Thursday, 10 July 2025

An Ode to Stephenson College

"Friends are the family you choose"

Another year has flown by, and graduation season is here again. While most of Alice's friends graduated last year, some were on four-year courses, so they got to celebrate again in 2025!

Durham University is collegiate, and when Alice originally applied, she chose Cuthbert's, hoping to be on the Bailey. Although she received her first choice, she was gutted to find out a couple of weeks before starting that she’d been reassigned to Stephenson College. Durham gave her the option of either accepting Stephenson or deferring for a year to return to Cuth's. Unsure of what to do, we visited Stevo, and from the moment she stepped foot in the college, she was hooked!

Stephenson is one of the newer colleges and prides itself on its modern, inclusive, and forward-thinking ethos, making it the perfect fit for Alice. She made incredible friends and fully embraced college life. Her love for the college was so strong that her dad even switched from Castle SCR to Stephenson (I’m still Team Hild Bede, but it’s a close call!).

Stephenson truly lives up to its reputation as a progressive, values-driven college, with students actively embracing global citizenship and engaging in local civic service at remarkable levels (evidenced by the college being named Volunteering College of the Year).

Alice and her friends were each awarded lifetime honorary memberships, and hosting their graduation party was an absolute delight. College Principal Professor Rob Lynes and Vice Principal Katie Stobbs joined us for lunch - further proof that Stephenson really is that welcoming!

Fortunately, we live close to one of Amazon's largest distribution centers, and our local charity shops often sell items donated by them. This allowed me to justify buying single-use graduation decorations along with 200 balloons! The charity shops also had plenty of glassware and teddy bears, which I was happy to snap up ready to recycle.

Alice's friend Ella was incredible, taking charge of desktop publishing to create stunning bingo sheets, signs, favour toppers, and jam jar labels. Since I'm hopeless with computers, I was thrilled to have such professional-looking 'branding' for the printouts!

Durham University students don't actually wear Mortarboards to graduate but my Amazon haul included a rather fetching red number so I added a Stephenson motto (upcycled from a worn out shirt) and it made the perfect photo booth prop along with vintage gowns.

The party was a wonderful muti-age affair and Alice's Granny baked huge amounts of sausage rolls, cheese scones and quiches for the buffet, along with big bowls of pretty much every type of salad imaginable!

The youngest guests were primary school age so I had an excuse to craft party favours!

Alice enjoying Granny's buffet

Alice's friends gave me their Frep (Fresher's Representative), bar and shop T-shirts which I stitched up into keepsake Team Stephenson bunting and teddy bears.