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Kennedy Scholarships provide full funding for up to ten British post-graduate students to study at either Harvard University or the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). [1] Susan Hockfield, the sixteenth president of MIT, described the scholarship program as a way to "offer exceptional students unique opportunities to broaden their intellectual and personal horizons, in ways that are more important than ever in an era defined by global interaction.". [2] In 2007, 163 applications were received, of which 10 were ultimately selected, for an acceptance rate of 6.1%. [3]
Following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, Sir Alec Douglas-Home, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, set about creating a national British memorial in his memory. He consulted with Harold Wilson (the Leader of HM's Loyal Opposition), Sir David Ormsby-Gore (British Ambassador to the United States), Dean Rusk (United States Secretary of State) and the Kennedy family. It was agreed that Douglas-Home would establish a committee, chaired by Lord Franks (former British Ambassador to the United States of America), to make recommendations on the form of the memorial to President Kennedy. [4]
Following wide consultation, Franks wrote to the Prime Minister to recommend that the memorial should be in two parts: a living memorial, in the form of a scholarship to attend either Harvard or MIT, and a permanent memorial site in Runnymede, England, the site of the Magna Carta. This location was chosen because it was regarded as the birthplace of the freedoms which President Kennedy promised to uphold. The John F. Kennedy Memorial Act 1964 was passed into legislation to enact and manage the two memorials.
The Kennedy family have been strong supporters of the British Kennedy memorial since its creation. Prior to the United States' entry into the Second World War, Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. served as the United States Ambassador to the United Kingdom. In 1965, Jacqueline Kennedy and Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom unveiled the memorial at Runnymede. It consists of a Portland stone memorial tablet within natural woodland and meadow, where the visitor is invited on a journey, resembling that in Pilgrim's Progress ; the journey through what is seen is mirrored by a deeper one into the unseen landscape of life, death and spirit. The stone is inscribed with the famous quote from Kennedy's Inaugural Address given on 20 January 1961:
Let every Nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend or oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and success of liberty.
Senator Edward Kennedy described the program as the most ambitious of all the memorials to his brother, and he was a passionate supporter of the Kennedy Scholarships until his death in August 2009. [5]
Since 1964, all UK Kennedy Memorial Trust trustees have been appointed by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. [6] Various prominent individuals have previously served as trustees. These include:
The current trustees [7] are:
More than 550 individuals have been awarded a Kennedy Scholarship. Selection follows a national competition which begins each autumn. A long-list and short-list are chosen and then around twenty-five individuals are invited to London for interview by the trustees.
When evaluating applications and interviewing candidates, the trustees take into consideration candidates':
They may also look for: originality of mind, commitment to public service, potential to make a mark in public life and the ability to overcome adversity
The selection aims, criteria and standards are comparable to the Rhodes Scholarship and Marshall Scholarship programs. [9]
Prominent former scholars include:
Harvard Kennedy School (HKS), officially the John F. Kennedy School of Government, is the school of public policy and government of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The school has routinely ranked as the best, or among the best, of the world's public policy graduate schools. Harvard Kennedy School offers master's degrees in public policy, public administration, and international development, four doctoral degrees, and various executive education programs. It conducts research in subjects relating to politics, government, international affairs, and economics. As of 2021, HKS had an endowment of $1.7 billion. It is a member of the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs (APSIA), a global consortium of schools that trains leaders in international affairs.
Peter John Hennessy, Baron Hennessy of Nympsfield, is an English historian and academic specialising in the history of government. Since 1992, he has been Attlee Professor of Contemporary British History at Queen Mary University of London.
The Thouron Award is a postgraduate scholarship established in 1960 by Sir John R. H. Thouron, K.B.E., and Esther du Pont Thouron. It is generally regarded as one of the most prestigious and competitive academic awards globally, alongside the Oxford Rhodes and Stanford Knight-Hennessy Scholars programs. It was created to strengthen the "special relationship" between the United States and the United Kingdom through educational exchange between British universities and the University of Pennsylvania. Through the programme the Thourons sought to nourish and develop Anglo-American friendship by ensuring that, in the years to come, a growing number of the leading citizens of these two countries would have a thorough understanding of their trans-Atlantic neighbours. In the years since its founding, the Thouron Award has sponsored programs of graduate study for more than 650 fellows, known as Thouron Scholars.
Rhodes House is a building part of the University of Oxford in England. It is located on South Parks Road in central Oxford, and was built in memory of Cecil Rhodes, an alumnus of the university and a major benefactor. It is listed Grade II* on the National Heritage List for England.
Schwarzman Scholars, founded by American financier and philanthropist Stephen A. Schwarzman, is a one-year fully-funded master's degree leadership program at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China. The program selects 100–200 scholars per year based on their leadership ability, academic achievement, and commitment to advancing mutual cultural understanding and global progress. Selected scholars pursue a one-year master's degree in global affairs at Tsinghua University, residing at Schwarzman College.
The Glasgow Academy is a coeducational private day school for pupils aged 3–18 in Glasgow, Scotland. In 2016, it had the third-best Higher level exam results in Scotland. Founded in 1845, it is the oldest continuously fully private school in Glasgow.
What was originally called Harvard Colledge (around which Harvard University eventually grew) held its first Commencement in September 1642, when nine degrees were conferred. Today some 1700 undergraduate degrees, and 5000 advanced degrees from the university's various graduate and professional schools, are conferred each Commencement Day.
Jane Eliza Procter Fellowships are scholarships supporting academic research at Princeton University. The Fellowships were endowed by William Cooper Procter in 1921–22, and named after his wife, Jane Eliza Johnston Procter (1864–1953). The original terms of the Fellowships were for three awards, "each with an annual stipend of two thousand dollars, upon which each year two British and one French scholar will have the privilege of residence in the Princeton Graduate College, and of pursuing advanced study and investigation". The Fellowships were to be appointed annually on the recommendation of the University of Oxford, the University of Cambridge, and the École Normale Supérieure.
The Charles and Julia Henry Fellowships were initiated in 1930. The fellowship funds four full-time post-graduate students every year at Harvard University, Yale University, the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford. Two students from any British university are funded to study in the US, and two American students from Harvard and Yale are funded to study at Cambridge and Oxford.