Carnegie specified Education and Peace as the two pillars the number accepted has remained stable at around of his philanthropic foundation; about twenty-five years 3,300 a year which means, given the increased intake ago Democracy was added as the third pillar. ‘We are of state-school students, less places for students from funding academics to conduct research into political private schools. Says Richardson wryly: ‘When I arrived polarisation in the US in the first place, and subsequently I was criticised for discriminating against poor kids, and in other places in the world. The hope is that the ideas that when I left I was told I was discriminating against privately- they are exploring will influence policy educated kids.’ in the future.’ Improving access to education and She sees philanthropy as an essential knowledge was also fundamental to funding tool for research: ‘In a time of constrained public spending, philanthropy provides a margin of We are educating students to go into the Andrew Carnegie; hence the Carnegie Foundation’s recent donation of €1 million to the Manuscripts for excellence, and has a critical role to play in gaining resources for the things academics want to do to help society.’ real world where you are not protected from Medieval Studies Project to conserve and digitise the Library’s unique medieval manuscripts and make them She counts success with philanthropic views you don’t like freely and publicly accessible. campaigns in both St Andrews and Oxford as key achievements she is proud of during her tenures. At an event to launch the Manuscripts for Medieval Studies Project in November 2023, Richardson recalled that, as a Trinity undergraduate in the late 1970s, The development of the AstraZeneca vaccine, for which ‘I lived in Front Square, in rooms 2.3.3 and 8.2.1, and every she received the DBE, is the stand-out achievement of her morning from 8am-10am I would earn money by shelving time in Oxford. She describes her role ‘as trying to protect books in the library before it opened.’ And after noting the academics so they could do their work and get the that Andrew Carnegie ‘built over 2,600 libraries around resources they need’. She is also proud of improving access the world, including 66 in Ireland’, she said that ‘hanging and diversity: ‘I wanted Oxford to be known for educating in my office in New York I have a photograph taken in 1903 smart kids, not posh kids. There is still a way to go but of Andrew Carnegie laying the foundation stone for the I’m proud of what we achieved: when I left in 2022, state- free library in Waterford.’ school pupils made up 68% of Oxford’s undergraduate admissions, as against 56% in 2015, with students from deprived backgrounds making up a quarter of entrants.’ It is a striking juxtaposition of images: the undergraduate from Tramore, whose mother was ‘a great reader’, shelving books in the early morning quiet of the Long Room, now This was achieved through a variety of methods. She pays returned ‘back home’ as she puts it, four decades later tribute to the Trinity Access Programme which piloted to celebrate Trinity and Carnegie’s ‘passionate belief in its foundation year in one of the Oxford colleges, Lady libraries as a means of making information and education Margaret Hall – the pilot was a success and the foundation freely available and accessible to all’. year was subsequently rolled-out university-wide. Another initiative was Opportunity Oxford, which provides support to students who meet the criteria for admission (which Foundation students don’t). Richardson is not, she says, ‘a Pollyanna’: ‘I am deeply worried about the current polarisation of opinions and other threats to democracy. But I encounter extraordinary people and initiatives through my work, all the time, and Thanks to these initiatives and the messaging that Oxford I take hope in that. Universities are the last bastions of is for everyone with aptitude, undergraduate applications optimists because that’s where you meet amazing people to Oxford have increased by a quarter since 2016. However, who are making a genuine difference.’
Download PDF file