Rhodes Interview Questions

Cecil Rhodes' goals in creating the Rhodes Scholarship

-Promote civic-minded leadership among "young colonists" with "moral force of character and instincts to lead" - for "the furtherance of the British Empire, for the bringing of the whole uncivilised world under British rule - for the recovery of the United States, for the making the Anglo-Saxon race but one Empire". -Making Oxford University the educational centre of the English-speaking race"

Are you the norm in the literary world?

1

How would you approach a challenge or an opportunity?

1

Maori issues:

1

Terrorism / How NZ fares in this regard:

1

Rhodes Controversy (3)

1. Former exclusion of women 2. Anglo-supremacist beliefs 3. Legacy of colonialism.

4 Rhodes Requirements:

1. Literary and scholastic attainments; 2. Energy to use one's talents to the fullest, as exemplified by fondness for and success in sports (today this is expressed as energy used in many ways, not purely through sports); 3. Truth, courage, devotion to duty, sympathy for and protection of the weak, kindliness, unselfishness and fellowship; 4. Moral force of character and instincts to lead, and to take an interest in one's fellow beings.

Why are the Humanities Important?

1. The humanities help us understand others through their languages, histories and cultures. 2. They foster social justice and equality. And they reveal how people have tried to make moral, spiritual and intellectual sense of the world. 3. The humanities teach empathy. 4. They teach us to deal critically and logically with subjective, complex, imperfect information. 5. And they teach us to weigh evidence skeptically and consider more than one side of every question. 6. Humanities students build skills in writing and critical reading. 7. The humanities encourage us to think creatively. 8. They teach us to reason about being human and to ask questions about our world. 9. The humanities develop informed and critical citizens. Without the humanities, democracy could not flourish.

Animal Studies: Lines of Enquiry

1. exploring how notions of animality are fundamental to a range of concepts that play an important ideological and intellectual role in modern Western thought: for example "nature", "culture", "society", "civilisation", "the human", "the native", "the exotic", "the primitive"; 2. examining the place, treatment and actions of animals in science, farming, industry, tourism and other human practices; 3. analysing the representation of animals in literature, film, television, the visual arts, and other cultural forms; 4. researching the history of humans' changing attitudes towards and treatment of animals; developing new paradigms in philosophy, the arts and the sciences for thinking about animals and their relationship to humans.

Willis Airey

1897. English, Latin, History, International Relations, Progressive Book Society, Society for Closer Relations with Russia and chaired the New Zealand Peace Council for many years. Wrote many articles for journals such as Tomorrow, Here & Now, Landfall, Political Science and the New Zealand Monthly Review. In 1950 he bitterly opposed New Zealand's involvement in the Korean War, which he regarded as a civil war, and he opposed joining SEATO in 1954.

Harold Miller

1898. A librarian by profession, Miller retained his interest in historical scholarship, publishing, among other works, a history, New Zealand, in 1950, and Race conflict in New Zealand, 1814-1865 in 1966. He was also much immersed in church affairs throughout his life. Raised as a Methodist, he embraced the Anglican faith while at Oxford. A student of the Oxford Movement, Miller saw himself as a defender of Anglican orthodoxy in his membership of the Wellington diocesan synod and the General Synod, and in his role as a pamphleteer for the Selwyn Society and a columnist for the monthly Anglican newspaper Church and People. Both learned and witty, and taking a delight in controversy, he was the intellectual leader of New Zealand Anglo-Catholics.

When was the Rhodes Scholarship established?

1902. It was the first large-scale programme of international scholarships inspiring the creation of a great many other awards across the globe.

Brexit:

2

Donald Trump:

2

Water rights:

2

Who do you look up to as leader or mentor? In both your personal life, and in general:

2

You are an athlete and athletics is often about successes and defeats. What is your greatest athletic disappointment and how did you turn that into a positive experience?

2

I see you've traveled to Edinburgh/ Europe. How did this visit influence your decision to study English/ Writing/ at Oxford ?

3

What else do you want us to know about you?

3

What is a recent event or example of personal leadership that you have taken part in or accomplished?

3

What makes a leader effective?

4

Why are you passionate about Suicide Prevention?

4

You mention on your CV that you are writing a novel. Could you tell us more about your books?

