These photos are from a barbeque at Eastman House in Oxford to celebrate a fellowship that brings an American scholar to Oxford every year.

The smiling man is Don Markwell, the wonderful new Warden of Rhodes House. He has taken a very formal and in some ways not-current institution with a rich and complex tradition, and in just over a year has turned it into a vibrant, joyful, inclusive community of idealistic young people from all over the world. He has opened up Rhodes House, the imposing, almost mausoleum-like structure built by the Founder, and hosts informal, happy gatherings for otherwise homesick young people in which he circulates bearing trays of steak fries and dip, making everyone feel warmly welcomed and at home. And he is totally committed to supporting these young people as leaders, as conscientious contributors to their own and global society, and also to supporting them as human beings.

It is very inspiring when the head of an important or influential organization is actually as admirable as the ideals set out in the mission statement — in some ways more so, if you know about the complicated (ie racist, colonialist) origins of the Rhodes Scholarship.

The young women you see are this year’s and last years Rhodes scholars, mostly (in the photo) from the US — some world-class swimmers, and scientists, and engineers. And the white-haired lady is an aristiocratic philanthropist with a great deal of vision and a very humble, low-key demeanor who helped to endow the Eastman fellowship — who served in the equivalent of the State Department as a young woman after the War — and who in peacetime helped decorate the house for the Eastman Fellow — which in itself is a biography of a certain stratum of womanhood in the mid-twentieth century. She too was so impressive.

The blond lady is Margaret McCabe, another one of my new pantheon of role models (like Don Markwell) — former Australian human rights lawyer, former Blair advisor, current founder of a great organization called DebateMate that trains bright high school students in places like Nepal Rwanda and Palestine in the art of Oxford debate – using Oxford debate champions like my friend the brilliant Will Jones. These kids come from shantytowns and slums and go on to Oxford and Cambridge. She too is passionate about the spread of civil society skills and democracy — and doing something important about it.

All photos by James Howe.

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