 I'm going to begin by introducing our first speaker, who is our new president and principal, Professor Sissig Kapoor to open the procedure. Thank you. I don't know why I deserve that applause, but thank you very much for offering it nonetheless. Today is a great occasion. I think a 60th anniversary of anything is wonderful, but a 60th anniversary of a department is truly remarkable. And it's great to see so many here today. And I think your presence reflects the achievements of the department, but more importantly, the pride that all of you take in being members of it or being associated with it. And the honor it is for the rest of us, who weren't members or directly associated, to be associated with something that has done so well for such a long period of time. The Department of War Studies, as you know, is the world's leading academic institution for the study of war and conflict. And its success owes much to its founder, Sir Michael Howard, one of Britain's most eminent and celebrated historians, but also to his approach, his holistic approach is stressing the wider context and the need that this be a interdisciplinary enterprise rather than a narrow one. Now I understand that Sir Michael Howard was closely associated with the department even after his retirement, was actively engaged until 2019, when he sadly passed away. So I think all we can hope for is that wherever he is today, he be looking upon us with smile and a pride in what he has been able to set and what it has become. And I understand that war studies at King started first, after the First World War, somewhere around 1927, I'm told, and that it has changed over time. That as the nature of conflict and war has changed, the department has changed, its scale, its makeup, its focus has changed. And in the words of Sir Michael Howard, he said, the history of war, I came to realize, was more than the operational history of armed forces. It was the study of entire societies. Only by studying their cultures could one come to understand what it was that they fought about and why they fought in the way that they did. Now I don't know exactly when Sir Michael Howard said that, but I think those words are pressing because over the last half century, the nature of warfare and conflict has dramatically changed not just in technology, but who the main actors are. So it's remarkable that your department has evolved along those times. And in 1982, of course, our very own, Sir Laurie Friedman, who was a formal doctoral student of Howard's at Oxford, was appointed to the chair of war studies and the head of department. And under Laurie's leadership, war studies became a mainstream academic subject and the department of war studies became one of the largest departments at King's. And I have to tell you, I wasn't at King's when all of this was happening. I was at the University of Toronto. And at the University of Toronto, I knew King's only for two things, war studies and psychiatry. I happened to be a psychiatrist. So you would expect me to know about psychiatry, but you wouldn't expect me to know about war studies, but it is. This is something that we've now done for a long time that the world around us knows us so well for. So over the years, notable figures have passed with the officers in the teaching rooms of our department, people like Thomas Shelling, Richard Rosencrantz, Morton Alpern, names that you would know well. And today, we have over 100 full-time academic staff, over 40 professional service members of staff, 1500 undergraduate and post-graduate students, and Michael tells me this year that it might be 1600, which just speaks to how highly sought after you are as a place, as a community to come and study and to come and learn. So not surprisingly, the department is a home to people from the ages of 18 to 70 as students. And they come from different backgrounds, from different faiths, from different ethnicities, nationalities. But it's really your collective enthusiasm and dedication to study conflict in all of its forms that shines through. Now, in 1992, I think Fukuyama said in the end of history, he thought that's it. Western liberal democracies have solved the problem. We know what the shape of history is going to be. And perhaps we put conflict behind us. And I think 30 years later, one could see how wrong it is. Perhaps, and sadly, and this is where psychiatry comes in, perhaps sadly, it is human to have conflict. And that conflict will be with us. Its nature, its form, its technologies might change. But sadly, it might well be that it is inherently human to be in conflict. And therefore, it remains necessary that we continue to study conflict in all its forms and its changing forms. And therefore, it's important that not only do we look to the past to thank those who've contributed to make this department the great department it is, not only look to the present to celebrate those of you who are continuing that tradition, but also look to the future to anticipate the new things that will happen, the new students we will meet who will take the work forward. So I'm delighted that as a part of the 60th anniversary celebrations to set a path for the future, the department is launching the War Studies Future Scholarship Program, which will support our commitment to admitting students with the greatest potential regardless of background. So this will aim to provide scholarships for six students from low income, widening participation backgrounds each year for the next 10 years. And you do your math six