FACULTY FOCUS
campusreview.com.au
How
Rhodes
Scholars
are made
statue of Rhodes at Oxford’s Oriel College
to be removed. Oxford has since decided to
keep the statue.
Since Williamson completed his
undergraduate studies in 2013, he has
worked as a business consultant for coffee
farmers in Ethiopia, Rwanda, Kenya and
Tanzania. At Oxford, he hopes to study
how developing nations across Africa and
other continents can develop burgeoning
private sectors.
Here, he sits down with Campus Review
to discuss his scholarship and how he
hopes it can help him collaborate with
communities – like those he has worked
with in Africa – to achieve economic and
social benefits.
CR: What’s it like to win a Rhodes Scholarship?
TW: First of all, it’s a tremendous honour
University of Oxford
Strong motivation, a clear sense of what you
want, and sincere introspection are all keys to
earning the honour, one winner explains.
Thomas Williamson interviewed by James Wells
A
passion for fostering small
businesses in developing countries,
and a curiosity for exploring how
technology and education interact have
led to two Australians being announced as
2017 Rhodes Scholars.
Thomas Williamson, a University of
Sydney bachelor of economics graduate,
was awarded the Scholarship for New
South Wales, and hopes to complete
a master of science in economics for
development and a master of public policy
at the UK’s University of Oxford.
Each year, nine Rhodes Scholarships are
available for Australians to study at Oxford.
At least one of these is offered in each of the
states and three are for Australia at large.
The current Australian prime minister, and
multiple former PMs, are Rhodes Scholars,
as are medical pioneer Anna Donald,
22
Victoria Supreme Court Justice Elizabeth
Hollingworth, former High Court justices
Dyson Heydon and Kenneth Hayne, and
former federal opposition leader Kim Beazley.
The Rhodes Scholarship was established
in 1902. It is an international postgraduate
award for overseas students to study at
the University of Oxford. The scholarships’
namesake, Cecil Rhodes, was a
controversial British businessman, mining
magnate and politician. The scholarships
have a contentious past, as they’re linked to
Rhodes’ pro-colonialism views.
In recent years, this legacy has come under
fire in the form of protest movements against
alleged institutional racism within South
African universities, including a call to remove
of a statue of Rhodes from the University of
Cape Town campus. This movement has also
led to a call by some Oxford students for a
and a privilege, particularly when you look
back at some of the people who have won
before. Obviously, there are a number of
quite famous alumni, people like president
Bill Clinton in the US, and PMs Tony Abbott,
Malcolm Turnbull and Bob Hawke here
in Australia. Also there are many other
Rhodes Scholars who are esteemed
members of their own professions and
areas of expertise. To join those ranks is a
real honour. It’s also tremendously exciting.
There are many opportunities that come
with the Rhodes: opportunity to study
at Oxford and to meet many interesting,
passionate people from around the world in
their own area of study and expertise. That’s
exciting, to think about what’s coming up.
What do you hope to achieve with the
Rhodes Scholarship? What opportunities do
you hope to capitalise on?
My passion has be en in development
economics, and in particular in developing
the private sector in emerging economies.
My big hope is to be able to continue that
research at Oxford. The university’s got a
strong development economics program.
It’s also got many research institutes,
like the Centre for the Study of African
Economies, that are based in Oxford but
looking at how we can help Sub-Saharan
African economies develop, what things are
holding back firms in Sub-Saharan Africa
and what we can do to fix those things,
or at least to make them a little bit better,
and learn from leading experts that are
based at Oxford, in that area. Then also, just
generally, I want to soak up Oxford history,
the culture, the vibe of the university.