Essay competition 2024

The two winners and two highly commended entrants to the 2024 George Bridgetower Essay Competition, with the PVC for Education at the prizegiving ceremony

George Bridgetower Essay Competition 2024

The prompt for this year's essay competition was:

How do the current conversations about academic freedom and freedom of speech affect Black students at Cambridge?

The prizegiving ceremony was launched by Sonita Alleyne, Master of Jesus College, who noted that while this is the third year of the essay competition, it is the first year that it has been coordinated by the Black Advisory Hub, which has been established to help build a diverse and inclusive community for all students and staff members at the University of Cambridge, as part of institutional action to improve Black students' outcomes at Cambridge.  Tyra Amofah-Akardom, who is co-chair with Sonita Alleyne of the Black Advisory Hub Steering Group, outlined the decisions made by the judging panel to give the prize to two students. 

Pro-Vice Chancellor for Education, Professor Bhaskar Vira, then announced the outcomes of this year's competition.

The winners

  • Dara Osinowo (Human, Social & Political Sciences undergraduate, Downing College)
  • Apeike Umolu (History MPhil student, Queens' College)

Highly commended

  • Oluwatoni Adewole (Law undergraduate, Homerton College)
  • Chris Lorde (Human, Social & Political Sciences undergraduate, Christ's College)

To read the essays, please go to this page (Raven password protected)