Durham University there is no formal teaching at Durham colleges (with the exception of Cranmer Hall theological college within St John's), although colleges are active in research. The colleges dominate the residential, social, sporting, and pastoral functions within the university, and there is heavy student involvement in their operation. Formal dinners (known as "formals") are held at every college; gowns are worn to these events at just over half of the colleges. Gowns are not worn for formals at Collingwood, St Aidan's, St Cuthbert's, Hild Bede, Van Mildert, Stephenson or Ustinov. There is a great deal of intercollegiate rivalry, particularly in rowing
Plato von Ustinov from Cracow and cannon-caster of Negus Tewodros II of Ethiopia, who was converted to Protestantism by missionaries of the St. Chrischona Pilgrim Mission. Her mother was the Ethiopian court-lady Katharina Hall (1850–1932), also known as Welette-Iyesus, who was of mixed Ethiopian-German origin, the daughter of the German painter (1813–1868) and court-lady Isette-Werq in Gondar, daughter of an Ethiopian general named Meqado (active before the mid-19th century). Ustinov and Magdalena Hall had five children. Among them were their eldest son Jona von Ustinov (father of British-Russian actor Peter Ustinov), Tabitha von Ustinow, Peter (Petja) von Ustinow (1895–1917, killed in action in