Catz Alumnus awarded Prestigious Gibbs Prize

St Catherine’s College is delighted to share that Adam Mee (2020, History of Art) has been awarded the prestigious Gibbs Prize for Best Overall Performance in BA History of Art. This honour will be conferred at the annual Encaenia Ceremony, this year at the Sheldonian Theatre on Wednesday, 25th June.

Adam commented: “I am incredibly grateful to receive the Gibbs Prize and to have benefited from the breadth and rigour of the Oxford History of Art course. I am also especially honoured and excited to have been nominated to represent the Humanities schools at Encaenia.

I think it is hard to find a course anywhere in the world as rich and varied as History of Art at Oxford […] Most of all, it has really been a training in how to take on new topics and how to think deeply and creatively about them. I am particularly appreciative of my dissertation supervisor Professor Alistair Wright as well as the fantastic and friendly tutors Dr Constanza Beltrami and Dr Marko Ilić, both here at Catz.”

The annual Encaenia Ceremony is a centuries-old opportunity to award distinguished Oxford University members with their Honorary degrees or academic prizes. Although the Ceremony has lost its traditional festivities of singing, dancing, and composition, it retains many of the original formalities of the Greek ‘festival of renewal’ for which it is named. After Lord Crewe’s Benefaction and Procession, the heads of colleges, university dignitaries, and holders of Oxford doctorate degrees enter the Sheldonian. Those who are to receive honorary degrees sign their names in the Honorary Degrees book, before the Bedels escort this group to the Sheldonian Theatre.

The Master, Jude Kelly CBE, will attend her first Encaenia Ceremony as Head of House. Other Catz members present at the 2025 Ceremony include Hillier Wise (1958, Modern History), who will be engaged as an Usher.