Aoifinn Devitt: People do need to feel safe, but I, I think that part of feeling safe is also building your own resilience. Building your own resilience means actually finding strength to be able to counter what you meet. So it’s irresponsible to shelter people from absolutely everything. I think that it is important in giving freedom of speech to enable people opportunities to counter and to listen well. And in fact, I think that’s something that should be essentially taught in schools, the dignity of responsible and respectful debate.
Margaret Casely-Hayford: I’m Aoifinn Devitt, and welcome to the 50 Faces Podcast, a podcast committed to revealing the richness and diversity of the world of investing and beyond. By focusing on its people and their stories. I’m joined today by Margaret Casely-Hayford CBE, who until recently was Chancellor of Coventry University, a role she held for 7 years. She’s had an extensive career, having been a partner at Dentons in legal practice for close to 20 years, and has held roles as NED of the NHS, as a special trustee at Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity, chair at Shakespeare’s Globe, and as a board member of Co-op, to name just a few. We featured her on the podcast in February 2021, where we discussed her role as a champion for diversity in the law, and are delighted to now welcome her back to discuss her candidacy for the Chancellorship at Oxford University.
Aoifinn Devitt: It is indeed the Chancellorship, yes, and thank you very much for inviting me.
Margaret Casely-Hayford: So in our earlier podcast, we discussed your fascinating career journey and your various career moves, as well as your move into board roles. You spent 7 years in the role of Chancellor at Coventry University. Looking back at those 7 years, what were some of your proudest achievements there?
Aoifinn Devitt: I think that actually you, you started in your introduction by talking about the turns in my career, and one of the really key steps that I took.
Speaker C: Was leaving private practice where I had.
Aoifinn Devitt: Been for 20 years and going into the John Lewis Partnership as a director. That was a turn that really made me focus on the importance of good governance, seeing how the that really can create an entity that is seen as.
Speaker C: Iconic and pivotal in its role and at the helm of, of an industry. And good governance has been something that I’ve been really fortunate in being able to participate in through many of the moves in my career. And joining Coventry was really wonderful because of being able to go into an area of academia that I hadn’t been in before. And it’s a strangely sort of hands-off sort of role in that you’re sort of totemic, you’re sort of ambassadorial, but you do have to make sure that you understand the industry really well so that you can champion it at the right levels. And say, for example, speaking on behalf of the university and its sector to central government, which I did at times, and making sure that it— you represent it For example, when talking to industry and seeking opportunities for links, whether that’s to help get work placements or to strengthen the pipeline of potential opportunity for students. And one of the things that I’ve been seen as is a sort of diversity representative, and I don’t mind that because it means that people who might think to themselves, I’m not sure whether that’s for me, whether it’s women who wouldn’t otherwise have thought about getting into academia at a late stage in their career, whether it’s people of color, or whether it’s people who really just hadn’t even thought about it, but just because I look different, it’s made them think, perhaps that’s for me. I’m happy to be that diversity representative, and I’ve done a number of talks in that respect and say widening perception of opportunity just by being there is actually helpful. And then one of the things that I did do, which was helped a lot by the university, was to set up a charity called the Gallery of Living History with Andy Serkis and Jonathan Cavendish, the actor and film producer. And that was during lockdown. It was a sort of response to the death of George Floyd, the murder of George Floyd. And we were thinking about how we got people to look at each other.
Aoifinn Devitt: With greater respect and dignity.
Speaker C: And we established it really to enable young people to think about their forebears and what their forebears did. And as part of the historic context in which we find ourselves, because history is so often written from the perspective of kings and generals, and we wanted to say everybody has a role and everybody’s forebears helped to build the city, the community.
Aoifinn Devitt: The country.
Speaker C: So we established the charity, and the charity actually has allowed children and students to work together to research unsung heroes. And it’s been great to see the student proctors find themselves in giving them an opportunity to use their skills in a practical way. And then through that, they’ve actually helped widen the pipeline by stretching out to.
Aoifinn Devitt: Schools, reaching out to schools where young.
Speaker C: People who might not otherwise have come through the portals of the university have come through to use the university’s workshops, understand how they can research better and create new stories of unsung heroes. So that’s been fantastic. I’ve also done numbers of talks in schools about opportunities and so on. Again, widening access has been a really, really key aspect of who I am and what I do and what I champion. And then also just making sure that the Vice Chancellor’s messages go out to as many people as I can possibly help them to go out to. I mean, he’s a fantastically, what should.