A History of NZ Science in 25 Objects The Moth Palace

Rhodes Must Fall

A collective movement of students and staff members mobilising for direct action against the reality of institutional racism at the University of Cape Town. The movement was initially about the removal of the statue of Cecil Rhodes, a symbol which the protesters felt was oppressive, and grew to encompass institutional racism, the perceived lack of racial transformation at the university, and access to tertiary education and student accommodation.

Animals in Emergencies: Learning from the Christchurch Earthquakes

After the magnitude 7.1 earthquake that shook Canterbury on 4 September 2010, the news media initially reported, with understandable relief, that no lives had been lost. In fact, this first quake killed at least 3000 chickens, eight cows, one dog, a lemur and 150 aquarium fish, and was only the first in a series of even more catastrophic quakes that were to follow, in which many humans and animals perished. Animals in Emergencies: Learning from the Christchurch Earthquakes reveals what happened to animals during and after these quakes, and asks what we can learn from these events and from our response to them. The accounts of professionals and volunteers involved in the rescue, shelter and advocacy of the city's animals post-quakes are presented in the first part of the book, and are followed by the tales of individual animals; together they provide a compelling historical record of how the earthquakes affected human-animal relationships in both positive and negative ways.

What are the key tenets of Animal Studies?

Animal studies is a recently recognized field in which animals are studied in a variety of cross-disciplinary ways. Scholars who engage in animal studies may be formally trained in a number of diverse fields, including art history, anthropology, biology, film studies, geography, history, psychology, literary studies, museology, philosophy, communication, and sociology. They may engage with questions about literal animals, or about notions of "animality" or "brutality," employing various theoretical perspectives, including feminism, Marxist theory, and queer theory. Using these perspectives, those who engage in animal studies seek to understand both human-animal relations now and in the past, and to understand animals as beings-in-themselves, separate from our knowledge of them. Because the field is still developing, scholars and others have some freedom to define their own criteria about what issues may structure the field.

Philip Robertson

As a teacher he took pains to present clear and accurate, if highly condensed, lectures. With D. H. Burleigh he wrote a textbook, Qualitative analysis in theory and practice, which was in use from 1920 until his retirement. He supervised over 100 theses, mostly for MSc, and was fondly remembered by his many research students. He was tall and thin, immaculate in appearance, with a whimsical sense of humour and a modest and gracious manner. His time in Burma had affected his health so that he felt the need for warmth both in his surroundings and in his clothing, and rarely went out in the evening. Robertson carried out research in analytical chemistry, developing and describing a method for the quantitative determination of various elements in carbon compounds. However, his main contribution to research was undoubtedly in the area now known as physical organic chemistry. In his student days he had shown an interest in the relationships between the molecular structure and chemical properties of a range of compounds. This was developed in his contact with Hantzsch and led to a series of studies on the mechanism of reactions of carbon (organic) compounds. He was unusual among chemistry professors in New Zealand for his deep interest in literature and writing. Robertson believed that science should inform art, and art science: both were aspects of the whole. His first collection of short stories, A soul's progress: mezzotints in prose (1920), represented five periods in the history of the soul of an imaginary young scientist trying to escape a narrow intellectual view of the world; the settings included Renaissance Italy, seventeenth century Danzig, Burma, pre-Christian Egypt and eighth century China. This theme was continued in Life and beauty (1931), a spiritual autobiography which described a deep and sensitive thinker engaged in a quest for beauty. Other short stories included 'Tarawera in eruption' (1944) and 'Odyssey in Wellington Harbour' (1945). Both appeared in New Zealand New Writing and the latter, particularly, received critical acclaim. His interest in the visual arts was expressed in an article in Art in New Zealand in 1931 on Christopher Perkins, illustrated by the latter's portrait of the author.

Aung San Suu Kyi

Aung San Suu Kyi is state counsellor of Myanmar and winner of the 1991 Nobel Prize for Peace. Aung San Suu Kyi was born in Yangon, Myanmar, in 1945. After years of living and studying abroad, she returned home only to find widespread slaughter of protesters rallying against the brutal rule of dictator U Ne Win. She spoke out against him and initiated a nonviolent movement toward achieving democracy and human rights. However, in 1989, the government placed Suu Kyi under house arrest, and she spent 15 of the next 21 years in custody. In 1991, her ongoing efforts won her the Nobel Prize for Peace, and she was finally released from house arrest in November 2010 and subsequently held a seat in parliament for the National League for Democracy party until 2015. That November, the NLD won a landslide victory, giving them a majority control of parliament and allowing them to select the country's next president. It March 2016 Suu Kyi's adviser Htin Kyaw was selected for the post, and the following month Suu Kyi was named the state counsellor, a position above the presidency that allows her to direct the country's affairs.

