UWC Patron Shelby Davis visits RBC Campus
On Easter Monday, we had the privilege of welcoming philanthropists Gale and Shelby Davis as well as Jake Mnookin from the Davis UWC Scholars Program to our campus and give them a glimpse into life at RBC – through a campus tour, conversations with our students and alumni, an excursion into our school garden and a student-organized café.
“The day”, said our Rector Helen White, “was a genuine expression of gratitude for the transformational role that Shelby Davis has played in UWC’s mission. What stood out above all was the spirit shown by our students as well as staff, and alumni. Their warmth, openness, and authenticity conveyed the impact of the Davis‘ philanthropy in a way that was both personal and profound and offered a living testament to the power of education to build bridges and transform lives.”
The Davis United World College Scholars Program is the world’s largest international scholarship programme for undergraduates, and has helped over ten thousand UWC alumni to attend US colleges and universities. This academic year, it counted over 4,500 enrolled scholars from 164 countries on 106 American college and university campuses. Through this program, Shelby and Gale Davis have been supporting the UWC movement for 25 years.
Davis has also supported the Davis-UWC-IMPACT Challenge, with which he encouraged donations to UWC schools by offering match-funding. The launch of the 2018 Davis-UWC Dare to Dream Programme, meanwhile, enabled 100 new students from disadvantaged backgrounds to attend UWC every year. From 2021, this support has been doubled through a match-funding initiative, leading to a total of 300 Davis-UWC Dare to Dream scholarships.
In the Davis-UWC 2025 Impact report, it says that „our program continues to extend and deepen the United World College mission of valuing diversity and fostering mutual respect among people of vastly different backgrounds. We are reminded every day that building community out of difference is the defining challenge of the 21st century. Our philanthropy purposefully invests in global scholars and in American partner institutions which embrace and model this mission.
