This morning Emmanuel College announced the election of its first ever female Master, Dame Fiona Reynolds. Reynolds will be replacing the current Master, Lord Wilson of Dinton, at the beginning of the next academic year, 1stOctober 2012.

Dame Fiona is leaving her position as Director General of the National Trust, which she has held since 2001, to take up the role, and she has publicly stated that she has “loved every minute” of her time at the National Trust, tweeting today that although leaving the Trust is “a huge wrench”, she feels “the Trust is in great shape and has great future”.

Between 1976 and 1979 she studied Geography and Land Economy at Newnham College, staying on at Cambridge until 1981 to gain an MPhil in Land Economy, and she has said of returning to the city where she spent her student days that “as a graduate of Cambridge I am thrilled to be going back to head one of its finest colleges”.

Before becoming Director General of the National Trust, Dame Fiona has occupied many impressive positions, including being, from 1992 to 1998 the Director of the Campaign to Protect Rural England, and from 1998 to 2000 Director of the Women’s Unit in the Cabinet Office.

The current Master of Emmanuel, Lord Wilson, fully supports the appointment of his successor, stating that “she has an outstanding record and will, I know, be a very good colleague and friend to everyone involved in the College.”

Emmanuel only began taking female students in 1979, so the election of a female Master is an important milestone for the college, which now has an even split between male and female undergraduates.

Out of the 31 colleges that make up the university, only 7 have women as the college heads, echoing, perhaps, the gender discrepancy present in Cambridge as a whole: despite the existence of all-female colleges the university still admits more male than female students.

Ella Raff, a first year undergraduate at Emmanuel, told Varsity that although the popular Lord Wilson will be sorely missed, the election of a female Master “is a really brilliant step forward for the college. Emma is one of the friendliest and most accepting colleges in Cambridge, so I’m sure we will welcome her with open arms”.