Young P Dawkins III

My remit as Vice Principal for Development at Edinburgh University is to help organise and run the £350 million fundraising campaign for the university. 

It’s the third largest campaign in the UK and the largest for a university in Scotland. We’ve raised £200 million so far… so we’re doing well.

It’s very exciting to be in Scotland, at the cutting edge, as European universities begin to look at ways of financing higher education.  I’m from Portsmouth in New Hampshire, in the USA. I’ve been in Scotland since June 2005, living in Edinburgh. 

I came here through my connection with CASE (Council for the Advancement and Support of Education Europe). I’d been in London for a fundraising trip and been contacted by a job search firm. The firm stayed in touch and told me about Edinburgh University. I said “but I don’t know anyone in Scotland”.

However, I promised to come and have a look. I knew nothing about Scotland before I arrived and had no family connections. I came in November 2004 thinking the weather would be awful and people would be dour. I got off the plane to a perfect blue sky and sunshine. The people were brilliant and Edinburgh was the prettiest city I’d ever seen in my life.

On the flight home, I made up my mind that when I moved to Scotland I would really move to Scotland. Edinburgh University is such an amazingly exciting place just now. It’s a Scottish university that is truly international in scope. In fact, I have just come back from Beijing. The Chinese students at Edinburgh University don’t stay around when term is over so we went through a graduation degree ceremony with students in China – it was colourful and wonderful – the international reach makes it so exciting.

There are so many things to see here I just don’t know where to start. My favourite thing about Scotland is the people – warm, generous and incredibly funny. I also like the sense of pride.

I’m just about to go back to the USA to a Beat Poetry festival, which I am a big fan of. Beat Poetry started in the 50s/60s with Jack Kerouac and the writers of the Beat Generation. There has been a revival in the last ten years in the USA and it’s catching on here too. I’m reading some Beat Poetry in The Jazz Bar in Chambers Street in Edinburgh. My undergraduate degree was in Creative Writing so I’ve always been interested in poetry. Beat Poetry involves standing, reading your work with a band, with no rehearsal, so the music and the words just find each other – when it works, it’s pretty amazing. 

Many of my friends asked how I could leave the USA in my mid-50s.  I’d never lived abroad but it’s the best decision I’ve ever made in my life. I am very happy here and don’t plan on going anywhere else again.