Beyond his roles in education and research, Nick
has been central to Oxford’s philanthropic campaign
– Oxford Thinking. His philanthropic work at
Oxford was sparked soon after his honeymoon by
a conversation at a party in the United States, as
the result of which a young consultant at McKinsey
later contributed $2m worth of pro-bono advice
to Oxford. Not everyone appreciated the gesture.
Some Oxford academics thought that the move was
disgraceful and disadvantaged other British universities.
But Nick maintained that academics and educators
elsewhere recognised the need for a change in public
attitude on fundraising – and they wanted Oxford
to lead the way.
In 2002, Nick became the Development Fellow at
University College. Having raised £13 million at the
College’s 750th anniversary celebrations, he continued
his work by inviting 23 of the college’s most generous
alumni and their spouses to a conference. Why their
spouses? Because it’s their money, too – how could
anyone give away millions of pounds to the College
if their spouse didn’t feel the same way?
After this and a professorial fellowship at Wolfson
College, Nick took up his Pro-Vice-Chancellor
position in 2010. In this role he has raised billions
of pounds for Oxford University. His proudest
achievement in this work has been the tremendous
rise in endowed student support – some £0.5bn
since he started.
Fundraising at Oxford looks beyond its own gilded
arches to international opportunities. Nick has
greatly enjoyed expanding educational opportunities
in Myanmar, in particular at Yangon and Mandalay
Universities, to which Oxford has sent both up-to-
date law volumes and students to teach English.
Myanmar’s socialist government of the 1980s
clamped down on student uprisings, splitting up
university departments and restricting teaching.
Undergraduates were not admitted for a period of
twenty-five years. This broke the inherited tradition
of education, and Nick has found working on its
regeneration a joyful experience.
Philanthropy drives divergent thinking. A graduate
can acknowledge an area of interest that has
developed since graduation, and can seek to improve
its profile at university level through donation. In
an interview with Spear’s Magazine in 2012, Nick
highlighted the ability of universities to deliver
34 The Wykeham Journal 2017
‘really big ideas’ through philanthropy. For example,
a donor concerned about cancer research can sustain
a new chair in that field at his old college.
The main enemies of divergent thinking, Nick tells
me, are systematic and cultural. In his developmental
and outreach role, Nick frequently comes into contact
with foreign academic institutions keen on replicating
Oxford’s ability to deliver an elite education. In
China, which Nick regularly visits, students are given
excellent training and are instilled with an admirable
attitude of grit and graft. However, this Confucian
base layer of knowledge and style of working does
not inspire students to think for themselves. In order
to achieve this, Nick says that they must promote
the values of the Oxford tradition: avoid being too
deferential to teachers, recognise that opinions are
only as good as the arguments that support them,
and, above all, promote academic intermingling
with various disciplines. Nick wants these institutions
to smother the Confucian cake with a generous layer
of Socratic icing.
The other opposition to divergent thinking, Nick
avers, is the tension between rewarding original
insight and the examination system. To support
this claim, Nick refers to his son’s frustration at
answering an A-level biology practice question.
He had a really good grasp of the science but
earned only very low marks. His problem was
that he was answering the question like a first year
undergraduate, not as a sixth-former, so he hadn’t
used the key words the examiner was looking for.
This certainly is an influence against divergent
thinking. An over-strict formulaic method
for examination marking punishes any tendency
for students to ‘follow their noses’ and reduces
them to once-forgotten regurgitation techniques.
My conversation with Nick Rawlins reminded
me that being clever is not enough. You’ve got
to put in the hard work. But, most importantly of
all, you must maintain an open mind – open to new
ideas, to new thinkers, to the possibility of being
wrong. Pride has long been the enemy of divergent
thinking and Wykehamists, often instilled with more
humility than other men who have enjoyed their
level of education, must continue to prevent it from
having the same effect on them.
Radcliffe Quad, University College, Oxford