Rhodes' exclusion of black Africans before 1991.

Beginning in 1970, scholars began protesting against the fact that all Rhodes Scholars from southern Africa were white.

Maya Angelou

Born on April 4, 1928, in St. Louis, Missouri, writer and civil rights activist Maya Angelou is known for her 1969 memoir, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, which made literary history as the first nonfiction best-seller by an African-American woman. In 1971, Angelou published the Pulitzer Prize-nominated poetry collection Just Give Me a Cool Drink of Water 'Fore I Die. She later wrote the poem "On the Pulse of Morning"—one of her most famous works—which she recited at President Bill Clinton's inauguration in 1993. Angelou received several honors throughout her career, including two NAACP Image Awards in the outstanding literary work (nonfiction) category, in 2005 and 2009. She died on May 28, 2014.

Brian Greene

Brian Greene, professor of physics and mathematics, is renowned for his groundbreaking discoveries in superstring theory, including the co-discovery of mirror symmetry and of spatial topology change. He is known to the public through his books, The Elegant Universe, The Fabric of the Cosmos, and The Hidden Reality, which have collectively spent 65 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and sold more than 2 million copies worldwide. The Washington Post called him "the single best explainer of abstruse concepts in the world today." Professor Greene hosted two Peabody and Emmy Award winning NOVA miniseries based on his books and is a frequent television guest, joining Stephen Colbert seven times and playing himself in an episode of The Big Bang Theory. He has also had cameo roles in a number of Hollywood films including Frequency, Maze and The Last Mimzy. With producer Tracy Day, Greene co-founded the World Science Festival and he is the Director of Columbia University's Center for Theoretical Physics.

Which countries did the scholarship initially provide for?

British colonies, the United States and Germany

Holly Walker

Holly is a staunch and outspoken advocate for equality, social justice and transparency in government. Holly was born and raised by a solo mum in Hutt Valley. Holly knows the importance of a decent welfare system, having relied on government supprt in the first few years of her life. She took advantage of a public education that led her all the way to a highly coveted Rhodes scholarship at Oxford University, where she completed a Masters in development studies. When she returned to New Zealand she already knew the Greens were the party most committed to reducing inequality and defending New Zealand's welfare system, having been a force in the party since 2006. She has been a Treaty settlement negotiator and a student magazine editor, and was elected to Parliament in 2011. Everything Holly does reflects her desire to make a positive contribution to public life. She sees housing availability and quality as "a classic green issue" as it connects the economy, the environment, health and well-being. She is campaigning for warrants of fitness for rental houses, promoting the rights of tenants, and government action to provide an affordable pathway to home-ownership for Kiwi families. Holly is a leading voice for open government. Her Lobbying Disclosure Bill highlighted the need for greater transparency. She held the government to account when it refused to implement the Electoral Commission's proposed changes to MMP.

How do you plan to benefit NZ?

I plan on returning to NZ and either working as a university lecturer, or as a writer/journalist/science communicator/public speaker/ politician. I'm really passionate about making a change.

How will you be able to use it in your career?

I want to become more informed and knowledgeable. Writer, Journalist.

What impact do you want to have on the world?

I want to help people and I want to create something beautiful to leave behind.

The Sexual Politics of Meat

In 1990 American scholar Carol J. Adams argued in her landmark book The Sexual Politics of Meat that it was through processes such as intensive farming and hidden slaughter, as well as through our use of terms that function to conceal the true nature of meat (for example, we refer to flesh from pigs as pork or ham (not pig), chicken meat becomes nuggets, and baby calves become veal) that we are afforded easier denial of the once active and feeling creatures whose lives have been terminated for culinary purposes. In other words, the cultural construction of meat and its methods of production enable various kinds of distancing from the actual animal from whom flesh is taken, obscuring the origins of meat and thereby facilitating its everyday use as food.

Animal Studies History

In part, animal studies developed out of the animal liberation movement and was grounded in ethical questions about co-existence with other species: whether it is moral to eat animals, to do scientific research on animals for human benefit, and so on. Animal studies scholars who explore the field from an ethical perspective frequently cite Australian philosopher Peter Singer's 1975 work, Animal Liberation, as a founding document in animal studies. Singer's work followed Jeremy Bentham's by trying to expand utilitarian questions about pleasure and pain beyond humans to other sentient creatures.

