Oxford college to be renamed after budget airline tycoon who made £155m donation

An Oxford college has announced it will be renamed after a wealthy Vietnamese benefactor.

Linacre College will become Thao College, named after Nguyen Thi Phuong Thao, a budget airline magnate who is Vietnam’s first self-made female billionaire.

The graduate college, which was founded in 1962, is currently named after the distinguished humanist and physician Thomas Linacre, who was born in Canterbury in the mid-fifteenth century.

The college was named after Linacre to commemorate him as “an outstanding Renaissance figure” whose accomplishments “established him as one of the great scholars of his time”.

Another reason for the college to take Linacre’s name was because it hoped to reflect his “breadth of learning in its own multi-disciplinary purpose and ideals”.

But the college announced this week that it would change its name in exchange for a “landmark gift” of £155 million from Ms Thao’s company, Sovico Group.

The announcement was met with mixed feelings among Oxford dons. Dr Maria Kawthar Daouda, a lecturer in French literature at Oxford University, said that college names should not be altered simply because “a major gift has been made”.

She said that the name Linacre “bears a deep history”, adding: “Thankfulness for Madam Thao’s money could be expressed in ways that do not erase what the donation is meant to protect.”

Meanwhile, others felt more sympathetic with the decision, saying it was the “American way” for universities to accept large donations and naming an institution after the benefactor in return.

“If this were one of the great historic colleges one would have deep reservations,” one don told The Telegraph. “But as it's a modern college and has not got a big endowment, one can understand the decision. If someone is going to put in a colossal amount of money, it’s not unreasonable to have something to show for it.”

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Patrick Major, a history professor at Reading University, said: “I personally would have some reservations about the commercialisation of this. I’m more familiar with a single building within an institution being named after benefactors but not whole colleges.

“There are some examples in the US, but I think it is fairly alien to the British experience. I think rather than buildings being named after people in the commercial or business sector I would rather see things done for people in public life.”

Ms Thao was born in 1970 in Hanoi, north Vietnam. She began to build her fortune at age 21 while studying at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics in Moscow, where she began importing fax machines, plastic and rubber into the then Soviet Union.

In 2007, she launched VietJet Air as the first privately run low-cost airline in Vietnam which became known as the “bikini airline” after it ran an advertising campaign featuring bikini-clad flight attendants.

A decade later, she took the company public and in doing so became South East Asia’s only female billionaire.

Ms Thao is chairman of Sovico Holdings, the parent company of VietJet Air, which invests in a number of real estate and energy projects.

“I believe that Oxford is the right place to make my long-time desire to contribute to humanity through education, training and research come true,” she said.

“By donating to Linacre College, we hope to make significant contributions to enrich Oxford’s traditions and reputation.”

Linacre College is not the first to change its name following a large donation. Oxford’s Harris Manchester college was originally called Manchester College but changed its name following a donation from Baron Harris, a British businessman who made a fortune in the carpet industry.

Cambridge’s Murray Edwards College was founded as New Hall in 1954, but changed its name in 2008 to honour its alumna Ros Edwards, who donated £30 million, and its first president, Dame Rosemary Murray.

After studying at Oxford in the 1480s, Linacre travelled through Italy studying Greek and Latin, where he built a reputation as one of the leading humanist scholars of his day. His pupils included Desiderius Erasmus, Sir Thomas More, John Colet and Queen Mary I.

Linacre was later called to court to become the physician to King Henry VIII and went on to found the Royal College of Physicians.

Dr Ian Bullock, chief executive of the Royal College of Physicians, said: “We fully understand why this change is being made – educational bodies need to concentrate on their core purpose and, while history is of course important, so too is opening up the sort of opportunities for the students of the future that this donation will provide.

“The Royal College of Physicians will continue to ensure that its founder's contribution to medicine is remembered and celebrated.”

Dr Nick Brown, Principal of Linacre College, said: “We are determined that Linacre should continue to nurture the finest academic talent, whatever their background or country of birth.

“I am immensely grateful to Sovico chairwoman Madam Thao for her deep commitment to furthering academic excellence in perpetuity. This will help sustain our student support and research at the highest international level.”

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