Xiaohongshu
Our book Student London: a new history of higher education in the capital was officially published on 11 February. Since then, my co-author Georgina Brewis and I have been engaging in a whirlwind of activities, trips, launches, talks and UCL200 events – spanning multiple venues across three continents! This blog post gives a brief overview of what we’ve been up to, and signposts readers to more detailed discussions of many of these events.
UCL’s foundation documents were signed on 11 February 1826, and that date marked the beginning of the bicentenary celebrations this year. Our book was officially published then too (although we got our hands on copies a little earlier). I was at Broadcasting House at the crack of dawn to speak about both events for BBC Radio London. The interview later became part of a London Uncovered podcast. Later that day, Georgina was filmed for the BBC London news, talking about UCL’s early days.
At lunchtime, we hosted a local launch party for colleagues in our academic home, the Department of Education, Practice and Society. There was sparkling wine and a cake with the book’s front cover on it! We played our ‘Making of’ video and spoke about the book.
That night, and during the following two, Georgina and I, alongside a group of stalwart students who worked on our project with us, took part in the UCL Illuminated events. You can read a reflection of the show from one of our project interns, Brian Chen. For Georgina, a highlight was meeting a cast of characters walking around the quadrangle playing historical figures from UCL’s history (below).
The rest of the time, we manned a book stall in the Student Centre. Everyone who had watched the projections on the Portico was funnelled in our direction to exit the event. We assumed we would have a steady stream of interested punters but trying to intrigue people in a book they’ve never heard of is harder work than it seems – although we managed to have many excellent conversations with alumni, current students and staff. Thank goodness adrenaline kept me going on that first night in particular. I had been up since 5am, and didn’t get home until 11pm!
The following week we went to Bologna for the European launch of our book. We had been invited to discuss it as part of a seminar at the European Museum of Students. The Museum itself is a gem: it is part of the University of Bologna (Europe’s oldest) and it is made up of several rooms dedicated to the history of students across various European countries, full of material culture and even a recreation of a student bedroom from the nineteenth century. The seminar, conducted in English and Italian, was introduced by our colleague Professor Tom Woodin. Other speakers included the museum’s curator, Maria Teresa Guerrini, Professor Mirella D’Ascenzo, and Professor Daniel Laqua from Northumbria University. The room was at full capacity, and we all received fantastic questions. A tour of the museum followed.
Not content with travelling overseas once to talk about the book, a couple of weeks later, I was lucky enough to be invited to New York City to be a part of UCL’s ‘Here, it will happen’ campaign launch in North America. At the very top of the New World Trade Centre – the tallest building in the western hemisphere – I was able to talk about the book to a whole new audience. Again, I had many memorable conversations despite the jetlag and being afraid of heights! (It was a cloudy evening, which made the latter bit easier).
The following day, I met with Professor John Allegrante who works at Teachers College, Columbia University. I was lucky that Professor Allegrante is not only a world-leading specialist in his field, he also takes a great interest in the history of his own institution(s) and frequently leads guided tours of the Columbia campus – which, a week earlier, had been buried under snow! I learnt a huge amount and was delighted to be able to present John and the Teachers College Library with copies of our book.
After all this promotion (not to mention extra talks at venues including the London Archives), it felt surreal to then plan the actual official launch of the book back at UCL. This took place at the end of March and was a great success. Thanks to a lot of hard work from various teams, we had the entire North Cloisters of the Wilkins Building to ourselves, for a big drinks reception and speeches. UCL’s President and Provost, Michael Spence, spoke warmly about the importance of students in university life. Our guest speakers, former Woman Vice President of the Union from the mid-1960s, Toni Griffiths, gave a touching overview of her time as a student and the profound impact University College had on her life. I said a few words about the 90+ oral history interviewees I spoke with, and thanked Students’ Union UCL for their support of the whole project. Georgina spoke about colleagues in Special Collections, UCL200, and paid a fitting tribute to London students themselves from the past 200 years, who left traces of their lives behind, whose stories we have tried to tell and who lived long, and sometimes tragically short, lives. We thought it fitting that the current Students’ Union President, Anam Choudhary, should propose the final toast.
It was a pleasure to see so many people watching our film in one of the refurbished rooms off the Cloisters.
I felt like I spent the whole evening not speaking properly to anyone, but that was a symptom of lots of people wanting us to sign books or congratulate us on what we’ve achieved. It was especially touching that so many of the people I had interviewed for the book came along on the day. Several had travelled from overseas – including one from Australia! It was lovely to be surrounded by colleagues, family and friends for the evening. It is one of many things that makes the writing of the book, which involved a lot of effort, worth it.
Also in March, we were back on BBC Radio London when Georgina was interviewed by Robert Elms and she also presented our research to Princess Anne as part of her royal visit to UCL to mark the bicentenary.
In April, Georgina took part in the ‘Here, it will happen’ launch events in Beijing and Hong Kong, meeting fascinating alumni from all over East Asia as well as connecting with some former students. She then moved on to support a special UCL200 pop up in Shanghai. We have even had a special version of the Time Telephone (currently on display in the Student Centre and featuring 53 clips of my oral history interviews with alumni) made for China.
While Georgina was away, I gave a talk to the UCL Finance team. It was really nice to speak to over 100 people from a different kind of internal audience. We’re looking forward to many more opportunities to share the book over the course of 2026, with a number of public talks planned for May and June. These include: