Rhodes Scholarship
The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford in Oxford, United Kingdom.
"Rhodes Scholar" redirects here. Not to be confused with Road Scholar.Rhodes Scholarship
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Established in 1902, it is the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. It is considered among the world's most prestigious international scholarship programs.[1][2][3][4] Its founder, Cecil John Rhodes, wanted to promote unity among English-speaking nations and instill a sense of civic-minded leadership and moral fortitude in future leaders, irrespective of their chosen career paths.[5] Initially restricted to male applicants from countries that are today within the Commonwealth, Germany and the United States, the scholarship is now open to men and women from all backgrounds around the world.[6]
Rhodes Scholars have achieved distinction as politicians, academics, scientists and doctors, authors, entrepreneurs, and Nobel Prize winners. Many scholars have become heads of state or heads of government, including President of the United States Bill Clinton, President of Pakistan Wasim Sajjad, Prime Minister of Jamaica Norman Manley, Prime Minister of Malta Dom Mintoff, Prime Minister Of Canada John Turner, and Prime Ministers of Australia Tony Abbott, Bob Hawke, and Malcolm Turnbull.[7] Other notable Rhodes Scholars include Nobel Prize-winning scientist Howard Florey, Nobel Prize-winning economist Michael Spence, Australian High Court Justice James Edelman, journalist and American television host George Stephanopolous, astronomer Edwin Hubble, author Naomi Wolf, musician Kris Kristofferson, Jamaican Minister of Finance Nigel Clarke, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, film maker Terrence Malick, and director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Jen Easterly, President and CEO of Navigation Capital Partners David K Panton.
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History[edit]
Founding and motivation[edit]
Numerous international scholarship programs were very much underway by 1900. Since the 1880s, governments, universities, and individuals in the settler colonies had been establishing travelling scholarships to home universities. By 1900, the travelling scholarship had become an important part of settler universities' educational visions. It served as a crucial mechanism by which they sought to claim their citizenship of what they saw as the expansive British academic world. The Rhodes program was a copy that soon became the best-known version.[8] The Rhodes Trust established the scholarships in 1902 under the terms laid out in the eighth and final will of Cecil John Rhodes, dated 1 July 1899 and appended by several codicils through March 1902.
The scholarships were founded for two reasons: to promote unity within the British empire, and to strengthen diplomatic ties between Britain and the United States of America. In Rhodes's own words, "I…desire to encourage and foster an appreciation of the advantages which I implicitly believe will result from the union of the English-speaking peoples throughout the world and to encourage in the students from North America who would benefit from the American Scholarships."[5] Rhodes also bequeathed scholarships to German students in the hope that, "a good understanding between England, Germany and the United States of America will secure the peace of the world."
Rhodes, who attended Oriel College, Oxford, believed the university's residential colleges would be the best venue to nurture diplomatic ties between future world leaders.
To this day, controversies persist over Rhodes's Anglo-supremacist beliefs, most of which date back to his 1877 confession of faith.[9] However, such convictions did not play a part in the final vision for the scholarship. The scholarships are based on Rhodes's final will and testament, which states that "no student shall be qualified or disqualified for election…on account of his race or religious opinions".[5]
The Rhodes Scholarships are administered and awarded by the Rhodes Trust, which is located at Rhodes House in Oxford. The trust has been modified by four acts of Parliament: the Rhodes Estate Act 1916, the Rhodes Trust Act 1929, the Rhodes Trust Act 1946; and most recently by the Rhodes Trust (Modification) Order 1976, a statutory instrument in accordance with Section 78 (4) of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975.[10]
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Controversies[edit]
Exclusion of women[edit]
The Rhodes Scholarship was originally, as per the language used in Rhodes's will, open only to "male students." That stipulation did not change until 1977. Rhodes developed his scholarships partly through conversation with William Thomas Stead, editor of The Pall Mall Gazette and confidant of Rhodes, and at one time an executor of the Will who was stricken from the role when he objected to Rhodes's ill-fated effort to seize the Transvaal. Shortly after Rhodes's death, Stead implied in a published article about the Will that he suggested that Rhodes open the scholarships to women, but Rhodes refused. Nothing more is said on the matter.[44]
After his death, the will was under the control of the Board of Trustees of the Rhodes Trust. In 1916, however, the trustees introduced a bill into the House of Commons that, catering to popular British sentiment during the War, "revoked and annulled" the scholarships for Germans.[45] Since then, legal control over the will has resided with Parliament.
In 1970, the trustees established the Rhodes Visiting Fellowships. Unlike the regular scholarship, a Visiting Fellow was expected to have a doctorate or comparable degree, and to use the two-year funded study to engage in independent research. Only 33 Visiting Fellowships were awarded.[46]
In 1975, Parliament passed the Sex Discrimination Act of 1975 that banned discrimination based on sex, including in education. The trustees then applied to the Secretary of State for Education to admit women into the scholarship, and in 1976 the request was granted.[47] In 1977, women were finally admitted to the full scholarship.
Before Parliament passed the 1975 Act, some universities protested against the exclusion of women by nominating female candidates, who were later disqualified at the state level of the American competition.[48] In 1977, the first year women were eligible, 24 women (out of 72 total scholars) were selected worldwide, with 13 women and 19 men selected from the United States.[49] Since then, the average female share of the scholarship in the United States has been around 35 percent.[49]
In 2007, the Association of American Rhodes Scholars published a retrospective on the first 30 years of female recipients, many of whom individually recounted personal experiences as well as professional accomplishments.[50]
In his 2008 book Legacy: Cecil Rhodes, the Rhodes Trust and Rhodes Scholarship (Yale University Press), biographer and historian Philip Ziegler writes that "The advent of women does not seem notably to have affected the balance of Scholars among the various professions, though it has reduced the incidence of worldly success." Although it is true that female recipients have not become heads of state yet, they have succeeded in many other ways as described in the Rhodes Project.[51]
In South Africa, the will of Cecil Rhodes expressly allocated scholarships to four all-male private schools. In 1992, one of the four schools partnered with an all-girls school in order to allow female applicants. In 2012, the three remaining schools followed suit to allow women to apply.[52] Today, four of the nine scholarships allocated to South Africa are open only to students and alumni of these schools and partner schools.[52]
Exclusion of black Africans[edit]
Beginning in 1970, scholars began protesting against the fact that all Rhodes Scholars from southern Africa were white, with 120 Oxford dons and 80 of the 145 Rhodes Scholars in residence at the time signing a petition calling for non-white scholars to be elected in 1971.[53]: 238 The case of South Africa was especially difficult to resolve, because in his will establishing the scholarships, unlike for other constituencies, Rhodes specifically allocated four scholarships to alumni of four white-only private secondary schools. According to Schaeper and Schaeper,[53]: 236–237 the issue became "explosive" in the 1970s and 1980s as scholars argued that the scholarship be changed while the trustees argued they were powerless to change the will. Despite such protests, only in 1991 with the rise of the African National Congress did black South Africans begin to win the scholarships.[53]: 240
Out of five thousand Rhodes Scholarships awarded between 1903 and 1990, about nine hundred went to students from Africa.[54]
The Rhodes Scholarship model has inspired successor scholarships in many countries. These include:
In structure and selection criteria, the scholarship is similar to the John Monash Scholarship, Schwarzman Scholarship, Knight-Hennessy Scholarship, Weidenfeld-Hoffmann Scholarship and Leadership Program, Gates Cambridge Scholarship, Marshall Scholarship, Yenching Scholarship, Fulbright Program, Erasmus Mundus scholarship, and Chevening Scholarship. As with the Rhodes, the Gates Cambridge, Yenching, Knight-Hennessy, and Schwarzman scholarships are tenable at only one university. The Knight-Hennessy and Schwarzman Scholarships similarly award scholarships to students from all nations, with a focus on public service and leadership.[115][116]
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Books by former Wardens of Rhodes House, Oxford:
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