We’re delighted to welcome Sarah Carthew as our new Registrar of the Roll and Director of Development.
Sarah joins us after 6 years in a similar post at St Hugh’s College, University of Oxford – a college that, like Newnham, was founded as a women’s college by Victorian radicals seeking to widen access to higher education. The result is that Sarah has found herself very much at home at Newnham, even though the unprecedented situation means that she can’t yet take her seat beneath the portrait of a former Registrar of the Roll. None the less, Sarah assures us “my welcome by all at Newnham College has been as warm as tradition would suggest”. In the last week alone, she’s been to two virtual SCR Coffees and a virtual Pudding Seminar, as well as the many zoom meetings that seem to occupy people’s time at the moment.
Before St Hugh’s College, Sarah was Director of Marketing, Communications and Development at the University of Westminster, where she led the campaign to redevelop the Art Deco cinema. She has been able to combine her career with her love of the arts and heritage, working as Head of Membership Development at both the V&A and the British Museum, where she instituted family sleepovers for ‘Young Friends’ aged 8 and over.
“Getting to know the buildings and the beautiful gardens of Newnham will be even more of a pleasure once this crisis is over,” Sarah says. “Above everything else, I will look forward to meeting Fellows, alumnae, students and staff face to face at long last.”
As well as Newnham’s famous gardens, it appears that Sarah has another motivation for leaving Oxford for Cambridge: “Fitzbillies’ Chelsea buns have long been a family favourite, bought on the way back from an uplifting visit to the Fitzwilliam Museum.”
Meanwhile, Sarah says “I do hope that I will meet as many of you as I can either virtually or by telephone or post until we can meet in person. Please look after yourselves and each other.”
Sarah is looking forward to hearing from alumnae, and can be reached on sarah.carthew@newn.cam.ac.uk