A FUNDRAISING drive has been launched to help people from disadvantaged backgrounds get a university education, in memory of a York lecturer who died after suffering severe long Covid.

Dr Ed Rooksby is also to receive a posthumous award from the University of York to celebrate his significant achievements in teaching and learning support.

The Vice-Chancellor’s Teaching Award 2021 recognises attributes such as individual excellence, a creative approach to teaching and a commitment to ongoing professional development.

The university said Ed would be remembered for his kindness, passion for teaching and immense intelligence but he also had a lifelong commitment to the pursuit of justice.

It said it was inviting colleagues, students and friends to pay tribute to his life and achievements by making a donation to the York Opportunity Scholarship fund - a cause which reflected Ed’s life, work and values and was set up so that students from all backgrounds had a chance to access a life-changing education at York.

“Many students from less advantaged backgrounds face significant financial and emotional barriers to their education, which have only increased during the coronavirus pandemic,” it said.

It said Ed had been awarded a PhD in political theory at the University of York in 2008 and returned to York in September 2019 to take up a post as associate lecturer.

“He was a most talented thinker and writer. His journal papers, pieces in political magazines such as Jacobin and his own blog were knowledgeable, learned, wise and urgent. The new book he was working on was to set out a creative rethink of socialist strategy."

Donations can be made by going to https://yustart.hubbub.net/p/ed-rooksby/

Ed died in February, aged 45. An inquest heard earlier this week that he had suffered a range of severe long Covid symptoms since last summer, after catching the coronavirus in March, but the cause of his death could not be ascertained.