times 10, 60. So that's a good way to celebrate your 60th anniversary, though I realize by the time we'll get there will be a 70th anniversary, so we'll have to put in some more. But successful students will receive the scholarship of 12,000 pounds to help them cross the road whether in London and to contribute to that kind of a future. But I think whether we look to the past or whether we look to the present or the future, our main task remains the same. It is providing the highest quality of scholarship about more than 100 in its broadest sense and equipping our students with the skills and knowledge so that they can then make meaningful contributions to society through careers in government and international organizations in the charity sector and media and security and private sectors. And I think as a university we should not be precious where our students go. We should precious that they use the knowledge we provided to the ends that they find purpose for. So with that I would thank all those who've contributed to giving this department the prominence and the eminence and the service to society that has done. I celebrate all of you who are here as previous members of this department, current members and the students, but I also anticipate the very bright future. And one person who will get you there is your next head of the final, to whom I now hand. Very much. I should have said at the beginning two announcements. One is if there is a fire alarm do panic because it will be a real fire alarm in the test. If it does go off we need to walk down the stairs over there. I should also say that while there's about 80 of us in the room this is being streamed live on our YouTube channel so however many people that gets to when it's on the Twitter screen. One of the things we're keen to do as well is try and get War Studies Twitter account up to 60,000 followers and we're on 52,000 I think at the moment. So keep going with that. As I said at the start it's a great honour to be head of department. It's very funny standing here and seeing Barry Paskins in the audience. I've lost track of where he is. Over there in fact I remember my first day in War Studies for the job interview back in 2004. It was a horrible wet day. We were in the old Norfolk building which is around the corner somewhere which used to be an old hotel. It was very stabby and ugly at that stage and I walked in very nervous the night before. I remember thinking I was very modern at those days using an overhead projector page in colour. I'm sure actually don't even know what I'm talking about and I had this terrible fear that you'd put it down upside down or back to front or both and everyone would laugh and I looked up and the room was absolutely packed and there was Barry in a bright yellow coat socks and sandals despite the rain and I thought you know what that sort of feels like home and War Studies has been home ever since and one of the remarkable things about the department I think is this sense of community it brings into us. I was walking around with shittage at the start and we were speaking to some of the old War Studies hands and you know the first question was when did you join and I thought we should have an odd badge actually. I've done you know 20 years solid service or 30 years or in Barry's case 40 plus years and War Studies I think leaves an indelible mark on those who have been through it. The number of people that have been students and come back as staff the number who have been staff have gone away and decided the pull is too great and have come back and I think what it does is you know despite the fact that we study conflict we study war and security we're really a community and one of the things that has amazed me more than anything over the last year and a half is how the War Studies community has grown. We were very very keen back in March as COVID sort of erupted on the scene that we would move every single module online that all of our students wherever they were in the world whether they could come to London or not we'll be able to study remotely and similarly we have moved everything back onto campus now as far as we can and the idea is that we're really here as a community for students for staff people who have studied in the past people who will come in the future to really embrace all we do and enjoy and appreciate the work and we have grown when Laurie joined in 1982 I think there were four members of staff and he'll perhaps go into those. As shit is shit we now have well over a hundred academic staff on a Friday when I send out an update it goes to 270 people that are on the War Studies staff capital e-mail address over 1600 students it's a department that is growing and growing and I think that poses some very exciting opportunities for the future. One of the other things we did in lockdown was to refurbish the War Studies spaces and actually if you go into the room opposite which we will do after the formal bit and go and have some refreshments you'll see two new portraits which we commissioned one of Professor Mervyn Frost who is here that was painted by his wife Laila and another of one of our very famous eminent professors Sarki Doppel who sadly passed away a number of years ago. We're also delighted that we are commissioning for the first time ever a portrait of Laurie which when finished in a couple of months hopefully will be gigantic and will hang somewhere very prominently and we can have something to launch that. So do look at those and it just leaves me to thank