Mary Beard

[viques]

I know this isn’t the right board for posting this, but I am posting it anyway because I know she is a bit of a hero here and deservedly so.

Dame, Dr, Professor (so many hard earned titles it’s hard to choose!) Mary Beard is retiring soon, and as a farewell retirement gift to herself she has gifted £80000 to fund a couple of students from deprived backgrounds to support their studies.

Always knew she was a star and an inspiration, now turns out she is kind , generous and practical as well.

for her.

Yes she she is fab.

That is of course why so many men can't stand her!

She has posted on here in the past so she might see your thread OP

@NiceGerbil

Yes she she is fab.

That is of course why so many men can't stand her!

She has posted on here in the past so she might see your thread OP

I hope she does see this. She was an inspiration in my grad school studies in 2001 at the University of Texas. Those plans got waylaid, but she was fantastic.

Mary Beard is a few years older than me. It's interesting that she comments that Classics was a very male subject when she was a student. I am also a Classics graduate, not from Cambridge. At the start of the 1980s every single academic in our department was male. There was one woman Ph.D. student who had apparently been involved in teaching the year before, but not during my time there. I don't remember being struck by this at the time, which seems odd to me now, as I came from a girls' school with almost entirely female staff, and well over half the undergraduate students were female. From the alumnus newsletters I get sometimes, it looks as if there are now a lot more female staff, all the way to Professorial level. Good.

On the subject of ethnic/cultural diversity, every single Classics student I can recall was white. As you needed to have either Latin or Greek A level to get onto the course at that time, naturally almost all of us had attended academically selective schools - state grammar schools, direct grant schools (feepaying, but taking a large number of LEA funded children from state primaries), public schools - and of course very few pupils at schools like that came from low income families, and even in a time of full grants they were less likely to go on to university than their more affluent peers.

I imagine (hope) it's different now. Most Classics departments have had to relax their entry requirements a lot, as so few students from state schools have the opportunity to study Latin or Greek.

DMB is so wonderful, that she is not even naming her scholarship after herself

That is very classy

Another reason to love Mary Beard!

The wee update/news thing on the Newnham website (College where Mary Beard studied & then stayed on to become Professorial Fellow - am guessing she’ll become Fellow Emeritus on retirement, though that’s not been announced yet) has about as much detail as is currently available. There are also Helpful Clicky Links to information about Joyce Reynolds & Cambridge’s new-for-Michaelmas-Term-2021 access-widening Foundation Year (in which Newnham’s participating).

I love her even more ❤️

And after watching her last night (yay, she's back on TV), what a thoughtful, intelligent, empathetic interviewer/host she is.

As well as a fabulous presenter of History and Classics. I love MB

@Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g

Mary Beard is a few years older than me. It's interesting that she comments that Classics was a very male subject when she was a student. I am also a Classics graduate, not from Cambridge. At the start of the 1980s every single academic in our department was male. There was one woman Ph.D. student who had apparently been involved in teaching the year before, but not during my time there. I don't remember being struck by this at the time, which seems odd to me now, as I came from a girls' school with almost entirely female staff, and well over half the undergraduate students were female. From the alumnus newsletters I get sometimes, it looks as if there are now a lot more female staff, all the way to Professorial level. Good.

On the subject of ethnic/cultural diversity, every single Classics student I can recall was white. As you needed to have either Latin or Greek A level to get onto the course at that time, naturally almost all of us had attended academically selective schools - state grammar schools, direct grant schools (feepaying, but taking a large number of LEA funded children from state primaries), public schools - and of course very few pupils at schools like that came from low income families, and even in a time of full grants they were less likely to go on to university than their more affluent peers.

I imagine (hope) it's different now. Most Classics departments have had to relax their entry requirements a lot, as so few students from state schools have the opportunity to study Latin or Greek.

I'm a classics graduate and did my degrees (BA and MA) in the early 00s.

When I did my studies my year was predominately female. The academic staff was roughly 50/50 I think. My MA supervisor was female.

I didn't do A level Latin or Greek and as such applied to the only 6 classic courses that didn't require either lol. We were nearly all white middle class though a mix of private, state and grammar schools.

I’m American and love her so much.. She’s one of very few public and positive role models for women my age. I’ll never forget the first time I saw her on TV, riding a bike with that glorious gray mane and gold lamé shoes. I was so excited, I wanted to grab someone and yell, look ,look, there’s someone like me, on TV! Like little whoopi and uhura. When I heard they literally cut her out of US versions of shows, I took it personally. No more happy bubbly pretty fashionable smart lady teaching me cool stuff. Then I ended up here, and have been a tervophile ever since. Thanks for her, she’s precious!

She is a magnificent woman.

What a shero

Such a fabulous gesture. At a wild guess that could be her lump sum from her pension as she is retiring. How utterly selfless and generous and ungready and and and... I've run out of words for someone so special. I'm going to rewatch her every programme in the hope she gets a royalty.

Yep, As someone in receipt of a CS pension (similar to Universities!) , truncated and diminished by time out by bringing up children, I'd guess this was her lump sum.

She's had some aggro recently, hasn't she: accusations of not being inclusive. This is real substance she's putting to the service of inclusivity, and I hope it blows her detractors' carping out of the water. ❤⭐

What a gesture. She is inspirational!