She discusses her stellar academic career and encounters with sexism along the way including a review of her TV show by influential critic A A Gill where he tore into her looks He promptly walked over to his desk, started writing, and came back with a cheque. Worried about being unable to afford the £250 it cost to have her PhD thesis typed, she shared her concerns with her supervisor, ‘a quirky but extremely kind bachelor don’. She herself benefited from a financial leg-up at the start of her academic career. The gesture will also give her a sense of satisfaction at a promise fulfilled. You could never doubt Professor Beard’s passion for her subject, or her commitment to opening it up to ‘those who are not posh, basically’. Some are put off going to university completely but - and this is perhaps more the point here - some are put off a subject like Classics, where there is not an obvious career path afterwards.’ ‘A lot of students, particularly those who don’t come from families with histories of going to university, are put off by the debt involved.
It will ‘give people who need it a leg-up’, she says, while also perhaps sending out a wider message about Cambridge ‘meaning what we say about inclusion and diversity’. It’s an incredibly generous gesture, but one she is utterly convinced is ‘the right thing to do’. It was announced last week that, when she retires, Professor Beard will be donating £80,000 to set up scholarships which will fund two students from disadvantaged backgrounds through a Classics degree at Cambridge.
She certainly won’t be spending her pension on pedicures. The academic, who presents Inside Culture on the BBC, thinks it's healthy for veteran professors to bow out, saying: 'It lets new people in at the bottom'
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