a few people this events like this they look very simple when you come in and the chairs are out on the restroom but actually it's taking a huge amount of work and effort behind the scenes and so I'd like to thank particularly Lizzie, Ayesha, Sanjana and Rachel who have really done lots of this work and we had these weekly meetings trying to get this up on the ready and this is the first event of a whole year's worth of celebrations hopefully we'll get a football match against the peace studies department at Bradford and kick their ass if I can say that and there'll be lots of other talks and other things going on so it just leaves me again to say thank you to everyone for coming thank you for being part of this great community that we've achieved and you know here's to the future and if I had a drink I would say here's to the future so thank you very much. It leaves me now to introduce our our main acts if I could introduce this like the boxing champion without so in the blue corner we have professor Sir Lawrence Friedman head of department in war studies from 1982 until 1997 which is you know having done this job for two and a half years I do dig it for another sort of 12 and a half years with us at Draper and anyway and in the red corner we have Professor Funimi Olonni Sarkin vice principal for global engagement professor of security leadership and development and a graduate of war studies so I shall invite you both now sir please. Thank you first and foremost I hope everyone can hear me I'm trying to find my voice and for some reason I've been losing my voice today of all days let me first and foremost say this feels like some kind of homecoming in a sense like I've come home for Christmas for so many reasons but I'll name two this professor this eminent professor was my mentor the only one I knew was you know my mentor for a very long time until others joined and we can talk about those reasons later I can come back to war studies and we'll talk about it but for a second reason that in this room are people that shaped my own career shaped my journey at King's I was at King's war studies sorry for 10 years from 86 to 96 I don't want to explain why it took me 10 years to do a master's and a PhD but that's a story for another time I mean that period and at some point you handed over the baton to Christopher Dandekan my PhD supervisor so to see you in the room today a thin of pride um Maverick Frost is in this room the head of department after Christopher Dandekan and I know maybe online you'd have James Gao who played a very important role in my time at war studies towards the end but in this room is Professor Jack Spence who examined my PhD where is Jack yes yes yes absolutely in this room is the man who admitted me to my Emmy in war studies and that where is he I can't see him no no yes yes yes yes you know Barry Paskins has a special place is behind because of the times very difficult times that I went to him as my personal tutor and he talked me through some challenges that was before I started sitting with Laurie and I think it's important to talk about this Phil Sabin who was only a little bit older than me himself when he started teaching in war studies he was a recent PhD graduate and war studies still looks pretty much the same because of that familial thing all right we can talk about that but what I'd like us to do is begin to speak to the man who sat at the heart of the expansion of war studies in so many ways and that expansion is not just expansion for the sake of expansion is expansion for relevance and those of you who've been part of this journey understand what I'm talking about I had in a sense when I came in it was military we had two two special I had a special course as I met him a special model was the problem was the arms control and disarmament then we had military history and you cannot talk about military history without the two bryans brand holding reed brand bond and those who went through this place knew and then we had the contemporary course and somehow that's what I met and that's what was there for a while anyone could have been sitting here today talking to Laurie I feel privileged to do it because I think in a sense I'm a poster child of war studies and I'll tell you why later why I see myself as a poster child James girl could have been talking to you Michael Goodman could have been doing this John Guestin could have been doing it a few other people could have been doing this but I want to claim that right to do it as a poster child of war studies but what I want to understand first so that all of you you've read this I brought this out if you see this history it is a special history but to know what underpins it it's important to go back in time because the vision that shaped what became war studies uh around in in the 1960s 61 that vision was a particular kind of vision and Professor Sir Michael Howard had certain things in mind in a sense he was your mentor but when you came in as chair of war studies did you say to yourself as I'm sure she said to himself when he took over I'm going to shape this and remap it and make it different or did you want to make it different to make the same kind of impact or did you want to go in a totally different direction so Michael was my mentor and in a sense a role model not I mean we didn't study the same things but Michael from the moment I'm like I can still remember my first supervision at Oxford where um he is just wonderful rooms uh at all souls with books piled around him when I