Aoifinn Devitt: I say, farsighted individual.
Speaker C: And so it’s been great working alongside somebody like him as well. So I’ve learned the most enormous amount, and I hope I’ve been useful to Coventry in 7 happy years.
Margaret Casely-Hayford: That’s wonderful. And access comes out very strongly from your achievements there. And I do remember during our discussion in 2021, It was obviously in the middle of COVID a particularly challenging time for all institutions of education. And you talk there a little bit about your vision for what the modern university would look like, the university of the future, and how it might fuse the online opportunities as well as in-person learning opportunities, and also a lot more cross-institutional learning and exchange. Very interesting. But I think we will come to that when we speak about your vision for Oxford University. And I’d love to now hear what’s at the forefront of the mind of any leader of a third-level institution today as you see it. What are some of the issues that you think are most pressing? And then we can talk about your vision for what these would mean at Oxford University.
Aoifinn Devitt: I think it’s quite helpful that Universities UK, which is the vice-chancellor’s organisation, has literally just published— I think it came out today— a blueprint for growth which focuses really strongly on the need to stabilise the revenue for universities. It’s been something like 12 years since the fees rose, but I know that people see that an increase in fees.
Speaker C: Is something that’s of great concern because they’re quite worried about what that will.
Aoifinn Devitt: Do to student intake numbers. Having said that, a freeze of that.
Speaker C: Length of time really just makes for unsustainable economic budgeting.
Aoifinn Devitt: And so I think that their call.
Speaker C: For some form of indexation is right. I do think, however, that what that does throw into relief is a need for the public to be given evidence.
Aoifinn Devitt: And just to understand the story. You know, why do we need to.
Speaker C: Support the universities in the way we do? What do we really get out of this? ‘Cause I think that there’s, there’s been quite a wealth of information about the fact that if you learn more, you earn more. Okay, fine, that’s great for the individual.
Aoifinn Devitt: But there are social benefits, cultural benefits. You know, there’s, there’s different sort of.
Speaker C: Asset and capital growth in different ways. There are health benefits, there are social benefits, and then of course there’s the wider economic benefit and the enormous soft power benefit. From our sector, which is hugely respected globally.
Aoifinn Devitt: And we, we really do need to.
Speaker C: Have a really strong evidence base so that we can point to the numbers that really underpin all of that, so people recognize what it is they’re getting for the investment. And to me, that’s a really critically important thing. And the sector generally needs to be singing that song and to be looking at the data hard. But a chancellor of a global icon like Oxford really has the opportunity to really champion that loudly. So to me, it’s a really brilliant opportunity to just grasp that responsibility to marry the growth of the sector and the change of its model to make it more modern with giving people greater data.
Aoifinn Devitt: And really just sort of, I think, treating the public with respect and saying, this is what we do, this is who we are, this is the data to prove it.
Margaret Casely-Hayford: Let’s get back to that iconic status you mentioned before, because Oxford is obviously quite an unusual university with its college and hall and the identity and the symbolism that goes with an institution of such grandeur and stature. Can you speak a little bit about how you would weave that into your role? And, and you are an alum yourself of Oxford, I understand?
Aoifinn Devitt: Yes, that’s right. I’m a Somervillian, so a proud graduate, and in fact an honorary fellow of Somerville. I have a huge love for the college and the university, and it did so much to give me confidence and to make me the person I am. So I’d be really happy to celebrate and advocate and champion the University. I mean, I think that there are a number of aspects to the question that you’ve just raised. One is that, first of all, the colleges and halls have their own individual identities, but they are part of this unified whole, which is the University. And it’s really important that the Chancellor listens to, understands, accepts, and recognizes those various elements because they’re critical to the legacy and the way the institution’s structured. But it’s also important that that iconic role doesn’t mire the university in its progress as a modern institution. And so in respecting the status and its excellent legacy, one’s also got to be prepared to push forward in terms of pushing boundaries, testing norms, and enabling innovation and research as an organization. And I think that’s one of the things that Oxford has done brilliantly over the years. And it’s, in fact, it’s no accident that government often leans on Oxford. And it was really just brilliantly symbolic that during COVID the key challenges to the virus itself were founded at Oxford University. And that comes from researchers that push boundaries the whole time. So actually, championing and promoting that is critical to the future. But one needs to make sure that we’re doing this in a global context because of course, first of all, there’s the partnering aspect with— because you can’t do this on your own. There’s a really important role to make sure that you’re nurturing partnerships with industry, nurturing partnerships with other countries and other institutions, other academic institutions. There’s also the fact that one needs to make sure that there’s a stream of sensible funding coming in. And all of that means that you’ve got to make people understand the relevance of the organisation, the relevance of the institution in a modern context. So that means really sort of listening to the scientists, the thinkers, the philosophers, to make sure that one really can articulate its relevance, because everything moves really quickly these days, and the really key thing is to be agile in your messaging, agile in your operation. And so I think that the chancellor needs really to make sure that they’re under the skin of everything. To not just understand, but to be able to understand it so well that they can articulate all of that and make sure they’re in the right place at the right time to get the messages over appropriately.