James Belich

James Belich made his reputation as a historian with his brilliant interpretation of the New Zealand wars, The New Zealand wars and the Victorian interpretation of racial conflict (1986). This looked at the wars in terms of military strategy and emphasised the creative genius of Māori military leaders. His views were then translated into a television series on the New Zealand wars, where his dynamic presentation coupled with a fine production brought the conflicts to life for many New Zealanders. Here, Belich discusses Māori strategy in the Taranaki wars of the early 1860s. Belich went on to write a two-volume history of New Zealand, which was full of original perspectives and became hugely influential on the work of later historians. Subsequently he moved into a study of the settlement of the new world by the British in his book Replenishing the earth: the settler revolution and the rise of the Anglo-world, 1789-1933.

Jane Goodall

Jane Goodall created one of the most trailblazing studies of primates in modern times when she dwelled with Tanzanian chimps to observe their behavior. "Chimpanzees ... have been living for hundreds of thousands of years in their forest...never overpopulating, never destroying the forest. I would say that they have been in a way more successful than us as far as being in harmony with the environment." —Jane Goodall Born on April 3, 1934, in London, England, Jane Goodall set out to Tanzania to study wild chimpanzees by sitting amongst them, bypassing more rigid procedures and uncovering discoveries about primate behavior that have continued to shape scientific discourse. She is a highly respected member of the world scientific community and is a staunch advocate of ecological preservation.

Margaret Lucas Cavendish

Margaret Lucas Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle-upon-Tyne (1623 - 15 December 1673) was an English aristocrat, philosopher, poet, scientist, fiction-writer, and playwright during the 17th century. Born Margaret Lucas, she was the youngest sister of prominent royalists Sir John Lucas and Sir Charles Lucas, who owned the manor of St. John's Abbey in Colchester.She became an attendant of Queen Henrietta Maria and traveled with her into exile in France, living for a time at the court of the young King Louis XIV. She became the second wife of William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne in 1645, when he was a marquess. Cavendish was a poet, philosopher, writer of prose romances, essayist, and playwright who published under her own name at a time when most women writers published anonymously. Her writing addressed a number of topics, including gender, power, manners, scientific method, and philosophy. Her utopian romance, The Blazing World, is one of the earliest examples of science fiction.She is singular in having published extensively in natural philosophy and early modern science. She published over a dozen original works; inclusion of her revised works brings her total number of publications to twenty-one. Cavendish has been championed and criticized as a unique and groundbreaking woman writer. She rejected the Aristotelianism and mechanical philosophy of the seventeenth century, preferring a vitalist model instead.She was the first woman to attend a meeting at Royal Society of London in 1667 and she criticized and engaged with members and philosophers Thomas Hobbes, René Descartes, and Robert Boyle. She has been claimed as an advocate for animals and as an early opponent of animal testing.

Mendel's Ark

Mendel's Ark considers the ethical, cultural and social implications of using these tools for wildlife conservation. Drawing upon sources ranging from science to science fiction, it focuses on the stories we tell about extinction and the meanings we ascribe to nature and technology.

Dr Merata Wheturangi Kawharu

Merata Kawharu is a graduate of The University of Auckland (BA in Social Anthropology and Māori Studies and Post-Graduate Diploma in Business (Administration)) and of Oxford University (DPhil in Social Anthropology). She is currently working on the project Identifying Frameworks for Effective Iwi and Hapū Development and was previously the Principal Investigator on the NPM project Waka Wairua. As a Rhodes Scholar she undertook research on kaitiakitanga. Since completing her doctorate in 1998, she has undertaken research projects for various Treaty claimant groups and the private sector and has been a consultant to the U.N and to UNESCO. She was a member of the NZ Historic Places Trust Board and Māori Heritage Council; the New Zealand Rhodes Committee; a Treaty claims advisor and member of other local committees. She is Director of Research at the James Henare Māori Research Centre at The University of Auckland, and an Associate Professor of Research at Otago University. She was awarded the Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to Māori education in 2012.

