07 Oct 09

Having commenced his new responsibilities on 1 October, Professor Andrew Hamilton was ceremonially installed as the 271st Vice-Chancellor of the University of Oxford at a ceremony at the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford on Tuesday 6 October 2009.

Professor Andrew Hamilton, BSc, MSc, PhD, FRS has joined the University from Yale, where he was Provost from 2004 until late 2008.

Talking in his inaugural address about what had 'bewitched and beguiled' him about Oxford, he said: 'I am here because Oxford over many centuries has committed itself to the development of ideas at the forefront of knowledge and then to the testing of those ideas through analysis, debate and experimentation. I am here because Oxford is committed to excellence in all of these undertakings. Excellence in the standards it sets for scholarship. Excellence in its academic staff, in the lecturers, tutors, and researchers, who are crucial to its success. Excellence in the students it chooses for admission. Excellence in the quality it expects of its administration. And excellence in those twin Oxford jewels, the collegiate structure and the tutorial system.'

He added: 'That commitment to excellence comes at a price. It is expensive. It demands high standards and constant attention. It is not always popular and has to be defended against political opportunism and crude social engineering.'

Describing what he saw as the core principles of a university, he recalled a eulogy for Jeremy Knowles, an Oxford chemist and personal mentor: 'Above all, he understood the nature of a university and what it meant to search for knowledge, or discover even a single truth. The standard could never be too high. Many other things mattered, of course. But if learning, teaching, and research were not the heart of the matter, why were we here?'

Ending his inaugural address, he said: 'I am here to commit myself, with all of you, to the maintenance of these principles; to focus on the three core pillars that define the overarching mission of the great universities of the world: the creation of knowledge (in our laboratories, our research centres and our academic departments); the dissemination of knowledge (in our lecture and seminar rooms, our colleges and tutorials, online and in print); and the preservation of knowledge (in our libraries, our museums, our collections, and our digital repositories).’

He added: ‘The years ahead will not be easy for Oxford. They will likely require an intense debate on the role of the university, its financial underpinnings and its relationship to the rest of the national and international world. But I am confident that if we can keep before us the reasons why we are here in Oxford in the first place, we will not only survive the years ahead but we will find that the greatest university in the world will both prosper and grow stronger far into the future.’

The installation ceremony witnesses the changeover of Vice-Chancellors and takes place at a meeting of Congregation (the University’s ‘parliament of dons’).

The occasion began with the annual Oration by the outgoing Vice-Chancellor, Dr John Hood. His reflections on the previous five years, including an announcement that the Campaign has over five years raised £770m, as well as his thanks and farewell to colleagues, were greeted with prolonged applause.

This was followed by the admission of Professor Hamilton as the new Vice-Chancellor, as well as the admission to office of the Pro-Vice-Chancellors and Clerks of the Market, before Professor Hamilton's inaugural address.

Professor Hamilton was born in Guildford, Surrey, and read chemistry at the University of Exeter. After studying for a master's degree at the University of British Columbia, he received his PhD from Cambridge University in 1980. In 1981 Professor Hamilton was appointed assistant professor of chemistry at Princeton University. He moved to the University of Pittsburgh in 1988, where he became Professor of Chemistry and served as department chair. He joined Yale in 1997 and was chair of the chemistry department from 1999 until 2003, when he became Deputy Provost for Science and Technology.

He combined his wide-ranging administrative duties with a distinguished teaching and research career. In addition to serving as Provost, he was Benjamin Silliman Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry. He intends to continue active research whilst at Oxford.

Professor Hamilton’s academic achievements have been widely recognised internationally. In 1999 he received the Arthur C Cope Scholar Award from the American Chemical Society, and in 2004 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Professor Hamilton, 56, is married with three children.