Professor Rana Mitter is an academic working on the history and politics of modern China and has been teaching at Oxford for over two decades. That topic was not directly because he learned about China at Lancing – neither China nor Chinese were subjects of study in those days – but because the school enabled him to explore subjects in depth on topics well beyond what he had known growing up in Sussex. Above all, he had superb language teaching – classical languages, French and even some Russian – which must have stimulated him to go on to learn a language even further removed from everyday life in 1980s Britain. 

Over the years, Rana has worked in areas that sit in a different place from his purely academic work, and he would link those areas to interests he was able to develop at Lancing.  One is his role as a broadcaster: since 2016 he has been a regular presenter for Radio 3’s arts programme Free Thinking. His first interest in journalism came at school, though, working not only on the College Magazine, but also on a rather less official mini-tabloid that was produced in slightly more informal circumstances (they even had their own bingo competition at one point…)  Another role is as a foreign policy adviser: over the years, he has given advice to policymakers in different countries on China and Asia issues.  Rana thinks that political interest was stimulated by one of his happiest memories at Lancing, winning (with Stephanie Young, Manor 1986-1988) the Observer Mace National Schools Debating Championships in 1987. This summer Rana takes up a new job abroad, as S.T. Lee Chair in US-Asia relations at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government – a role which will bring together teaching, learning, public education and public policy, all of which he can trace back to elements of his Lancing life.