As an alumna of Oxford Modern Languages, and one who is deeply concerned about the future of the discipline in the United Kingdom, I am always keen to speak up in favour of languages. The news over the past few months has been unremittingly gloomy with university departments closing and fewer options available in schools. Fortunately, Oxford’s commitment to languages is as strong as ever and I have been wondering about ways of helping the Faculty ensure other students might have the same possibilities I had forty years ago. Regular small donations (e.g. via the Living Languages fund) are obviously excellent, but a chat with a development officer led to me meeting Spencer Wisdom who is the head of the ‘Legacies’ section. What better way, I thought, of helping language students of the future, than by leaving a gift in my will. Although I am intending to live for many more years, I feel it is about time I started considering what matters to me and how I can best continue to support the world-class teaching, research and study which I was lucky enough to enjoy—even after my death.
During our chat over coffee Spencer answered all the questions I had. He reassured me on several points: legacies to Oxford have charitable gift status and are therefore tax free in the United Kingdom (as in Canada, the USA and several other countries) so they are a means of making your money go a long way. The most usual legacies are in the form of a sum of money—the father of one of my undergraduate friends left £10, 000 in his will which has gone towards a scholarship in Modern Languages. Sometimes they might be shares or property—and this can come in many guises. Spencer mentioned that the office is currently dealing with the estate of an impressive linguist who, although not an alumna, made an unusual bequest to Oxford: Ann Orr-Ewing. A Section Head for counter-espionage at MI5, and the most senior woman of her generation in the service, she had a love of all things French—including Charolais cattle which she bred on her farm in Wiltshire. Ann generously left the farm and herd to the University to fund scholarships—and her favourite cow is now living out the remainder of her days on a local petting farm, bringing joy to visitors young and old.
Like most fellow alumni, I presume, I have no cows to hand on which, when the time comes, should make my case easier (though less picturesque) to deal with. One of the best ways of giving something, for me, would apparently be to leave my ‘residual estate’ to the Faculty. This means that all my individual legacies to family and friends (whether a flat, a piece of jewellery, an artwork, a sum of money…) would be handed out first and the University would then get the leftover (still tax-free) for Modern Languages.
I also asked whether I could potentially include my College in a legacy to Modern Languages. I was reassured that this is not a problem at all: should I so wish, I could say, for instance, that I want the money to go towards a scholarship for a student reading Modern Languages in my old College.
When talking to Spencer and members of the Faculty I was struck by the fact that lack of funding is the overriding reason for those holding an offer for a graduate place at Oxford to turn it down. This means talented individuals are missing out for the wrong reasons. Whilst a legacy gift from me will not, alas, solve the problem for every one of those graduates, it could go a long way towards endowing a fully-funded scholarship so we can continue to ensure that the very best students are able to come to study at Oxford.
Top tip: during my chat with Spencer, I discovered that his office runs a series of bespoke visits around Oxford (and occasional London events) for those who have remembered the University in their will. They allow attendants to see both familiar and unfamiliar (often ‘behind the scenes’) locations in small groups. I am going to put my name down on the list for one very soon. For any information about them (or any other aspect of donations) you can email legacies@devoff.ox.ac.uk