Redress Rhodes group

Mission was to "attain a more critical, honest, and inclusive reflection of the legacy of Cecil John Rhodes" and to "make reparative justice a more central theme for Rhodes Scholars." Their demands include, among other things, shifting the Rhodes Scholarships awarded exclusively to previously all-white South African Schools (rather than the at-large national pool), dedicating a "space at Rhodes House for the critical engagement with Cecil Rhodes' legacy, as well as imperial history", and ending a ceremonial toast Rhodes Scholars make to the founder.

1914 to 1929, nor from 1940 to 1969

No German Scholars admitted due to World Wars.

Which college did Rhodes attend?

Oriel College, Oxford

How and why did you choose your field of study?

Originally started studying Neuroscience and Psychology, because I felt pressured into it. Was deeply unhappy studying this, hated working in a lab. Realised I was more invested in what people thought of me, than of my own happiness. Switched to English. Listening to Prof. McLean recite Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn was probably one of the happiest moments of my life.

Accepting a Rhodes = complicit in racist legacy?

Public criticism has also focused on the alleged hypocrisy of applying for and accepting the Rhodes Scholarship while criticizing it, with University of Cambridge academic Mary Beard, writing in The Times Literary Supplement, arguing that Scholars "[could not] have your cake and eat it here: I mean you can't whitewash Rhodes out of history, but go on using his cash." Reacting to this criticism, Qwabe replied that "all that [Rhodes] looted must absolutely be returned immediately. I'm no beneficiary of Rhodes. I'm a beneficiary of the resources and labour of my people which Rhodes pillaged and slaved." A group of 198 Rhodes Scholars of various years later signed a statement supporting Qwabe and arguing that there was "no hypocrisy in being a recipient of a Rhodes scholarship and being publicly critical of Cecil Rhodes and his legacy - a legacy that continues to alienate, silence, exclude and dehumanise in unacceptable ways. There is no clause that binds us to find 'the good' in Rhodes' character, nor to sanitise the imperialist, colonial agenda he propagated."

Why do you want to study at Oxford?

Ranked sixth in the world Ranked fourth in the world by academics and second by employers Sixth in the world for faculty/student ratio 81st for research impact (citations per faculty member) 68th for percentage of international faculty members, and 50th for international students Ranked among the world's best for 37 subjects; in the top 10 for all but four of these. First in the world for archaeology, English language and literature, and geography.

What do you do for fun?

Read, paint, play the piano, spend time with friends, listen to music, work for Education Perfect.

Humanities: Understanding

Research into the human experience adds to our knowledge about our world. Through the work of humanities scholars, we learn about the values of different cultures, about what goes into making a work of art, about how history is made. Their efforts preserve the great accomplishments of the past, help us understand the world we live in, and give us tools to imagine the future.

Animal studies: Research topics and methodologies

Researchers in animal studies examine the questions and issues that arise when traditional modes of humanistic and scientific inquiry begin to take animals seriously as subjects of thought and activity. Students of animal studies may examine how humanity is defined in relation to animals, or how representations of animals create understandings (and misunderstandings) of other species. In order to do so, animal studies pays close attention to the ways that humans anthropomorphize animals, and asks how humans might avoid bias in observing other creatures. For instance, Donna Haraway's book, Primate Visions, examines how dioramas created for the American Museum of Natural History showed family groupings that conformed to the traditional human nuclear family, which misrepresented the animals' observed behavior in the wild.Critical approaches in animal studies have also considered representations of non-human animals in popular culture, including species diversity in animated films. By highlighting these issues, animal studies strives to re-examine traditional ethical, political, and epistemological categories in the context of a renewed attention to and respect for animal life. The assumption that focusing on animals might clarify human knowledge is neatly expressed in Claude Lévi-Strauss's famous dictum that animals are "good to think."

Rhodes Scholarship Terms

Rhodes Scholars may study any full-time postgraduate course offered by the university, whether a taught master's programme, a research degree, or a second undergraduate degree (senior status). In the first instance, the scholarship is awarded for two years. However, it may also be held for one year or three years. Applications for a third year are considered during the course of the second year.

What was Rhodes' dream?

Rhodes wrote that his dream was "the furtherance of the British Empire, for the bringing of the whole uncivilised world under British rule, for the recovery of the United States, for the making the Anglo-Saxon race but one Empire."

What was the most important action you took to prepare for this interview once you walked through that door?

Shoulders back, head held high - fake it till you make it psychology.

