Wolmer’s Boys past student David Salmon is 2023 Rhodes Scholar
November 11, 2022
Twenty-two-year-old David Rhoden Salmon is the 2023 Rhodes Scholar for Jamaica.
He was one of 11 candidates – seven males and four females – who vied for the highly acclaimed scholarship award this year.
The announcement was made on Thursday (Nov. 10) by Governor-General, His Excellency the Most Hon. Sir Patrick Allen, during a brief ceremony at King’s House after a full day of interviews of the candidates.
A former student of Wolmer’s Boys School in Kingston, Mr. Salmon has an undergraduate degree in Public Policy and Management with a Minor in International Relations from the University of the West Indies (UWI).
He is pursuing a Master of Philosophy in Development Studies at the University of Cambridge after receiving the HRH Prince of Wales Scholarship.
As the 2023 Rhodes Scholar, Mr. Salmon will head to Oxford University in the United Kingdom (UK) to study for a Doctor of Philosophy.
He will join more than 100 scholars from around the world to undertake fully sponsored postgraduate studies and become part of a global community of people determined to make a positive difference in the world.
Mr. Salmon has an impressive résumé of accomplishments, including as founder of the New Jamaica Foundation, which is an organisation dedicated to promoting youth development.
He was a recipient of the Governor-General Achievement Award for the parish of St. Andrew in 2021, for academic performance and community involvement, as well as the Prime Minister National Youth Award for nation building in 2019.
In his remarks, the Governor-General noted that the selection committee had difficulty choosing the winner from among “an outstanding group of scholars”.
“By far, for the past 14 years, I have been chairing the committee and it has never been so difficult. It was a walk in the park in former years in comparison to what we had to do this year,” he said.
He encouraged the other candidates to try again. “Don’t give up, never give up,” he said.
In an interview following the announcement, Mr. Salmon said that being named the 2023 Rhodes Scholar was a dream come true, noting that the opportunity will better enable him to give back to the country.
“This is something that I have aspired for since I was 15 when my alma mater, Wolmer’s Boy’s School, had its last Rhodes Scholar, Tariq Parker. He came to our school and gave an address and I looked up to him from then and said, ‘I want to be like this person in the future’,” he noted.
Beaming with joy, Mr. Salmon’s mother, Donnahue Rhoden Salmon expressed how proud she was of her son. “You did it,” she exclaimed as she embraced him.
The Rhodes Scholarship, based at the University of Oxford since 1903, is the world’s pre-eminent and oldest graduate fellowship. It has been awarded to one outstanding applicant from Jamaica every year since 1904.
Source: Jamaica Information Service, November 11, 2022. Republished for the Wolmer’s Trust community with attribution.