Margaret Casely-Hayford: I love that. I’m definitely getting the themes of transparency, communication, proactive communication coming from that, as well as that balance act that needs to be struck between a heritage and an iconic status and a reputation. And this gets to the research agenda, and I think a topic that’s often on many lips when it comes to the academic institutions of today is around academic freedom. So given that academic freedom is essential to allow this research to flourish, what is your position on that?
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, obviously a university is a place of learning and learning comes from listening. It comes from accepting challenge. It comes from being able to accommodate, assimilate other points and perspectives. And to deal with those in a rational fashion. So allowing free speech, allowing academic freedom clearly motivates and promotes that. And so to me, that’s really important. I think it’s also important for what I, I mentioned before, which is pushing boundaries and testing norms. It’s actually all too easy to accept a body of thinking and to operate within that. And one of the things I learned from being a law graduate, a jurisprudence graduate from Oxford, was that there are two types of There lawyers. Are the lawyers who apply the law, and there’s nothing wrong with that. You, you know, you do you, that’s great. And then there are the lawyers that challenge things and say it can’t stand still, this is not the way it was meant to be, or this might be the way that it is currently, but that progress suggests, or our morality has moved on, And it suggests that we should test this and go in a different direction. And one of the really abiding memories for me was sitting at the feet of Lady Hazel Fox, who was actually the stepdaughter of Lord Denning. And Denning was one of the greatest challengers of norms, testing the norms. And I just think that that sort of academic freedom, that sort of liberation is really critical for the progress of society. And sometimes it can be uncomfortable, you have to be prepared to stand your ground. Last week I spoke to a wonderful young man who was chaplain of one of the City of London churches, St. Catherine’s Cree, and he said that people in certain roles— he and I were talking about the chaplaincy in the city and, you know, how difficult it must be given how increasingly secular the city is becoming— and he said that there are times when you just have to stand or something like a tent pole and allow the canvas to fall in such a way that others can come within it. But your, the, the importance of your role is to stand for something. And I, I just thought that was a really lovely analogy. So if you stand for something, you allow others to come in, you allow them a safe place in which they can operate. Because you stand for something, they can actually question, they can actually test, but they can see what the parameters are, they can see what the certainties are, and in fact they can even test you, and you need to be able to respond in a helpful fashion to enable them to mature, to move forward. That’s what a university environment should be. It should be like the tent on the campus that people can come into.
Margaret Casely-Hayford: So the other freedom, and I know you’ve already touched on this, is around freedom of speech, and this comes as much from the student body as well as from the academic quarters. And equally, there is the concern around safety on campus and feeling safe and hate speech, etc. And we really had a few years of having much of this play out in a public arena. So how would you thread that needle?
Aoifinn Devitt: Yeah, it’s a really tough one, isn’t it? Because people do need to feel safe, but I think that part of feeling safe is also Building your own resilience. Building your own resilience means actually finding strength to be able to counter what you meet. So it’s irresponsible to shelter people from absolutely everything. I think that it is important in giving freedom of speech to enable people opportunities to counter and to listen well. And in fact, I think that’s something that should be essentially taught in schools the dignity of responsible and respectful debate. But I don’t think that that should go to the points of putting people in danger. And we’re very fortunate in this country.
Speaker C: We’Ve got a great legal structure in that respect.
Aoifinn Devitt: You’ve got the Equality Act of 2010, which essentially safeguards people to quite a wide extent. We’ve got the laws that prevent people from being put in danger of their lives. And, and I think that provided one ensures legal compliance, there’s an enormous amount of room to maneuver and to enable what I would say is the growth of resilience in listening, learning, and respectful debate. And as you know, it’s often been said, I might not agree with what you say, but I will go to the death to protect your right to say it. What I don’t have is the right to put somebody else’s life in danger. In order that you should say it.
Margaret Casely-Hayford: And just to tie this then, we’ve already spoken about diversity as a need that is in place in order to make institutions and society more sustainable. And clearly this resilience is is a, a real backbone of sustainability too. Can we just tie this together in, in just hearing maybe a few words on how sustainable you want the institution to be and what you would do around the resilience, not just to speech and speech that was not palatable perhaps, but also around environmental change?
Aoifinn Devitt: That’s such a good question because you were talking about sustainability. One of the really important things is to widen access so that you are not going to miss the next Einstein because they can’t get to university because they can’t survive because financially it’s too difficult for them. I mean, it’s really interesting to note that in, I think it was about 2022, there was a report that said that 1 in 4 of the young people at age of 18 in the Northeast can expect to go into higher education, whereas it’s around 50% in the Southeast. And if Einstein, and in fact, interestingly, Einstein’s wife was thought to be the actual writer of a lot of his papers, but of course, because of the way that women were treated at the time, she was sidelined. And so that says a lot. So if young Tina Einstein is sitting in the Northeast of England, she has a much lesser chance of going into higher education than she would if she was sitting in the Southeast. Well, that is completely ludicrous, and it’s, it’s bad not just for her but for the economic growth of the country as well as the prospects of excellence within the education establishment. So I really strongly advocate widening access, and in order to do that, it does mean that we need to think about how we create a more stable revenue stream for universities and the maintenance grants, whether it be through bursaries, grants, loans, accessibility for the students. So yeah, that sustainability question is a really, really big one. And as I say, it’s great that the Blueprint for Growth has been published asking all of these questions and really exhorting the sector to look at itself in a transformative way. And I mentioned the farsightedness of the Vice Chancellor of Coventry. These are points that he’s been making for quite some time. So I was actually really pleased to see them so deeply enshrined in the blueprint.
Margaret Casely-Hayford: Well, we have a lot to talk about clearly, and this may only end up being part 1 of this set of podcasts, but I’d love you to just, in order to wrap up, it’d be great if you could capture for us a creed or motto that you live by or any words of wisdom that capture the essence of your personality and your commitment to academic life?
Aoifinn Devitt: I think I probably said this when we spoke last time, that I’ve had a motto that I’ve lived by for some time: I can, I will, just watch me. And I think it’s something for many women and also ethnic minorities to think about, because we, we tend to be marginalized because of who we are. We therefore have to prove ourselves. And there’s— you walk into the room and you can feel the doubt.
Speaker C: You walk into the room and you.
Aoifinn Devitt: Can see people thinking, have you come to make the tea. And I do think it’s really important that we bear in mind the fact that we’ve got that slight burden to bear. I mean, it’s slightly, it’s gradually going. People have greater trust in our ability, but I’m happy to break ceilings to demonstrate what I can do and hopefully to allow others to let the light shine on others. And I was just thinking about the fact that it’s almost a millennium since Oxford was founded as a learning institution. And it’s never yet had a female chancellor. So that’s a, what is it, a 950-year glass ceiling, which I think apart from sort of the religious institutions is probably the world’s oldest glass ceiling. And it would be really fantastic to break through that and just go, “I can, I will, just watch me.”.
Margaret Casely-Hayford: And indeed, I will take away from this your lifelong commitment to taking a stand. To being a first, to having a principal position on almost every topic, and to seeing that through with commitment and grit. And thank you so much for coming here, Margaret, and having this conversation with us.
Aoifinn Devitt: Oh, thank you for asking me. It’s been a great pleasure. Thank you very much indeed.
Margaret Casely-Hayford: I’m Aoifinn Devitt. Thank you for listening to the 50 Faces Podcast. If you liked what you heard and would like to tune in to hear more inspiring investors and their personal journeys, Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast is for information only and should not be construed as investment or legal advice. All views are personal and should not be attributed to the organizations of the host or any guest.
Aoifinn Devitt: People do need to feel safe, but I, I think that part of feeling safe is also building your own resilience. Building your own resilience means actually finding strength to be able to counter what you meet. So it’s irresponsible to shelter people from absolutely everything. I think that it is important in giving freedom of speech to enable people opportunities to counter and to listen well. And in fact, I think that’s something that should be essentially taught in schools, the dignity of responsible and respectful debate.
Margaret Casely-Hayford: I’m Aoifinn Devitt, and welcome to the 50 Faces Podcast, a podcast committed to revealing the richness and diversity of the world of investing and beyond. By focusing on its people and their stories. I’m joined today by Margaret Casely-Hayford CBE, who until recently was Chancellor of Coventry University, a role she held for 7 years. She’s had an extensive career, having been a partner at Dentons in legal practice for close to 20 years, and has held roles as NED of the NHS, as a special trustee at Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity, chair at Shakespeare’s Globe, and as a board member of Co-op, to name just a few. We featured her on the podcast in February 2021, where we discussed her role as a champion for diversity in the law, and are delighted to now welcome her back to discuss her candidacy for the Chancellorship at Oxford University.
Aoifinn Devitt: It is indeed the Chancellorship, yes, and thank you very much for inviting me.
Margaret Casely-Hayford: So in our earlier podcast, we discussed your fascinating career journey and your various career moves, as well as your move into board roles. You spent 7 years in the role of Chancellor at Coventry University. Looking back at those 7 years, what were some of your proudest achievements there?
Aoifinn Devitt: I think that actually you, you started in your introduction by talking about the turns in my career, and one of the really key steps that I took.
Speaker C: Was leaving private practice where I had.
Aoifinn Devitt: Been for 20 years and going into the John Lewis Partnership as a director. That was a turn that really made me focus on the importance of good governance, seeing how the that really can create an entity that is seen as.
Speaker C: Iconic and pivotal in its role and at the helm of, of an industry. And good governance has been something that I’ve been really fortunate in being able to participate in through many of the moves in my career. And joining Coventry was really wonderful because of being able to go into an area of academia that I hadn’t been in before. And it’s a strangely sort of hands-off sort of role in that you’re sort of totemic, you’re sort of ambassadorial, but you do have to make sure that you understand the industry really well so that you can champion it at the right levels. And say, for example, speaking on behalf of the university and its sector to central government, which I did at times, and making sure that it— you represent it For example, when talking to industry and seeking opportunities for links, whether that’s to help get work placements or to strengthen the pipeline of potential opportunity for students. And one of the things that I’ve been seen as is a sort of diversity representative, and I don’t mind that because it means that people who might think to themselves, I’m not sure whether that’s for me, whether it’s women who wouldn’t otherwise have thought about getting into academia at a late stage in their career, whether it’s people of color, or whether it’s people who really just hadn’t even thought about it, but just because I look different, it’s made them think, perhaps that’s for me. I’m happy to be that diversity representative, and I’ve done a number of talks in that respect and say widening perception of opportunity just by being there is actually helpful. And then one of the things that I did do, which was helped a lot by the university, was to set up a charity called the Gallery of Living History with Andy Serkis and Jonathan Cavendish, the actor and film producer. And that was during lockdown. It was a sort of response to the death of George Floyd, the murder of George Floyd. And we were thinking about how we got people to look at each other.
Aoifinn Devitt: With greater respect and dignity.
Speaker C: And we established it really to enable young people to think about their forebears and what their forebears did. And as part of the historic context in which we find ourselves, because history is so often written from the perspective of kings and generals, and we wanted to say everybody has a role and everybody’s forebears helped to build the city, the community.
Aoifinn Devitt: The country.
Speaker C: So we established the charity, and the charity actually has allowed children and students to work together to research unsung heroes. And it’s been great to see the student proctors find themselves in giving them an opportunity to use their skills in a practical way. And then through that, they’ve actually helped widen the pipeline by stretching out to.
Aoifinn Devitt: Schools, reaching out to schools where young.
Speaker C: People who might not otherwise have come through the portals of the university have come through to use the university’s workshops, understand how they can research better and create new stories of unsung heroes. So that’s been fantastic. I’ve also done numbers of talks in schools about opportunities and so on. Again, widening access has been a really, really key aspect of who I am and what I do and what I champion. And then also just making sure that the Vice Chancellor’s messages go out to as many people as I can possibly help them to go out to. I mean, he’s a fantastically, what should.
Aoifinn Devitt: I say, farsighted individual.
Speaker C: And so it’s been great working alongside somebody like him as well. So I’ve learned the most enormous amount, and I hope I’ve been useful to Coventry in 7 happy years.
Margaret Casely-Hayford: That’s wonderful. And access comes out very strongly from your achievements there. And I do remember during our discussion in 2021, It was obviously in the middle of COVID a particularly challenging time for all institutions of education. And you talk there a little bit about your vision for what the modern university would look like, the university of the future, and how it might fuse the online opportunities as well as in-person learning opportunities, and also a lot more cross-institutional learning and exchange. Very interesting. But I think we will come to that when we speak about your vision for Oxford University. And I’d love to now hear what’s at the forefront of the mind of any leader of a third-level institution today as you see it. What are some of the issues that you think are most pressing? And then we can talk about your vision for what these would mean at Oxford University.
Aoifinn Devitt: I think it’s quite helpful that Universities UK, which is the vice-chancellor’s organisation, has literally just published— I think it came out today— a blueprint for growth which focuses really strongly on the need to stabilise the revenue for universities. It’s been something like 12 years since the fees rose, but I know that people see that an increase in fees.
Speaker C: Is something that’s of great concern because they’re quite worried about what that will.
Aoifinn Devitt: Do to student intake numbers. Having said that, a freeze of that.
Speaker C: Length of time really just makes for unsustainable economic budgeting.
Aoifinn Devitt: And so I think that their call.
Speaker C: For some form of indexation is right. I do think, however, that what that does throw into relief is a need for the public to be given evidence.
Aoifinn Devitt: And just to understand the story. You know, why do we need to.
Speaker C: Support the universities in the way we do? What do we really get out of this? ‘Cause I think that there’s, there’s been quite a wealth of information about the fact that if you learn more, you earn more. Okay, fine, that’s great for the individual.
Aoifinn Devitt: But there are social benefits, cultural benefits. You know, there’s, there’s different sort of.
Speaker C: Asset and capital growth in different ways. There are health benefits, there are social benefits, and then of course there’s the wider economic benefit and the enormous soft power benefit. From our sector, which is hugely respected globally.
Aoifinn Devitt: And we, we really do need to.
Speaker C: Have a really strong evidence base so that we can point to the numbers that really underpin all of that, so people recognize what it is they’re getting for the investment. And to me, that’s a really critically important thing. And the sector generally needs to be singing that song and to be looking at the data hard. But a chancellor of a global icon like Oxford really has the opportunity to really champion that loudly. So to me, it’s a really brilliant opportunity to just grasp that responsibility to marry the growth of the sector and the change of its model to make it more modern with giving people greater data.
Aoifinn Devitt: And really just sort of, I think, treating the public with respect and saying, this is what we do, this is who we are, this is the data to prove it.
Margaret Casely-Hayford: Let’s get back to that iconic status you mentioned before, because Oxford is obviously quite an unusual university with its college and hall and the identity and the symbolism that goes with an institution of such grandeur and stature. Can you speak a little bit about how you would weave that into your role? And, and you are an alum yourself of Oxford, I understand?
Aoifinn Devitt: Yes, that’s right. I’m a Somervillian, so a proud graduate, and in fact an honorary fellow of Somerville. I have a huge love for the college and the university, and it did so much to give me confidence and to make me the person I am. So I’d be really happy to celebrate and advocate and champion the University. I mean, I think that there are a number of aspects to the question that you’ve just raised. One is that, first of all, the colleges and halls have their own individual identities, but they are part of this unified whole, which is the University. And it’s really important that the Chancellor listens to, understands, accepts, and recognizes those various elements because they’re critical to the legacy and the way the institution’s structured. But it’s also important that that iconic role doesn’t mire the university in its progress as a modern institution. And so in respecting the status and its excellent legacy, one’s also got to be prepared to push forward in terms of pushing boundaries, testing norms, and enabling innovation and research as an organization. And I think that’s one of the things that Oxford has done brilliantly over the years. And it’s, in fact, it’s no accident that government often leans on Oxford. And it was really just brilliantly symbolic that during COVID the key challenges to the virus itself were founded at Oxford University. And that comes from researchers that push boundaries the whole time. So actually, championing and promoting that is critical to the future. But one needs to make sure that we’re doing this in a global context because of course, first of all, there’s the partnering aspect with— because you can’t do this on your own. There’s a really important role to make sure that you’re nurturing partnerships with industry, nurturing partnerships with other countries and other institutions, other academic institutions. There’s also the fact that one needs to make sure that there’s a stream of sensible funding coming in. And all of that means that you’ve got to make people understand the relevance of the organisation, the relevance of the institution in a modern context. So that means really sort of listening to the scientists, the thinkers, the philosophers, to make sure that one really can articulate its relevance, because everything moves really quickly these days, and the really key thing is to be agile in your messaging, agile in your operation. And so I think that the chancellor needs really to make sure that they’re under the skin of everything. To not just understand, but to be able to understand it so well that they can articulate all of that and make sure they’re in the right place at the right time to get the messages over appropriately.
Margaret Casely-Hayford: I love that. I’m definitely getting the themes of transparency, communication, proactive communication coming from that, as well as that balance act that needs to be struck between a heritage and an iconic status and a reputation. And this gets to the research agenda, and I think a topic that’s often on many lips when it comes to the academic institutions of today is around academic freedom. So given that academic freedom is essential to allow this research to flourish, what is your position on that?
Aoifinn Devitt: Well, obviously a university is a place of learning and learning comes from listening. It comes from accepting challenge. It comes from being able to accommodate, assimilate other points and perspectives. And to deal with those in a rational fashion. So allowing free speech, allowing academic freedom clearly motivates and promotes that. And so to me, that’s really important. I think it’s also important for what I, I mentioned before, which is pushing boundaries and testing norms. It’s actually all too easy to accept a body of thinking and to operate within that. And one of the things I learned from being a law graduate, a jurisprudence graduate from Oxford, was that there are two types of There lawyers. Are the lawyers who apply the law, and there’s nothing wrong with that. You, you know, you do you, that’s great. And then there are the lawyers that challenge things and say it can’t stand still, this is not the way it was meant to be, or this might be the way that it is currently, but that progress suggests, or our morality has moved on, And it suggests that we should test this and go in a different direction. And one of the really abiding memories for me was sitting at the feet of Lady Hazel Fox, who was actually the stepdaughter of Lord Denning. And Denning was one of the greatest challengers of norms, testing the norms. And I just think that that sort of academic freedom, that sort of liberation is really critical for the progress of society. And sometimes it can be uncomfortable, you have to be prepared to stand your ground. Last week I spoke to a wonderful young man who was chaplain of one of the City of London churches, St. Catherine’s Cree, and he said that people in certain roles— he and I were talking about the chaplaincy in the city and, you know, how difficult it must be given how increasingly secular the city is becoming— and he said that there are times when you just have to stand or something like a tent pole and allow the canvas to fall in such a way that others can come within it. But your, the, the importance of your role is to stand for something. And I, I just thought that was a really lovely analogy. So if you stand for something, you allow others to come in, you allow them a safe place in which they can operate. Because you stand for something, they can actually question, they can actually test, but they can see what the parameters are, they can see what the certainties are, and in fact they can even test you, and you need to be able to respond in a helpful fashion to enable them to mature, to move forward. That’s what a university environment should be. It should be like the tent on the campus that people can come into.
Margaret Casely-Hayford: So the other freedom, and I know you’ve already touched on this, is around freedom of speech, and this comes as much from the student body as well as from the academic quarters. And equally, there is the concern around safety on campus and feeling safe and hate speech, etc. And we really had a few years of having much of this play out in a public arena. So how would you thread that needle?
Aoifinn Devitt: Yeah, it’s a really tough one, isn’t it? Because people do need to feel safe, but I think that part of feeling safe is also Building your own resilience. Building your own resilience means actually finding strength to be able to counter what you meet. So it’s irresponsible to shelter people from absolutely everything. I think that it is important in giving freedom of speech to enable people opportunities to counter and to listen well. And in fact, I think that’s something that should be essentially taught in schools the dignity of responsible and respectful debate. But I don’t think that that should go to the points of putting people in danger. And we’re very fortunate in this country.
Speaker C: We’Ve got a great legal structure in that respect.
