Our vision for Mildert Future

Van Mildert College is a community where all our members can thrive.  We are a stimulating and supportive, welcoming and challenging, friendly and caring place, where everyone feels known and valued.  

As we celebrate our first sixty years of transforming lives, we also look ahead to the second sixty.  We’ve consulted with current students and alumni to identify four jubilee projects: exciting, ambitious and deliverable plans for improving the student experience.  All four focus on creating the sense of belonging that makes Mildert so special.   

They are urgently needed.  It’s never been harder to create community for young people than it is today in our isolating world of social media and widespread anxiety – and it’s never been more important.  Our students continually amaze us with their resilience and resourcefulness.  But they need your help. 

Student Experience Funding

By increasing student experience funding, we will remove barriers to full participation in college life.  Our ‘challenge and opportunity’ fund provides reactive support for students in acute financial hardship, as well as those wanting to take up opportunities that would otherwise be beyond their reach.  In recent years, it has supported students to undertake volunteering work overseas, take shows to the Edinburgh Fringe, attend academic conferences, learn British Sign Language, join a chamber choir tour, and compete at national sports tournaments. In the current academic year, we’ve awarded around £8000 in total to 30 students, in grants of up to £400; at this rate the fund will be exhausted in the next two years without further contributions.  We could easily award several times as much year on year. 

We don’t currently have a pro-active programme of financial support for students from lower-income backgrounds.  At present, Van Mildert has 124 UK undergraduate students with a household income of less than £30,000, and a further 50 between £30,000 and £47,200.  As Durham University’s efforts to widen participation bear fruit, these numbers will likely increase.  These students often struggle with costs such as the JCR levy (currently £185), a ball ticket (currently £70), or subscriptions to the Boat Club (currently £60).  We aim to establish a fund of c. £35,000 per year to provide grants to students from lower-income backgrounds. This would relieve the financial pressures they experience and allow them to make the most of the opportunities available to them in College. 

Van Mildert also provides students with opportunities for paid work, which we’d like to expand.  Additional funding from alumni would allow us to increase the number and value of these opportunities. 

Our target is to raise £43,000 for student experience funding, and to build a broad base of regular giving for the future. 

Common Room Study Space

We’d love to develop a new Common Room space where students can come together to work and socialise.  Over half the students surveyed identified this as a priority.  This would get students out of their study bedrooms, which is good for their mental health.  It would bring livers-out back into college and offer hot drinks during the day.  And it would improve the sense of community and belonging. 

The Turner Room (named for former principal Judy Turner) would provide the ideal space for this facility.  Some alumni will remember it as the combination room, or the TV room.  It currently houses snooker and pool tables, which could be relocated elsewhere in college. 

‘Informal learning spaces were found to be of particular importance to undergraduates and first-year students in transitioning to university and establishing a sense of belonging.’   
Professor Sonja Oliveira (University of Strathclyde). 

Developing a new common room in this space would provide new opportunities for students to collaborate: Mildert students have an amazing track record of creating successful extra-curricular projects, such as our six outreach and volunteering projects.  This is the space in which the next generation of collaborations will be dreamt up. 

As the nature of work is changing, many of our students will go on to work in co-working spaces rather than more formal offices.  This room will give them a taste of their future working environments and help them learn how to make the most of them.  Displays in the room will increase the visibility of alumni networks and highlight their value to students.  Finally, it will make the college more attractive to applicants – Van Mildert is currently one of the colleges that fewest incoming students identify as their preference.  We can change this by developing highly desirable facilities such as this one. 

Our fundraising target for this project is £126,000. 

A new Boat House

Van Mildert College Boat House burnt down in an arson attack in December 2021.  While our insurance company made a substantial payment to rebuild the boat house, we don’t want simply to rebuild a like-for-like replacement.  Rowing is a huge part of our community: we want a bigger, better boat house.  This will allow us to introduce more people to rowing for the first time, while allowing our top crews to compete at elite levels locally and nationally. 

‘Once we have a new boat house, we will have a central training hub so we can train harder, win more, and rebuild the sense of community VMBC used to have.’  Claire Wiest, Boat Club Captain 2023-24. 

We have identified a suitable site next to the Maiden Castle sports centre and completed pre-planning. 

Our fundraising target for this project is £73,000. 

Upgrades to our Ann Dobson Hall

The Ann Dobson Dining Hall is the heart of Van Mildert College and reportedly the largest student dining hall in Europe.  But it’s used for much more than dining.  In addition to providing three meals a day, seven days a week to 525 students, it also hosts our fashion show, panto, musical, college day, carol service, dance showcase and regular formal dinners.  We could enhance all these activities with improved acoustic treatment, and theatrical sound and lighting. 

We currently rig temporary lighting and sound for each event.  This is time-consuming, disruptive, and the results leave much to be desired.  Fixed lighting and sound would allow us to host better events, more often and more easily.  It would allow us to up-skill our student technicians, giving them valuable experience, as well as providing more opportunities for Mildert’s music, drama and dance communities. 

‘The Ann Dobson Hall is a vastly underused resource that just needs unlocking, with some investment in contemporary technology.  Unlocking this potential will enrich not only the live music scene but also the formal dining experience and the development of VM students.’  Charlotte Beech, VM JamSoc. 

The acoustic properties of the hall have deteriorated over time and the current ‘swimming pool’ acoustic seriously compromises public speaking and music performances.  Acoustic consultants have drawn up plans to provide sensitive and effective acoustic treatment that would greatly improve the experience of dining in the hall, while returning the hall to its former glory as a venue for live music. 

Our fundraising target for this project is £125,000.