mentioned a name he knew them personally and in the middle of it the phone rang and it was some journalist about which uh and he started talking to this journalist about something or at least seemed to know what he was talking about and then he said I'm sorry if this goes on much longer I'm going to have to charge and I thought I want to be able to do that one bit so in a variety of ways the multi not only just an interdisciplinary approach but an engagement because Michael had been an important figure in the foundation of the double I double S and stupid strategic studies as well so I had all of that and I just assumed that's what one did it wasn't a um then I came to Kings now it's the key thing to understand about my arrival at Kings it was only because of Neil Cameron who um sadly died as as principal Neil was a former chief of defense staff uh one of the extraordinary things about Kings is it kept on recruiting to its top jobs former generals and and senior figures in the ministry of defense and Neil was former chief of defense staff um and one of his conditions on his appointment was it was that he was allowed to fill the chair of war studies which had been left unfilled for a number of years um this was controversial um largely because this was a time when uh the higher education system in the UK this is we're talking the early 80s was in big trouble uh was not being properly financed um so um I remember when the post was advertised I was told that the money wouldn't it was not there to to fill it so when I when I arrived and had been appointed and I should say Neil Cameron came when I was at Chatham House then Neil Cameron came to see me and said I I'm going to get this post as soon as I'm uh in in charge at Kings and I want you to apply which is I was I was quite a young lad so it was quite a surprise but he wanted somebody who knew about nuclear that was why because that was my field at the time of the nuclear debates were were pretty intense so I did and and I got it um but when I was actually in place in in April 1982 the first thing I was asked by my head of faculty was to ask my predecessor to take early retirement um um because they couldn't work out how how I could be afforded um which I really pleased to know I refused to do um I thought well this isn't a very good start and I um and we were taught my first meetings were all about cuts um so I said at one point look I've got nothing to cut but I think I can raise some money can I do that instead and um the head the head of faculty said well do me a paper on your wheeler dealing as that's how it was viewed so I wheeler-dealed and we brought in some money I think from Lee the Hume at first which I think helped to pay for for Brian um and um that was how I had to go because so it wasn't a question of having great uh imperialist ambitions it was purely defensive to start with um but once you once I got started um and you know the Falklands campaign had begun the day I started I've told this story too many times to repeat it again um and I became professor of war studies and the next day I had a war um but um about which I knew nothing I mean because I've been appointed to deal with nuclear stuff uh so if it had been a nuclear war I'd have been in my element but I I I'm all about what was going on in the Falklands um but but that sort of um made military things more interesting to people uh it was a tense time in the Cold War arms control so we gradually moved but you know it wasn't quick it really wasn't quick uh we appointed I mean Brown may remember but we didn't appoint many new people Barry will remember we didn't appoint very many new people during the 80s what made the difference so this is opportunity what I'm trying to say is it's opportunistic it's not vision I mean there's an element of vision which I'll go into in a second it was a lot of it was just opportunistic there's two things that made the difference um first was um around the early 90s all of a sudden higher education expanded and the um and limits were removed um and it was Phil actually who said Phil Saban who said to me uh why don't we do an undergraduate degree which had been out of the question up to that point uh because we you know we have this idea that you only do war studies when you when you already had a discipline um um and the reason we thought that was quite urgent was because of the end of the Cold War because people kept on coming to me and saying haha you're gonna have to call yourself peace studies now uh nobody's gonna need you um and um so we were worried that the MA would be in danger and the MA had not gone that much above the 2030 or so students that we then had so the undergraduate option seemed to be again a matter of survival um now what of course happened is um the Gulf War um uh the Balkans um so you know it was a busy time um but when we brought in the staff to do the undergraduate degree they put on MA options uh so instead of uh it sort of so all of a sudden we had a much more exciting and thriving MA program so that was um one thing that made um but that was why we grew now the the visionary bits the extent that it existed was um in two areas one I I thought we could do more policy related stuff we should we should do more outreach and we tried we did quite a lot of that during the 80s um uh but it was quite hard work but we but we were doing it so that was always there and then um the Ministry of Defense it was really Michael Quinlan as some of you will remember um had um decided that they'd had the um defense