Deborah McDowall established a bursary fund for a rural/regional student to assist in reducing costs for the recipient’s senior schooling. This may be a bursary for three years (Years 10 – 12) or two years, (Year 11 and 12). 

In the first instance, from 2025, this bursary will be offered for a 2- or 3-year period for a student, before another student is offered the opportunity. It is intended into the future (time unspecified) that each year there will be a Glasgow McDowall Bursary recipient at Fairholme College.

Deborah McDowall is the great great granddaughter of Mrs Margaret Cameron, who lived at the Fairholme site and sold her home to the Presbyterian Church in 1917 with the express requirement that it become a school for girls. This was Mrs Cameron’s passion: good education for girls.

Deborah is a Queenslander who spent the first five years of her schooling through correspondence, became a weekly boarder at age ten and later, as a full-time boarding student in NSW. Later, she attended university and undertook and completed a Bachelor of Science. She understands the tyranny of distance and the way in which this can impact educational opportunity and hence future opportunities.

Deborah is very keen for a student from a rural or regional background who cannot continue her schooling in her home area, due to distance, offerings, or lack of a senior campus, to be considered for this bursary. Additionally, the recipient would be aspirational – able to articulate her intentions for study or work after school and have supporting evidence that indicates the likelihood of this. 

Deborah has a great niece currently boarding at Fairholme, a niece who was a boarder, and other great nieces who have attended as boarders. There is a strong attachment to Fairholme, but of greater motivation is Deborah’s interest in providing a future for girls into the future, through a rich educational experience and the ensuing opportunities.