Patrick Hickey, HBA '19, has been named a recipient of the Rhodes Scholarship, one of only 11 Canadian students to earn the esteemed award this year, Rhodes Trust officials announced today.
Hickey becomes the 24th Rhodes Scholar in Western history, and the third recipient from the Ivey Business School. Past Ivey recipients are Brian Coulter, HBA '09, and Joelle Faulkner, HBA '05.
Hickey joins a class of 100 from more than 60 countries worldwide to receive this distinguished scholarship to study at the University of Oxford next year. Since the scholarship was established in 1903, nearly 8,000 Rhodes Scholars, including more than 1,000 Canadians, have gone on to serve at the forefront of government, the professions, commerce, the arts, education, research and other domains.
“The scholarships call for and recognize a set of timeless virtues – intellectual excellence, strength of character, energy to strive, commitment to serve and instinct to lead,” said Richard Pan, Canadian Secretary of the Rhodes Trust and Chair for the Rhodes Scholarships in Canada. “We are proud of the opportunities the scholarships provide to our most talented, passionate and charismatic university graduates.”
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The scholars were selected in a highly competitive process administered by six regional committees composed of Rhodes Scholars and eminent members of the community. The committees worked independently and made their decisions on the basis of applications, university endorsements, letters of reference and in-person interviews held across the country.
Hickey was nominated by the Newfoundland region.
“The eleven scholarship winners show the world the best of Canada,” Pan continued. “The selection committees were moved by the impressive intellect, incredible passion and dynamism with which each is applying their remarkable talents to making the world a better place. We look forward to going on this exciting journey with them as their actions and accomplishments will be making all of us proud for many years to come.”
Currently, Hickey is a Global Investment Banking Analyst with RBC Capital Markets.
With an interest in economic resilience and the fishing industry, the St. John’s, N.L., native plans to pursue a career that embraces culture and uses business to generate returns for the economy, for people, and for the environment.
After Oxford, he plans to return to Newfoundland to help redefine the province’s economy for the future.
The accomplishment is quite an academic career bookend for Hickey, 22, who entered university with a Loran Foundation Scholarship, Canada’s largest undergraduate merit award, and now exits with the world’s most prestigious postgraduate scholarship.
At Western, he started in the Bachelor in Management and Organizational Studies (BMOS) program, where he “enjoyed studying a wide array of social science courses during these two years from philosophy to anthropology to personal finance.”
Once at Ivey Business School, he pursued a business education “as an interdisciplinary tool to use to better understand and empower individuals and communities to make positive change,” he said.
There, he found himself “surrounded by remarkable individuals. Section mates, professors, faculty, facilities and hospitality staff, and special guests at Ivey all bring a wealth of knowledge and experience with them to the school. It was constantly humbling to learn from them all.”
Throughout his education, Hickey has been a tireless advocate for mental wellness.
At Holy Heart of Mary High School in St. John’s, Hickey contributed provincially and nationally to address youth mental health. He founded the Metro Youth Mental Health Committee, a student group with representatives from all 13 high schools in the St. John’s area.
Hickey became intrigued by mental-health issues among youth in Canada’s North. He joined the youth-led organization North in Focus and organized workshops for Inuit youth to discuss topics including substance abuse and suicide, as well as helped identify ways they could better access mental-health resources.
“It’s really just about being compassionate to others,” Hickey said in a 2017 Western News interview. “You’ll never be able to solve the crisis around mental-health issues, but all of it – a national mental-health strategy, a campus-wide mental-health campaign, a conversation you have with a friend – is just to be compassionate.
“We need to take care of each other. What if we’re not meant to take care of ourselves, but what if we’re meant to care for each other? If you bring yourself to the highest level of integrity and generosity, and be as compassionate as you know how, we can get pretty far. The whole idea of wanting to care for each other – that should be everyone’s responsibility and interest. It’s what everybody owes each other.”
In 2017, the Canadian Red Cross honoured Hickey with the Young Humanitarian Award for Newfoundland and Labrador.
Among many outreach efforts, he has volunteered with the Mental Health & Addictions Advisory Council to the Minister of Health & Community Services for Newfoundland and Labrador; Kids Help Phone Advisory Council; Mental Health Commission of Canada Youth Council; and Western Residence.
Established by British mining magnate and South African politician of Cecil John Rhodes in 1902, the Rhodes Scholarship offers two years of all-expenses-paid postgraduate study at the University of Oxford, valued at more than $60,000. Rhodes Scholars have included Nobel Prize laureates, Fields Medalists, Turing Award winners, with names such as former Canadian Prime Minister John Turner and former U.S. President Bill Clinton.
Four criteria govern and guide the selection of Rhodes Scholars: Literary and scholastic attainments; energy to use one's talents to the full; truth, courage, devotion to duty, sympathy for and protection of the weak, kindliness, unselfishness and fellowship; and moral force of character and instincts to lead, and to take an interest in one’s fellow beings.
According to the Rhodes Trust, the overall global acceptance rate stands at 0.7 per cent, making it one of the most competitive scholarships in the world.
PROUD LEGACY
Patrick Hickey, HBA ’19, has been named a recipient of the esteemed Rhodes Scholarship, an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford, Rhodes Trust officials announced today.
One of only 11 Canadian students honoured this year, Hickey becomes the 24th Rhodes Scholar in Western history.
Patrick Hickey, HBA 2019
Levi Hord, BA 2018
Saumya Krishna, BHSc 2013
Brian Coulter, BESc, HBA 2009
Joelle Faulkner, BESc, HBA 2005
Maureen Hogan, BSc 2001
Samir Sinha, MD 2000
Dilip Ninan, BA 1998
Richard Pan, BA 1997
Javed Siddiqi, BSc 1984
Andrew Sean Nevin, BSc, MA 1980, 1981
Stephen Kevin Burley, BSc 1980
John Alexander Stilborn, PhD 1979
Jonathan Michael Borwein, BA 1971
Colin Gordon Andrew Brezicki, BA 1970
David Michael Grace, MD 1964
James Montague Farley, BA 1962
John Hugh MacLennan, DLitt 1952 (honorary degree)
Benson Andrus Wilson, BSc 1948
Ramsay Willis Gunton, MD 1945
James Frederick Grandy, BA 1941
Rev. Kenneth Elder Taylor, BD 1933
Angus Duncan McLachlin, MD, MSc 1932-1933
Dalton Gilbert Dean, BA 1931
