On meeting Reverend Dr. James Gardom at Pembroke College, the first question he asks me is whether I’d seen the chapel before, as he leads me enthusiastically in its direction. Standing in the centre of the impressive 17th century chapel is a slanted timber cross, surrounded by deteriorating life jackets. Gardom, Pembroke's Dean and Chaplain, explains that ‘The Cross of Migrants’ is made from the timbers of a refugee boat. He commissioned the work in 2017 as part of his wider efforts at the college to signal solidarity with those impacted by the refugee and migrant crisis.

At a time when increasing numbers of people are becoming displaced across the globe, the cross serves as a potent reminder of the suffering experienced by forced migrants, who only been made more vulnerable by the rise in anti-immigrant rhetoric and policy. To get a sense of the role Cambridge can play within this hostile context, I sit down with with Gardom, who has been pushing for Cambridge to become a ‘University of Sanctuary.’

The University of Sanctuary process is part of work carried out by City of Sanctuary, a charity which coordinates support for refugees and asylum seekers across the UK. “You can be a library of sanctuary, a swimming pool of sanctuary, a garden of sanctuary,” Gardom explains. But, in each case the process is the same; “you have to sign up to a set of principles […] come up with an indication of what you have been doing that’s relevant to assisting refugees and forced migrants, and a three year plan for how to do it better.”

“We come here to learn our humanity to some extent”

Cambridge University applied for sanctuary status at the beginning of the year and Gardom hopes this will be granted after a site visit scheduled in May. Subsequently, “the University will be held to account by the City of Sanctuary organisation – are we doing what we said we’d do? Are we raising the funds? Are we fulfilling our pledges?” He tells me that he’s also been agitating for “an internal track […] that enables colleges to apply to become colleges of sanctuary,” who each “will have to produce their three year plan, [and] be accountable to a group within the University for their attempts to fulfil that plan.”

Reflecting on whether the University’s efforts to support refugees could be truly impactful, Gardom remains optimistic about Cambridge’s soft power. “I think that our biggest output […] is the students, and that the students learn within the University what it’s reasonable and sensible for human beings to do, that we come here to learn our humanity to some extent.” If students “feel that the university takes this seriously, and can do something about it, when they go out and become bankers, lawyers, civil servants, and so forth, they will go out with an expectation that something can be done,” he continues.

Yet, in the current political climate, he admits that this is “not enough.” “A new front is opening up, and that is the destruction of culture, the destruction of knowledge and the destruction of research.” For example, “in the Ukraine war, key targets of the Russian army have been cultural institutions, museums, libraries, art galleries, universities, schools. The same is true in other major contemporary conflicts.” Gardom stresses that “therefore the University has a very particular responsibility to maintain sources and directions and channels for knowledge.”

“I was very surprised, really, at the range of people who came along”

For Gardom, it was seeing the daily news headlines about people drowning in the Mediterranean in the summer of 2015 that drove him to consider how this was connected to his work at the Church and within the College. When he returned to Pembroke the following October, he “had this strong sense of lots of people who were distressed, who wanted to do something about it, but there was never quite enough of a sense of what we could do or what to do with that distress.” He held open meetings and “was very surprised, really, at the range of people who came along and their desire to do something, anything” to help. In order to remain hopeful about the impact of work done at University-level, Gardom suggests we need to recognise that it’s about “doing what you can, not what you can’t, and rejoicing in what you are able to do rather than grieving what you want to.”

Looking to the future, he hopes that the University of Sanctuary status will create accountability surrounding support for the refugee community at Cambridge. This will involve asking questions about how “we integrate into our community people whose personal stories are so very different from the ones that we have routinely.” “I think within colleges there’s a whole series of things we need to look at,” he reflects. “We need to think even more carefully about how we read the academic backgrounds of people whose educations have been interrupted, the porters need to think about how they tell whether visitors are welcome or frightening,” and “our development offices need to think which stories about refugees they can and can’t tell in ways that are safe for the refugees and their families.”

My conversation with Pembroke’s Dean doesn't ease my pessimism about contemporary global reality, but it does leave me with confidence in Cambridge’s ability to drive meaningful, small-scale change. While this change may not be transformative, the University’s designation as a University of Sanctuary that Gardom is fighting for will be a significant gesture of solidarity with refugees and forced migrants.

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