Ellen (seated), from the New Theatre’s production of Our Country’s Good.
Very many congratulations to Ellen Richardson, who has been awarded the university’s prestigious Marsden Prize.
The Elizabeth and J.D. Marsden prizes were set up in 1953, and are ‘awarded to students who are adjudged the best students of the year – who have gained high distinction in their examinations, and who have throughout their University careers been of exemplary conduct and given proofs of outstanding character and personality.’ The value of the first prize is £1000.
Ellen has just graduated with a first in Classics. She took both Latin and Greek from beginners’ level, and consistently achieved excellent results. Her second-year average of 79 saw her win the Shariyah Shafi for best second-year performance in exams.
But the Marsden prizes are not merely about academic performance. Ellen has also taught Latin in local primary schools as part of the department’s outreach programme NoCOut, mentored incoming undergraduates, been one of the university’s student ambassadors and helped at numerous open days, been a helper when we hosted the Classical Association conference in 2014, and acted as a student representative in both the Classics and Humanities Learning Community Forums.
If all of that still sounds rather academic, Ellen has also been heavily involved in the New Theatre as an actor and director (see photo), and was recently scouted to join the national student drama festival. And she has achieved all that she has done while having to devote much of her time to her family.
On hearing of the award, Ellen (very diplomatically) said: ‘This is totally unexpected but I am absolutely thrilled! Any success I have had on my part would have been impossible without the consistent support of the Classics department.’
Ellen is going to Oxford in the autumn to study Latin literature at Masters level, and we wish her every success for the future.
Posted on Tuesday 14th July 2015