lectureships Barry was I think was a beneficiary of one of those um uh that would be that Michael Howard had persuaded Dennis Healy to establish in the late 60s and um uh they wanted to bring these to an end so they they put a pot of money together for Center for Defense Studies so which which we the competition which we won notionally with LSE um although they didn't get a lot out of it and um so that so the policy side came along and then there was the question of military education now Brian had got involved in that when did you go to Cambly in 87 so Brian had been sort of our emissary uh to Cambly and then Jeff Till who's here as well um who's at Greenwich we talked quite a lot about the possibilities um of uh of making a much bigger pitch for military education um and I think if I mean I I still have a recollection of walking around Cumberland Lodge with Jeff sort of plotting uh on all of this um so that I think a man all it all started to come together about period but you know it's nice to think that I had a master plan but I really didn't it it was a lot of what we did until the early 90s was pretty defensive I would say just but you had to keep moving in order to stay in business absolutely but from where we sat many of us were beneficiaries of this policy world contact the Center for Defense Studies where I first had my own research opportunity now realizing this is how it came about but didn't realize it at the time and at the point in time this whole business of not wanting to come something was studies and I think Christopher Dandeka had to take care of that in a sense you established the International Police Institute at the time after the Center for Defense Studies and Kings was saying close down many of those units because they were not functioning well they were not making money but they were functioning well and then this remains an issue in several ways today because as a student and as a PhD student you're sitting in a policy unit you're seeing your professors who are in effect dealing directly intervening in issues of the day and that's why students want to see I want to be in your classroom I mean I think the what I think we've got now which we didn't have there because it's all quite small I mean which is what made it difficult and created issues of viability what we have now is big units on the policy stuff so you know one can think back to the origins I mean the terrorism group International Center for Security ICSR the Science and Security Group which Wynn was very involved in these were particular initiatives and we managed one way or the other to get enough resource in them from outside to give them momentum and I always felt and there's a strong view that universities are in some ways better than think tanks to do this research largely because of the students what you have is a throughput of PhDs sometimes MA and even undergraduates who want to get involved and engaged and keep the things lively and fresh whereas the difficulty with a think tank is that you're you're a bit stuck with with with your staff and it's a risk sometimes people to go to a think tank whereas you've got more continuity you can do teaching you can do other things or you can spend more time on policy work I think there's a model that works now it took a long time I think and it wasn't particularly me who got about going before the model that normally a combination of policy and MA program and some external funding produces some pretty lively lively groups and that's the basis of a lot of the current strength yeah would you say that worst studies has been done model and worst studies has been more successful than double I double S it's different I mean double I double S is a is a different sort of organization when I start I mean I was I spent a year at double I double S after Oxford and then it was the place that and you know that it was the place to do things or it had a larger staff than kings did and it was an international grouping its annual conference was the place to be where you would meet all the great and the good and leading policymakers would attend and so so it was sort of a an international community but it had a research run for which I think it's revived a bit now but went down for a while but once the and you know there weren't many places that did this I mean like mentioned Bradford peace studies with a lot of similar sorts of things but with a much more political agenda about which they argued about all the time and ever to be and Oxford had a bit LSE had Philip Windsor and a few people there really wasn't a lot I think people forget just how how sparse a field that this used to be so I mean one of the things good things now is that is that we're not the only department of horse stands which I consider to be an enormous vindication other people it's the best sort of flattery just a time I'm rambling a bit let me just when I again when I arrived Donald Cameron what the number of you will remember who was a totally eccentric professor of international history at the LSE but a good friend of the department was on the other thing called a board of war students because it was a University of London degree much to King's degree and Donald was on our board he said to me one of the first meetings you've really got to play this war studies thing down you know because you're going to have students coming and and protesting about your very existence and I said well why you know correctly what we do and and he wasn't far wrong and that year there was a move