Opening of Alison Richard Building

Professor Dame Alison Richard, who stood down as Vice-Chancellor in September 2010 after serving a memorable seven-year term, came back to Cambridge last week for the formal opening of the Alison Richard Building.

The Alison Richard Building is the new home for the Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities  and for the Department of Politics and International Studies which includes the Centre of African Studies, the Centre of Development Studies, the Centre of Latin American Studies, and the Centre of South Asian Studies.

Designed by Nicholas Hare Architects, the £15 million environmentally excellent building enhances opportunities for academic synergy and encourages interdisciplinary collaboration. The design preserves the identity of each group whilst creating areas where researchers can come together.

An atrium acts as an important reception area for national and international visitors as well as a hub for conferences and exhibitions. The ground floor, with a cafe, is open to all Sidgwick site, University and College users.

Professor William Brown, Head of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, said: “This is a beautiful and functional building, and it is very appropriate that it should bear Alison Richard's name. One of her achievements was strengthening Cambridge's international links, and those who work in the building will be especially concerned with international and interdisciplinary research and teaching in the humanities.”

Alison Richard’s first experience of Cambridge came when she arrived at Newnham College in 1969 to study Anthropology. Following her undergraduate work she undertook her doctoral research at King’s College, London.

In 1972 she joined Yale University in the USA where she became Professor of Anthropology in 1986. She became Provost of Yale in 1994, and in this role improved the University’s financial position while increasing the number of academic posts there.

An eminent anthropologist, Dame Alison’s research has focussed on the ecology and social behaviour of wild primates in Central America, West Africa and the Himalayan foothills but she is best known for her work on lemurs in the forests of southern Madagascar.

Returning to Cambridge as Vice-Chancellor from 2003, she focussed on establishing a generous and robust needs-based bursary scheme to enable less-advantaged undergraduates to study at Cambridge, on promoting an increase in multi-disciplinary research activity, on developing strong partnerships with other international universities and in launching the UK’s first ever £1 billion fundraising campaign for a university.

The Cambridge 800^th Anniversary Campaign reached its target before she stepped down in 2010.  She was awarded a DBE for services to Higher Education that same year.