Aoifinn Devitt: You’ve got the Equality Act of 2010, which essentially safeguards people to quite a wide extent. We’ve got the laws that prevent people from being put in danger of their lives. And, and I think that provided one ensures legal compliance, there’s an enormous amount of room to maneuver and to enable what I would say is the growth of resilience in listening, learning, and respectful debate. And as you know, it’s often been said, I might not agree with what you say, but I will go to the death to protect your right to say it. What I don’t have is the right to put somebody else’s life in danger. In order that you should say it.
Margaret Casely-Hayford: And just to tie this then, we’ve already spoken about diversity as a need that is in place in order to make institutions and society more sustainable. And clearly this resilience is is a, a real backbone of sustainability too. Can we just tie this together in, in just hearing maybe a few words on how sustainable you want the institution to be and what you would do around the resilience, not just to speech and speech that was not palatable perhaps, but also around environmental change?
Aoifinn Devitt: That’s such a good question because you were talking about sustainability. One of the really important things is to widen access so that you are not going to miss the next Einstein because they can’t get to university because they can’t survive because financially it’s too difficult for them. I mean, it’s really interesting to note that in, I think it was about 2022, there was a report that said that 1 in 4 of the young people at age of 18 in the Northeast can expect to go into higher education, whereas it’s around 50% in the Southeast. And if Einstein, and in fact, interestingly, Einstein’s wife was thought to be the actual writer of a lot of his papers, but of course, because of the way that women were treated at the time, she was sidelined. And so that says a lot. So if young Tina Einstein is sitting in the Northeast of England, she has a much lesser chance of going into higher education than she would if she was sitting in the Southeast. Well, that is completely ludicrous, and it’s, it’s bad not just for her but for the economic growth of the country as well as the prospects of excellence within the education establishment. So I really strongly advocate widening access, and in order to do that, it does mean that we need to think about how we create a more stable revenue stream for universities and the maintenance grants, whether it be through bursaries, grants, loans, accessibility for the students. So yeah, that sustainability question is a really, really big one. And as I say, it’s great that the Blueprint for Growth has been published asking all of these questions and really exhorting the sector to look at itself in a transformative way. And I mentioned the farsightedness of the Vice Chancellor of Coventry. These are points that he’s been making for quite some time. So I was actually really pleased to see them so deeply enshrined in the blueprint.
Margaret Casely-Hayford: Well, we have a lot to talk about clearly, and this may only end up being part 1 of this set of podcasts, but I’d love you to just, in order to wrap up, it’d be great if you could capture for us a creed or motto that you live by or any words of wisdom that capture the essence of your personality and your commitment to academic life?
Aoifinn Devitt: I think I probably said this when we spoke last time, that I’ve had a motto that I’ve lived by for some time: I can, I will, just watch me. And I think it’s something for many women and also ethnic minorities to think about, because we, we tend to be marginalized because of who we are. We therefore have to prove ourselves. And there’s— you walk into the room and you can feel the doubt.
Speaker C: You walk into the room and you.
Aoifinn Devitt: Can see people thinking, have you come to make the tea. And I do think it’s really important that we bear in mind the fact that we’ve got that slight burden to bear. I mean, it’s slightly, it’s gradually going. People have greater trust in our ability, but I’m happy to break ceilings to demonstrate what I can do and hopefully to allow others to let the light shine on others. And I was just thinking about the fact that it’s almost a millennium since Oxford was founded as a learning institution. And it’s never yet had a female chancellor. So that’s a, what is it, a 950-year glass ceiling, which I think apart from sort of the religious institutions is probably the world’s oldest glass ceiling. And it would be really fantastic to break through that and just go, “I can, I will, just watch me.”.
Margaret Casely-Hayford: And indeed, I will take away from this your lifelong commitment to taking a stand. To being a first, to having a principal position on almost every topic, and to seeing that through with commitment and grit. And thank you so much for coming here, Margaret, and having this conversation with us.
Aoifinn Devitt: Oh, thank you for asking me. It’s been a great pleasure. Thank you very much indeed.
Margaret Casely-Hayford: I’m Aoifinn Devitt. Thank you for listening to the 50 Faces Podcast. If you liked what you heard and would like to tune in to hear more inspiring investors and their personal journeys, Please subscribe on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast is for information only and should not be construed as investment or legal advice. All views are personal and should not be attributed to the organizations of the host or any guest.