in another thing that doesn't exist anymore university congregation of the University of London which is sort of like the Oxford and Cambridge congregations which the legitimacy of these the people there were never quite understood but there was a move there to create a department of peace studies in the University and I rang up the guy and said to him why are you doing this we teach a lot of this stuff here but your your war studies yes I know but you know we're not trying to promote it we're we're trying to study it no no no you can't have war students it's too macho and I said you haven't met me have you but that was you know that was a sort of it's completely transformed now I mean it's much healthier throughout the country absolutely I have to say this was a this post a real threat to us at some point the conflict security and development group which you encouraged its funding DFID said to us we will not give money to the unit that's sitting in the department so we had to move out of course yeah I remember yeah I remember Mervyn had to handle some of this but when Christopher Dandeka was meant to be closing down some of those units he preserved CSTG because clearly we're doing a good job as well all right but the thing is even within even within Keynes there were always issues about war studies and this is where my next question comes from at some point war studies seemed like the jewel in the crown of Keynes she just was saying in new war studies I'm like yet all right all the way from Canada how did the coming out you know the emerging of the hospitals and the health aspect influenced this do you see uh and arts and sciences that had war studies at the heart of it in terms of repetition and the health on the other side um not quite I mean I think we were in a oddity I mean it was odd having war studies it always seemed to me that it was important to be part of a strong institution I mean just to give you an example Aberystwyth the first grade department of international relations has had excellent people there but it's part of reasons not wholly its fault a weak institution um and so it always struck me it was important to be part of a stronger institution and um as you know I mean a lot of my career at Keynes uh was not just war studies I was headed I said at the school of social sciences and then was vice principal for 10 years during which time I spent a lot of time on the consequences of the merger with the departments I even appointed a professor of psychiatry at one point um and um uh I found that was really helpful not least in terms of um of seeing that there were opportunities for connections and let me just mention one because I think it's been really important and very valuable which she did you will know about and Chris knows up very well about which which was Simon Wesley and the Institute of Psychiatry was the Ben Institute of Psychiatry so this was almost by chance conversations um so here was a guy looking at Gulf War Syndrome um and the after effects of the 1991 war and just sort of a polymathic type anyway and just generally interested um and we set up this amazing collaboration which Chris led from from the war studies side um that produced amazing work there's a policy relevance of helping with interventions with people with mental illness alcoholism and so on um I mean real really important piece of work well you couldn't do that unless you've got a strong institution with exciting things going on elsewhere so I was thinking it's although a lot of stuff is coming house into war studies and lawyers and so on um I still think it it you get the most out of an institution through the collaborations and the connections within it no absolutely maybe Mike one more thing before um with Roy Topun now your students many of us learned at your feet all right um and the role model question I know you can't answer this in any what you call it but you'll be good to know uh which students do you think did that you know took from you the way you took from Michael and of course I did different things but but maybe when Boeing could have been the do you see that where's Wayne actually all right he's in this room say yeah because somehow the expansion of war studies I keep calling it expansion the reproduction of war studies is about the reproduction of the ideas ideals relationships that you that's of course built but without those of us who found different ways of replicating that we won't have the 1600 students by the way many more women than we have ever had which is something really to say of course there were very many women when they started um it was uh in fact none apart from the departmental secretary which told you how things worked in those days um and uh uh but we had Sarky who uh who was there as a as a research student and then um married uh Mike Dockrell both both the I mean the departmental was an awful lot to both of those and both sort of still sadly missed um so I mean I think you know I mean she should have said as Mike said the ethos which certainly comes from Michael Howard in the first place is interdisciplinary holistic approach engage be part of the world um I think those things are part of the the cliche the DNA of the department now and so people know what they come here that that's what they get um I mean in terms of my own students um and I've now reached the point where some of my own students not only have become professors but they're now emeritus so I feel really old um I think you know the nicest thing is to see how how many