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Anne Lonsdale: champion of academic refuge
Perspectives
Profile Anne Lonsdale: champion of academic refuge
For CARA see http://www. cara1933.org/
118
Anne Lonsdale, the current Chair of the Council for Assisting Refugee Academics (CARA), is a woman whose broad experience of universities in the UK and elsewhere includes teaching and administration. That alone might be ample qualification for her role in CARA. In fact, there’s more. In the 1930s her father—a physicist—helped refugee Jewish academics from Germany and Austria to make new lives in the UK. “Universities were asked to find places in their departments, to give them jobs of some sort”, says Lonsdale. “They had to have jobs to get visas.” The organisation through which he worked, established in 1933 by William Beveridge, was the Academic Assistance Council: the forerunner of CARA. “I think it’s genetic”, Lonsdale says, laughing. Well, not literally genetic, of course, but Lonsdale’s chairmanship of CARA can hardly be viewed as pure chance. “Throughout her life Anne’s believed in the power of education to bring about societal and individual transformation”, says Michael Worton, recently retired as Fielden Professor of French Language and Literature at University College London and a member of CARA’s Council. “She believes that education really makes a difference.” Lonsdale took on the task of chairing CARA in 2008. Liverpool University microbiologist Professor Alan McCarthy, a member of CARA’s Council, talks of Lonsdale’s dedication, commitment, and energy in her chairmanship. “She’s rather quiet but also extremely self-assured and decisive. She listens to everyone, and can then come in with a statement that summarises all the elements and pushes everything forward without being dominating.” The organisation has two broad objectives: to assist academics subject to discrimination, persecution, or violence on account of their race, religion, nationality, social group, or political opinion; and to advance education by supporting academics and their institutions in countries where their work is at risk or compromised. The nationality of those helped over the years can be read as a barometer of political upset: European Jews in the 1930s; South Africans under Apartheid; more recently Iraqis and Zimbabweans; and now Syrians. “One of the reasons you need an organisation for academic refugees is the value they place on academic freedom and freedom of speech”, says Professor Sir Malcolm Grant, Chairman of the Board of NHS England and President of CARA. “It’s for this reason they’re often the first to suffer.” The academic path that brought Lonsdale to where she is now, and makes her an apt choice for CARA, began at Oxford. She studied Latin, Greek, and ancient history, then took up Chinese which she went on to teach. She first visited China itself in 1964 when the country was still finding its feet after the Great Leap Forward. “I was masquerading as a secretary hired by the Board of Trade to work with a trade
mission”, she recalls. “The threats of the coming Cultural Revolution were already very visible.” In due course she gave up teaching, and moved into university administration. “Not willingly, but because Mrs Thatcher decided that universities could cut subjects which weren’t ‘relevant’.” Initially uncertain about her new role she soon grew to relish it. “If you think about it, universities are important and interesting institutions that do an extraordinary job and they’ve done it for a thousand years. We do things now by different methods such as distance learning, but what we’re trying to achieve is still very similar.” She held various posts at Oxford University, including director of external relations, subsequently moving to Cambridge in 1996 to become President of New Hall (now Murray Edwards College). But it was well before this move, and while she was still at Oxford, that she began to work internationally. In the mid-1980s she met George Soros who was then intent on setting up scholarships for students from Russia and central Europe. At that time, she explains, most east European students chosen to study in the west would be the sons and daughters of the nomenklatura. Soros wanted to see a wider group getting the benefits of more liberal education. He later asked her to run the new Central European University, which she did during the 3 years between leaving Oxford and joining Cambridge. Perhaps the most challenging of Lonsdale’s administrative tasks began in 2009 when she became the founding Provost of Nazarbayev University in Astana, Kazakhstan. Given the often negative western view of Kazakhstan, her decision to accept the job might seem puzzling. But although Lonsdale believes that the country is often misunderstood, the key factor in her acceptance lay in the exceptional nature of Nazarbayev University itself. “It was set up to be managed under its own law, not under the Ministry of Education”, she says. “That law guarantees academic freedom, autonomy, and collegial decision making.” The intention is that it should act as a model to be imitated by other universities. “And they do copy it. It’s a brave experiment and a tough one but it’s got a chance. And if you believe in intellectual and academic freedom you go for it.” She remains one of the trustees of the university. “Anne’s always been a bit of a risk taker”, says Worton. “She thinks the way to bring about change is to work with people, not preach at them from moral mountains in Bloomsbury or Cambridge or wherever. She works in a quiet but quite determined way. She’s very nice—but there’s steel in her.” A necessary ingredient in anyone aiming to guarantee refuge.
