Wonderful interview (video since removed) with Shelby and Gale Davis. Mr. Davis started his career at the Bank of New York before founding an investment management firm that eventually became Davis Selected Advisers. His father, Shelby Cullom Davis, was also a successful investor and later in his career served as the US ambassador to Switzerland. In the interview, Mr. Davis talks about the “learn, earn, return” roadmap for his life and why, together with Phil Geier, he founded the Davis United World College Scholars Program, the world’s largest, privately funded, international scholarship program.
On his family background: his parents met at Columbia University and moved to Geneva for 4 years in the 1930s; they went there as graduate students to IHEID, as it was not easy to get a job during the Great Depression. His mother earned a PhD in Russian history and also wrote a book about the Russians at the League of Nations. His father earned a PhD in political science and wrote his dissertation about military personnel in Africa. Geneva in the 1930s was the home of the League of Nations, the forerunner to the UN. By the time he was a teenager, the family was living back in the US, but his parents would have their friends from all over the world visit the house. So he got a lot of international exposure at an early age from his parents and that became a passion later on in life. His father was also a successful entrepreneur and investor and pounded into his head from an early age that the only place you will find success before work is in the dictionary. At the same time, his mother used to say to him you will never be recognized or known for the amount of money you make, but you might be remembered a little bit for what you do with it.
On how he got to know about the UWCs: it was serendipity. His parents had brought him up with a simple roadmap for life. The first 30 years of your life, focus on learning. The next 30 years, focus on earning (your career, in other words). And the last 30 years or so, focus on returning, particularly if you have been lucky or successful. So there he was, approaching the 60 year old mark in the early 2000s. The internet was spreading, the digitization of everything was happening and it seemed that borders were becoming sort of irrelevant. He thought that more international students from a wide array of countries would be a good thing at American colleges. And then in the same year, while on a skiing holiday in New Mexico, he met Phil Geier, the president of the UWC-USA, on a chairlift. Phil got him to visit the campus a few months later for an international show, where all the students put on a concert about their respective cultures. He was immediately hooked and as he looked around at the audience, he thought to himself this is how Americans need to learn about the world, by bringing the world to America and at a formative age.
On his motivation: part of it is that he wants the international students to teach Americans what it is like to live in other countries, the circumstances, politics etc. For example, the Adriatic College in Duino is located between Trieste and Monfalcone, which has a very complicated history – the school is right on the line where the fiercest fighting took place, there are still bullet holes in the building across the street. It is hard to change these old rivalries but it is worth trying to do and over time with more travel and more exposure perhaps we can get over some of these things. The Gaza Strip was in the headlines when he was a student at Princeton in 1957 and the headline that week was “Secretary of State races to Cairo to help create a cease fire on the Gaza Strip”. This was 60+ years ago but you could be reading that headline at any time. If you are an optimist, you do the best you can and hopefully war will become obsolete.
On why he supports UWC students: one of the things that is different about the UWCs is they are boarding schools and that is a huge difference when you are living away from family at a formative age. You are in an environment where there are ~200 students from 70-80 countries on campus and you are never roomed with anybody from your own country. So everybody is in the same boat and they learn to respect differences and still get along. They often come out of UWC and ask themselves a simple question: why can’t the whole world work like a UWC? Supporting the students is an easy decision. They have proven to him by their selection process that they have what he calls “winning” habits – the students are recruited by their national committees via a very competitive process, placed into a foreign country they have often never visited, they take all their classes in English which often isn’t even their first language and their grades are being determined by international standards.
On his metrics for success: he is educating kids that have a global outlook and wherever they work, live etc., they will be a force for good in that community. Their impact may not be on the whole world, it may just be in their community. The program has graduated almost 10,000 kids to date and they are spread all over the world, many of them are in business, non-profits and other fields. He is agnostic about what they do so long as they are a force for good, that’s all he can ask for. He tells them he didn’t write a letter on their behalf, he didn’t even know them, they have done it all on their own – he provides some money, but they got there on their own. And over time, maybe some of the graduates want to match his giving. He is only funding about half the cost of these students – he would prefer to have a graduate have their name ahead of his if they are willing to match him. That is something he would like to see, more graduate participation in giving back. He always tells people it doesn’t matter where you go to college, it matters what you do when you are there. Focus on doing the best you can, taking the most advantage of the resources available.