of them including you have done so well and it doesn't matter you know whether they're they're doing the same sort of things that I did I mean I did my thing um but they're doing their things and you know the nicest thing when it was possible to travel um to most places I would go there'd be a former student around often doing great things um you know it remains remarkable I think when you go to what I'll get to Washington again next year um that um um war studies is probably a major contributor to the Washington policy community there's any other university um and you know they come popping out here from all directions it uh and all speaking very warmly of their time here and so on and I think that's great I mean I just think it's it's amazing um the reach of the department and I think again nothing to do with me because this has all happened uh after I was doing other things a lot but but it but it's a remarkable feature now and so it is a reproduction process sort of a mebe like sort of um um keep on spitting and growing uh but it's it's it's it's but I mean I get you know and I think this is what you can get through being part of the same institution in the same department for such a long period of time is it's you know there are benefits in flitting around from place to place I certainly wouldn't uh decry that but that you can see people's development and growth and what they've become and uh and uh you know I take enormous pride in it uh I don't think anything gives me more pleasure really than the success of uh of my students and our students general you know Mike one or two anecdotes when we first came uh I hope Noriko is online Noriko Oish from Japan that was the only other woman in my class even though we had a few a couple of Nigerian generals but people international students came actually that was always an international department but people came to your class and thought you looked like Helting John so so they came for the Robster now I get told I look like the Keter Khrushchev so I guess it's but now in later years um Laurie was in Nairobi I think that was a few years back about five years ago one of our students went to Laurie was so respectful by way says I've never met a sir in my life imagine so so so from Helting John in the 80s but that was one of the most I remember you were I took it it's a what did you say there's a tribute to to fund me that the whole African leadership thing that we had in going in Nairobi uh but introduced as commander of the British Empire I've never felt more foolish in my life but many people were in that room by the way because they wanted to meet someone with all those titles all right but but I think it's time to throw it open thank you uh please join me in thanking for me and Laurie we have about 10 minutes for questions if anyone would like to ask a question please raise your hand we have lots of other people in the department in the room who've been in the department as well so don't be shy well this is an awkward silence isn't it ah there we go you mentioned Laurie the undergraduate degree I think it'd be very interesting for people in the audience to understand how our thinking about the undergraduate degree evolved over time because as you rightly say at the very beginning and one or two of the staff I must including myself I'm happy to admit was slightly skeptical about an undergraduate degree because Michael Howard had always been insistent that you had you'd started it as a postgraduate degree after you'd read history or geography or in some cases physics and then you came to all studies I think if you'd address that I'd be very very grateful thank you yeah I mean that was not to be honest to be in my view um so it's partly a question of mead's must um but um I think once we started to think about it it got quite exciting because people have been writing saying can we do undergraduate degrees and I think we weren't sure what students sort of students we get mirror you remember we very well remember we interviewed pretty carefully because we've got some some you know let's not put too final point on it militarist nutcases um pretty anxious to do the degree um you know who you suspect would be quite interested in bomb kits uh so uh we're quite careful now actually when you look back that first cohort of 20 students was a remarkable group um including my first ever major general I think is uh major general Zach Stenning um uh who's destined for who's going to be commandant at Samtas um was in that group and destitute is now um professor in Australia but part of the department for a long time um uh Chris Baxter who who was my came to be my research assistant on the Falklands so we had an incredibly good group which showed which showed that the demand was there and that we could attract good students um and I think that that was um uh encouraging to say the least a revelation the other thing that that happened a bit later on was um uh a strange LSE who missed a trick uh passed on to me a request by two people from Kent who weren't very happy at Kent to join um to see if they could they could find a home at King's Mervyn Frost and William Jabri and um I still think I hope the LSE kicks themselves because this was not only didn't mean we had a war studies in a rather traditional sense undergraduate degree but we soon had an international relations degree so in terms of the expansion that that was pretty important and of course Mervyn has made an enormous contribution to the leadership of the of the department so