Geoff Watts www.thelancet.com Vol 383 January 11, 2014
Profile Anne Lonsdale: champion of academic refuge
For CARA see http://www. cara1933.org/
118
Anne Lonsdale, the current Chair of the Council for Assisting Refugee Academics (CARA), is a woman whose broad experience of universities in the UK and elsewhere includes teaching and administration. That alone might be ample qualification for her role in CARA. In fact, there’s more. In the 1930s her father—a physicist—helped refugee Jewish academics from Germany and Austria to make new lives in the UK. “Universities were asked to find places in their departments, to give them jobs of some sort”, says Lonsdale. “They had to have jobs to get visas.” The organisation through which he worked, established in 1933 by William Beveridge, was the Academic Assistance Council: the forerunner of CARA. “I think it’s genetic”, Lonsdale says, laughing. Well, not literally genetic, of course, but Lonsdale’s chairmanship of CARA can hardly be viewed as pure chance. “Throughout her life Anne’s believed in the power of education to bring about societal and individual transformation”, says Michael Worton, recently retired as Fielden Professor of French Language and Literature at University College London and a member of CARA’s Council. “She believes that education really makes a difference.” Lonsdale took on the task of chairing CARA in 2008. Liverpool University microbiologist Professor Alan McCarthy, a member of CARA’s Council, talks of Lonsdale’s dedication, commitment, and energy in her chairmanship. “She’s rather quiet but also extremely self-assured and decisive. She listens to everyone, and can then come in with a statement that summarises all the elements and pushes everything forward without being dominating.” The organisation has two broad objectives: to assist academics subject to discrimination, persecution, or violence on account of their race, religion, nationality, social group, or political opinion; and to advance education by supporting academics and their institutions in countries where their work is at risk or compromised. The nationality of those helped over the years can be read as a barometer of political upset: European Jews in the 1930s; South Africans under Apartheid; more recently Iraqis and Zimbabweans; and now Syrians. “One of the reasons you need an organisation for academic refugees is the value they place on academic freedom and freedom of speech”, says Professor Sir Malcolm Grant, Chairman of the Board of NHS England and President of CARA. “It’s for this reason they’re often the first to suffer.” The academic path that brought Lonsdale to where she is now, and makes her an apt choice for CARA, began at Oxford. She studied Latin, Greek, and ancient history, then took up Chinese which she went on to teach. She first visited China itself in 1964 when the country was still finding its feet after the Great Leap Forward. “I was masquerading as a secretary hired by the Board of Trade to work with a trade
mission”, she recalls. “The threats of the coming Cultural Revolution were already very visible.” In due course she gave up teaching, and moved into university administration. “Not willingly, but because Mrs Thatcher decided that universities could cut subjects which weren’t ‘relevant’.” Initially uncertain about her new role she soon grew to relish it. “If you think about it, universities are important and interesting institutions that do an extraordinary job and they’ve done it for a thousand years. We do things now by different methods such as distance learning, but what we’re trying to achieve is still very similar.” She held various posts at Oxford University, including director of external relations, subsequently moving to Cambridge in 1996 to become President of New Hall (now Murray Edwards College). But it was well before this move, and while she was still at Oxford, that she began to work internationally. In the mid-1980s she met George Soros who was then intent on setting up scholarships for students from Russia and central Europe. At that time, she explains, most east European students chosen to study in the west would be the sons and daughters of the nomenklatura. Soros wanted to see a wider group getting the benefits of more liberal education. He later asked her to run the new Central European University, which she did during the 3 years between leaving Oxford and joining Cambridge. Perhaps the most challenging of Lonsdale’s administrative tasks began in 2009 when she became the founding Provost of Nazarbayev University in Astana, Kazakhstan. Given the often negative western view of Kazakhstan, her decision to accept the job might seem puzzling. But although Lonsdale believes that the country is often misunderstood, the key factor in her acceptance lay in the exceptional nature of Nazarbayev University itself. “It was set up to be managed under its own law, not under the Ministry of Education”, she says. “That law guarantees academic freedom, autonomy, and collegial decision making.” The intention is that it should act as a model to be imitated by other universities. “And they do copy it. It’s a brave experiment and a tough one but it’s got a chance. And if you believe in intellectual and academic freedom you go for it.” She remains one of the trustees of the university. “Anne’s always been a bit of a risk taker”, says Worton. “She thinks the way to bring about change is to work with people, not preach at them from moral mountains in Bloomsbury or Cambridge or wherever. She works in a quiet but quite determined way. She’s very nice—but there’s steel in her.” A necessary ingredient in anyone aiming to guarantee refuge.
Geoff Watts www.thelancet.com Vol 383 January 11, 2014