares a sister-college relationship with Wolfson College and the University of Oxford, and student groups within the college work hard to make sure that the graduates studying at Darwin have the opportunity to take part in all aspects of college life, from rowing in bumps each term to competing in football (not American style).
       Notable Darwin Alum include Dian Fossey, Brian Gibson, Seamus O'Regan, Sir Ian Wilmut, Paul Clement and 2009 Nobel Laureate in Medicine, Elizabeth Blackburn.  Darwin prides itself on having a diverse body of students, and on the fact that it is able to foster connections between students of all disciplines since it does not favor any type of degree or subject studied when considering admission to the college.
Upon graduation alumni of Darwin College are automatically added to an alumni group that adorably sends out an annual newsletter entitled "The Darwinian."  Kinda makes me think twice about the cold grey brick wall I walk past every morning on my way to class.