again that come back the opportunistic side of all of this is is really important you you you've got to seize the moment when you when it comes and take your chances I never thought these were big risks uh to be honest uh because I thought they would come out all right the only thing I said just the the the in retrospect was a ridiculous risk to take um was the e-learning degree more in the modern world um which is just there was money around because everybody thought e-learning was the future and so we put in a bid and we were the only I think more or less respectable uh degree that that uh that that tried to get funds from this because most of them are sort of accountancy 101 or law 101 sort of things um and um so they gave us money um which the more we an Analuci Norton it was tremendous chop on all of this but we realized what a task we'd taken on to set up a property learning degree and it was eating up money um and you know part of the deal somehow we're going to have to pay back the the loan they gave us and then the thing went bust um and we never asked to pay it back uh so all of a sudden something that was slightly bothering me became viable uh and um and it became a great success so that we were sort of in on the start of that so that was that was sort of um ambition that that uh actually was probably uh if I thought about it more carefully was too risky uh but it turned out so all for the good in the end but in general I didn't I mean I think you just have you know the opportunities there and we had a good group of people I mean I think you know one of the things it's worth just saying because I see it in other departments when you talk from so on good citizenship is really important people have got to put in time for the for the good of the department and not just their own careers um their own careers would benefit from if the department was strengthened and there was always um you know around every headed department a group of people um who were prepared to put put the hard yards in uh and make things happen uh a map made an enormous difference thanks hi good evening uh thank you so much for this talk it's been really fun to learn about the history of the department I'm an MA student who just started 32 weeks ago and I'm really excited now having heard of it about the history and I was wondering if I could hear from you if you have a piece of advice for a student who's just starting in the department who doesn't really know where to go how to find her feet any advice that you would give for the year ahead thank you that would be presumptuous in the extremes um um it's a look it's a great institution and there's a lot of opportunities I think you know the the message is anything is you don't get opportunities come along and if you don't take them you'll regret it afterwards and that's all I would say is make the most of it um while you're here um you know I think you know the part of uh the ethos of the department is hard work again it often used to strike me when I would go to other departments that our people really worked hard um that uh they um you know that they were expected to publish they were expected to teach um I mean they did so and that I think went for the students as well um I uh I'm actually quite a strong believer in hard work I think it can it can do quite a lot for you uh there often aren't easy ways around some of some of the challenge issue faces a student um so in addition to all the obvious things like enjoy yourself and make the most of London uh be prepared to work hard is uh it's a bit of advice worth hearing from behind a column thanks very um both of you I think that leads nicely into our final speaker um Cat Bell who is chair of the new KCL alumni branch for war studies and an MA graduate so I don't know if you have wise words for our new MA student or if not I think so thank you Michael um I'll be happy to talk to you after this if you want to pull my ear on any advice um but what I would like to say to the group and for everyone watching in TV land for all of the UK based and global war studies alumni we're going to make connections a bit easier now um in collaboration with the war studies department and with the alumni office at KCL we are launching a branch within the KCL alumni association KCL and it's serendipitous that we are doing this in conjunction with the 60th anniversary of the department so for those of you who are interested in being involved or learning more you can find us on social media at KCL online and we also have a website and development so please reach out there are a couple of dates that you might want to jot down in your diary if you are interested in participating January 19th and March 9th we have a couple of 60th anniversary seminars planned and we are working with the faculty to include some alumni events to follow each of those seminars so stay tuned and please reach out if you'd like to learn more thank you well it just leaves me to draw this part of the evening to a close and I would thank everyone again for coming thank you to our speakers thank you to Shittage and thank you to Lizzie and the team who got this together if you've not seen it yet do have a look at the booklet it's online as well I'm not quite sure where but Lizzie will tell us if you go to the online one it has a fantastic page turning sound as well but anyway thank you very much for coming please move across to the other side now where there's refreshments and portraits of uh Mervin and also Sarky so thank you very much everyone