Britons have a love-hate relationship with Oxford university. It designed a Covid-19 vaccine, yet oozes academic feuds. It represents aspiration, yet the left see it as elitist and the right as woke. Its attempts to portray itself as a modern university — which needs more public support — jar with the medieval architecture and formal dinners.
Of the 13 postwar prime ministers who undertook higher education, only one did not go to Oxford. Yet Oxford’s academics, who often lead the world, receive potshots from politicians, who usually do not.
Dame Louise Richardson has faced all of this with a direct style that some colleagues find no-nonsense, others find abrasive. When she steps down as vice-chancellor this month, she can claim to leave the university on a high. “We have exploded the myth that Oxford can’t change,” she says, seated in her imposing, impersonal office in the city centre.
Oxford has been named the world’s top university by Times Higher Education in each of Richardson’s seven years in charge. The vice-chancellor, whose academic influence is limited, can’t take credit for that. But she has overseen a financial reset. Faced with a public funding squeeze, Oxford took advantage of low interest rates in 2017, raising £750mn in 100-year bonds, yielding 2.54 per cent. It has also received its “largest gift since the Renaissance” — £185mn from private equity billionaire Stephen Schwarzman — and created a new graduate college with £80mn from the Reuben brothers. It has also struck a £4bn property dealwith Legal & General.