Elon Musk

South African entrepreneur Elon Musk is known for founding Tesla Motors and SpaceX, which launched a landmark commercial spacecraft in 2012. Born in South Africa in 1971, Elon Musk became a multimillionaire in his late 20s when he sold his start-up company, Zip2, to a division of Compaq Computers. He achieved more success by founding X.com in 1999, SpaceX in 2002 and Tesla Motors in 2003. Musk made headlines in May 2012, when SpaceX launched a rocket that would send the first commercial vehicle to the International Space Station. He bolstered his portfolio with the purchase of SolarCity in 2016, and cemented his standing as a leader of industry by taking on an advisory role in the early days of President Donald Trump's administration.

Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on October 27, 1932. Plath met and married British poet Ted Hughes, although the two later split. The depressive Plath committed suicide in 1963, garnering accolades after her death for the novel The Bell Jar, and the poetry collections The Colossus and Ariel. In 1982, Plath became the first person to win a posthumous Pulitzer Prize.

An elderly citizen starts a conversation with you and at some point it comes out that you are a Rhodes Scholar. In response, he claims that "it is a waste of two million pounds to bring you out here, especially given the immense cutbacks that we have to endure in the UK government." What is your response?

T

You have three younger sisters. Recommend three books for them.

The Bone People - Keri Hulme Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte Father and Son - Edmund Gosse The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini The Colour Purple - Alice Walker The Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton The Golden Notebook - Doris Lessing Rebecca - Daphne du Maurier Norwegian Wood - Haruki Murakami

DPhil English

The DPhil in English is intended to develop the skills and understanding necessary to undertake and present original research at a high level, and provide a thorough foundation for a career in research. Under the guidance of your supervisor, you will complete a thesis of 80,000 to 100,000 words. A typical term will involve a great deal of independent research, punctuated by meetings with the supervisor who will be able to suggest direction and address concerns throughout the writing process. It is expected that you will have at least two substantial supervisions in each term. You will be enrolled as Probationary Research Student and then apply to transfer to full DPhil status during your first year. A further assessment of your work and progress takes place during the third year of the programme. There is no specific coursework requirement for an English research degree, however you will have the opportunity to attend a wide range of classes, seminars and lectures in order to learn bibliographic and research skills, interact with other researchers or gain new perspectives on their work. You may also be encouraged to attend the research skills courses available as part of the master's (MSt) programme, depending on how much of this training has been covered previously. You are encouraged to gain teaching experience, so long as it does not interfere with your own progress, and are invited to attend Faculty-run preparatory teaching workshops and seminars.

English at Oxford

The Oxford English Faculty is the largest English department in Britain. All Oxford colleges have at least two tutors in English who are responsible for tutorial teaching in their own college. Many also give lectures to all students in the English Faculty. You therefore have the opportunity to learn from a wide range of specialist teachers. Library provision for English at Oxford is exceptionally good. All students have access to the Bodleian Library, the English Faculty Library, other faculty libraries and their own college libraries. The English Faculty has long pioneered the use of electronic resources in teaching, and has a wide range of resources and facilities.

Rhodes' exclusion of women

The Rhodes Scholarship was open only to men until 1977.

Ada Lovelace

The daughter of famed poet Lord Byron, Augusta Ada Byron, Countess of Lovelace—better known as "Ada Lovelace"—was born in London on December 10, 1815. Ada showed her gift for mathematics at an early age. She translated an article on an invention by Charles Babbage, and added her own comments. Because she introduced many computer concepts, Ada is considered the first computer programmer. Ada died on November 27, 1852.

Sir Geoffrey Cox

The obituaries for Sir Geoffrey Cox rightly highlighted his role as a 'TV trailblazer' and the 'Founder of News at 10' for Britain's Independent Television News (ITN). But most also drew attention to his role as an eyewitness to momentous events in Europe during the 1930s and '40s. Cox wrote extensively of his experiences at the time - in Defence of Madrid (1937), The Red Army moves (1941) and The road to Trieste (1947) - and in the years that followed - in A tale of two battles (1987), Countdown to war (1988) and Eyewitness (1999). Just how did a boy born in Palmerston North come to witness at first hand the impact of Stalinism, the rise of Hitler and the Spanish Civil War?

Criticism over recipients declining to pursue careers in public service.

The tendency of a growing number of Rhodes Scholars to enter business or private law as opposed to public service, for which the scholarship was intended, has been a source of frequent criticism and "occasional embarrassment". Writing in 2009, the Secretary of the Rhodes Trust criticised the trend of Rhodes Scholars to pursue careers on Wall Street, noting that "more than twice as many [now] went into business in just one year than did in the entire 1970s", attributing it to "grotesque" remuneration offered by such occupations.

