Van Mildert College

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Van Mildert College, Durham

Motto	Sic vos non vobis Not for yourselves
Colours	Black and Yellow
Named after	Bishop William Van Mildert
Established	1965
Master / Principal	Prof. Patrick O'Meara
Senior Tutor	Petra Points
JCR President	Neil Crimes
Undergraduates	1037
Postgraduates	39
Website	Van Mildert College
JCR Website	Van Mildert JCR
Boat Club Website	Van Mildert Boat Club

Van Mildert College, commonly known as Mildert, is a college of the University of Durham in England. Founded in 1965, it takes its name from William Van Mildert, Prince-Bishop of Durham from 1826 to 1836 and a leading figure in the University's 1832 foundation. Women were first admitted to the college in 1972, making it the first Durham college to become co-educational.

1 The Junior Common Room (JCR)
2 Facilities
3 Gallery
4 College Arms
5 College Traditions and Legends
6 Notable alumni
7 External links

[edit] The Junior Common Room (JCR)

The college has a reputation for student participation and liberalism. JCR members no longer wear gowns, unlike at most of Durham's colleges, and the level of student involvement in the running of the college is arguably higher than most other Doxbridge colleges. Van Mildert JCR is made up of around 300 positions that do everything from running the bar and the shop to looking after the college's famous ducks.

[edit] Facilities

Centred around a large lake in eight acres (32,000 m²) of grounds, the college's accommodation and communal facilities are modern and capacious. College facilities and an adjacent conference centre are regularly used by external organisations, to raise funds for college life.

The accommodation blocks are named Tyne, Tees, Middleton, Derwent, Wear, Tunstall and Deerness, the latter two of which are fully ensuite. They are all situated within the main college area around the lake and the college is in the process of refurbishing each of the buildings in turn with Wear and Derwent still awaiting refurbishment. In total the College can provide rooms for up to 550 of its' members.

The College library is well equipped with over 12,000 books and journals available to members of the College. Opposite the library is the Kent Room, which is where the reference collection of the library is kept. The library is run by a part-time librarian and the library committee of the JCR, which also provides much of the funding to maintain the library. The library has recently undergone a process of automating its catalogue of books.

Similar to all of Durham's Colleges Van Mildert has a bar and JCR lounge, both of which feature full 42 inch plasma screen TVs. The JCR lounge is used as the arena for JCR meetings and mainy social events such as bops and for discos after formals along with the bar, which is opened early on special occasions such as sporting events.

The College also has a host of other social facilities, most notably a new multi-million pound music/ recording room with drums, grand piano and recording equipment. Further the College has a gym, computer room, tuck shop, tennis court and has a full size snooker table.

The College Dinning Hall is one of the largest in Durham and has sat over 440 members in one sitting. The dinning hall is used for a variety of functions and plays a central role in the lives of liver in's as it is where they have their College meals and formals as well as doubling up as a theatre for drama productions and use as a sports hall.

[edit] Gallery

Mildert in the snow

Van Mildert College in 1995.

Van Mildert Lake

Snow across Tees Lawn

[edit] College Arms

The college arms are blazoned as "Gules two Scythe blades in saltire in chief the Cross of St Cuthbert Argent And for the Crest On a Wreath of the Colours in front of a Castle of three Towers Sable a Silver Penannular Brooch proper the ends charged with Gilded Crosses of St Cuthbert." The scythes and the red field are taken from Bishop Van Mildert's episcopal arms; the cross of St Cuthbert is a common emblem of Durham City and University. The college generally uses only the shield of its arms for most purposes.

[edit] College Traditions and Legends

[edit] The Kazoo

The Kazoo

The Kazoo is a ceremony performed by the winning candidate after elections by ballot box in the JCR. A Kazoo is a celebratory action which requires the winning candidate of every election to kick a full can of soft drink down the stairs in the foyer, throw it over their head three times and then opening the can over his/her head. " The JCR Constitution notes that it "may be done wearing clothes." The tradition was originally and somewhat inexplicably performed by Kazuhisa Fukatsu (AKA Kazu) - a fat and somewhat eccentric Japanese exchange student back in 1997. He would remove his top and run up and down the stairs several times with a can in each hand, shaking them as he went. He would then empty both cans over his head, with a crowd of bewildered students watching, subsequently emulating him.

[edit] Ents and Bops

Do Me Bad Things at the 2005 Summer Ball

Like many university colleges and societies, Mildert has many ents and bops throughout the year. Of note are 'Mildert Day', an annual celebration of college spirit, and the 'Summer Ball', which occurs in the final weeks of the academic year. In recent years Milburn, Do Me Bad Things, Chesney Hawkes and East 17 have been among the acts who have headlined this event.

[edit] Sports Teams

Van Mildert also has numerous sporting teams and societies. These include the Van Mildert Bus Society, whose stated aim is to obtain a Routemaster bus for the college's use, six different football teams (A, B, C, Galaxy [D], Cosmic [E] and the women's team), two cricket teams - Mildert A and Mildert B, the latter of the two existing exclusively for college alumni - and a well funded boat club.