It’s my pleasure to introduce you to St John’s College, the place where I spent my own student days and where I now have the privilege to be Master.
More than 1,100 students and academics study here, one of the biggest college communities in the University. We’re inspired by the scale and beauty of St John’s, the honour of living and working in our historic buildings and stunning landscape, on the largest college site in Cambridge.
St John’s, or John’s as we’re usually known in Cambridge, is globally renowned for academic excellence. Over the centuries we’ve laid down the foundations of learning so today’s brightest minds will flourish here. This is a community which nurtures confidence and intellectual courage and whose hallmarks are integrity and independence, fairness, and tolerance.
Our academic ambitions are just as bold and clear. Our agenda-setting researchers tackle the most significant questions: how we can all live healthy and sustainable lives; where technology should – and shouldn’t – take us; how we should address inequalities; how to bring nature back from the brink. These are huge global challenges, and as the home of big ideas, John’s is superbly placed to embrace them.
Big thinking isn’t new for us. For more than half a millennium, our scholars have left their mark on the world: St John’s has produced 12 Nobel Laureates, seven prime ministers, and inventors and explorers, novelists and philosophers, campaigners, composers and business leaders.
Johnian thinking has long reshaped our ideas and our society. From William Wordsworth’s revolutionary poetry, and the ingenuity of the Raspberry Pi computer, to the extraordinary determination of William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson, leaders of the 18th century movement to bring slavery to an end. Their originality, energy and determination to change the world for the better continue to define our College.
Studying here is the gateway to a future full of possibilities. Our motto Souvent me souvient is a call to ‘remember me often’ and John’s has always held a special place in the hearts of countless members of College, my own included. I invite you to be part of our story.