Humanities: Insights

Through exploration of the humanities we learn how to think creatively and critically, to reason, and to ask questions. Because these skills allow us to gain new insights into everything from poetry and paintings to business models and politics, humanistic subjects have been at the heart of a liberal arts education since the ancient Greeks first used them to educate their citizens.

Humanities: The Future

Today, humanistic knowledge continues to provide the ideal foundation for exploring and understanding the human experience. Investigating a branch of philosophy might get you thinking about ethical questions. Learning another language might help you gain an appreciation for the similarities in different cultures. Contemplating a sculpture might make you think about how an artist's life affected her creative decisions. Reading a book from another region of the world, might help you think about the meaning of democracy. Listening to a history course might help you better understand the past, while at the same time offer you a clearer picture of the future.

Dan Davin

Two of his novels, Cliffs of Fall (1945) and Not Here, Not Now (1970), are set in Otago University, although Bertram says they are "among his least satisfactory works". Dan and Winnie co-authored a publication for schools by the Department of Education School Publications Branch, Writing in New Zealand: The New Zealand Novel (1956, parts 1, 2). Chris Laidlaw who used to drink with Dan in Oxford said there was "an abiding sadness about Dan; a melancholy that sprang, I think, from his frustration at being a prophet without honour in his own country. ... He was an early victim of the great New Zealand clobbering machine and often warned me to beware of this." Laidlaw quoted Davin's view that in New Zealand there is a very strong "stereoptype that controls what you can say or be seen to do."

Chelsea Manning

U.S. Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning delivered hundreds of thousands of classified documents that he found troubling to WikiLeaks, and in 2013 was sentenced to 35 years in prison for espionage and theft. In 2014, Manning, who is transgender, was granted the right to be legally recognized as Chelsea Elizabeth Manning. President Barack Obama commuted her sentence and she was released from prison in 2017. "I want people to see the truth regardless of who they are, because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public. I feel, for some bizarre reason, it might actually change something. Or maybe I'm just young, naive and stupid."

Carl Sagan

We live in Carl Sagan's universe-awesomely vast, deeply humbling. It's a universe that, as Sagan reminded us again and again, isn't about us. We're a granular element. Our presence may even be ephemeral—a flash of luminescence in a great dark ocean. Or perhaps we are here to stay, somehow finding a way to transcend our worst instincts and ancient hatreds, and eventually become a galactic species. We could even find others out there, the inhabitants of distant, highly advanced civilizations—the Old Ones, as Sagan might put it. No one has ever explained space, in all its bewildering glory, as well as Sagan did. He's been gone now for nearly two decades, but people old enough to remember him will easily be able to summon his voice, his fondness for the word "billions" and his boyish enthusiasm for understanding the universe we're so lucky to live in. He led a feverish existence, with multiple careers tumbling over one another, as if he knew he wouldn't live to an old age. Among other things, he served as an astronomy professor at Cornell, wrote more than a dozen books, worked on NASA robotic missions, edited the scientific journal Icarus and somehow found time to park himself, repeatedly, arguably compulsively, in front of TV cameras. He was the house astronomer, basically, on Johnny Carson's "Tonight Show." Then, in an astonishing burst of energy in his mid-40s, he co-created and hosted a 13-part PBS television series, "Cosmos." It aired in the fall of 1980 and ultimately reached hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Sagan was the most famous scientist in America—the face of science itself.

We are proposing to invest a great deal of money in your education, what are we going to get out of that investment?

a

Why you have aspirations as a science writer?

a

Bloomsbury Group:

b

How will you serve as an ambassador to the UK?

b

Do you know if you meet the requirements for the program you have proposed?

d

Bill Bryson

e

Science vs Religion in Literature / Victorian Literature:

e

Suicide in New Zealand:

e

What was the most important part of the application process from the beginning?

e

What was it like being homeschooled?

f

Who's your favourite science writer?

f

Why _____ college?

f

Journalism in New Zealand:

q

NZ Politics/ My support of the Green Party:

q

New Zealand's other failings:

q

Yuvali Noah Harari

q

Oliver Sacks

r

Why is accurate scientific reporting necessary?

r

If you had everything go as planned, how do you see your career panning out?

s

Rebecca Priestley

w