2013-2014
Bricks and Mortarboards Campus Transformation Business Connections
The magazine for UCD Business Alumni
Getting The Right Energy Mix with David O’Reilly
To The Stars
UCD Ad Astra Academy
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CONTENTS UNIVERSITY OF LIFE 4 The Ties That Bind Letter to Alumni
8 A Year in the Spotlight UCD alumni who made their mark on the world over the last twelve months
13 Woodland Walk Festival Join the fun and enjoy the campus this September
14 Digging It The UCD School of Archaeology is 160 years old, and it’s still breaking new ground
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34 Finding Balance Career advancement and job satisfaction: we talk to women in academe
37 The Effect of Her Then and now: author Gerard Stembridge’s new novel draws a few parallels between campus life in the 1970s and 2013
IRISH OIL MAN, DAVID O’REILLY ON AN ENERGY INITIATIVE ON CAMPUS
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40 To The Stars The Ad Astra Academy recognises and rewards excellence
SUCCESS FOR UCD’S SAILORS
16 Creating the Right Energy Mix A new national energy initiative is fuelled by a famous UCD alumnus, David O’Reilly
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21 Q&Alumni
RE-CONNECTIONS Connecting with alumni from around the world
Children’s Ombudsman is alumna Emily Logan
24 Bricks and Mortarboards The great campus facelift, a decade of change is achieved
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CHORAL SCHOLARS IN CONCERT
21
EMILY LOGAN EXPLAINS HER ROLE
ON THE COVER: Bricks and Mortarboards: a decade of transformation at UCD. See page 24 for the cover story. Illustration by Eoin Ryan.
2013-2014
Bricks and Mortarboards Campus Transformation Business Connections
The magazine for UCD Business Alumni
Getting The Right Energy Mix with David O’Reilly
To The Stars
UCD Ad Astra Academy
UCD CONNECTIONS ALUMNI MAGAZINE
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| CONTENTS |
42 Sports Shorts Celebrate UCD’s sporting achievements
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45 Alumni Survey What do you think?
46 A Pool of Their Own After 100 years, the Swimming and Waterpolo Club finally finds a home
56 UCD in Numbers
BUSINESS CONNECTIONS 58 A New Economy
REVLON’S PRESIDENT & CEO IS ALUMNUS ALAN ENNIS
The Business School’s focus on new economy initiatives and the imminent take-off of an aviation institute
How the University stats add up
96 Play On A Century of Tennis
BUILDING UCD 20 Make a Bequest Leaving a legacy to your university
63 Access All Areas
46 THE 1938 WATERPOLO TEAM
EVENTS Celebrating the FOUNDATION DAY DINNER (page 74); BLOOMSDAY CHARACTERS IN CONVERSATION (page 76); honouring the arts at the BLOOMSDAY ULYSSES MEDAL AND HONORARY DEGREES CEREMONY (page 77); CHARACTERS IN CONVERSATION (page 78); making
sense of water charges and examining the German economy at the EGA ANNUAL LECTURE AND business meet at the MICHAEL SMURFIT GRADUATE BUSINESS SCHOOL ALUMNI RECEPTION (page 80); fostering links at the NEWMAN FELLOWSHIP DINNER (page 81); UCD MICHAEL SMURFIT GRADUATE BUSINESS SCHOOL ANNUAL BENEFIT DINNER in New York (page 82); alumni gather to network at THE UCD BUSINESS ALUMNI NEW YORK RECEPTION (page 83); business achievements are honoured at the BUSINESS ALUMNI AWARDS DINNER (page 84); LIFE STORIES: Feargal Quinn shares his rich history (page 85); the launch of YEATS AND HIS MUSES (page 86); MEDICAL ALUMNI RECONNECT (page 87); TOPPINGOUT CEREMONY at the Sutherland School OF LAW and the JOHN M KELLY MEMORIAL LECTURE (page 88); UCD BUSINESS ALUMNI EVENTS in Singapore and Hong Kong (page 89); A GOLDEN JUBILEE for the class of 1962 (page 90); the class of 1973 attend their RUBY JUBILEE (page 91); celebrate a DIAMOND JUBILEE with the classes of 1943-1953 (page 92); celebrating ten years of the QUINN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS (page 93); UCD CHORAL SCHOLARS perform at one of their annual Christmas concerts (page 94); GOVERNING ELECTIONS (page 95). PANEL DISCUSSION (page 79); masters of
UCD EDITORIAL BOARD ÁINE GIBBONS, EILIS O’BRIEN, SINÉAD DOLAN, TARA COLLINS, ORLA WRYNN, BILLY MURPHY, DAMIEN MC LOUGHLIN, JP DONNELLY UCD ALUMNI RELATIONS SINÉAD DOLAN, TARA COLLINS
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Catering for disability isn’t just ethical – it also makes good business sense
66 The Irishman and the Global Beauty Business How Dubliner Alan Ennis became President & CEO of iconic beauty company Revlon
70 Practice Makes Perfect Thirty years of the MSc in Marketing Practice
72 Great Expectations How an anonymous donor enables students to attend one of the world’s best business schools
UCD Connections is published by Gloss Publications Ltd, The Courtyard, 40 Main Street, Blackrock, Co Dublin, 01 275 5130. Distributed by The Irish Times. To order a copy, go to www.ucdconnections.ie Printed by Boylans. Colour origination by Typeform. Copyright 2013 Gloss Publications Ltd. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is strictly prohibited. This magazine can be recycled either in your Green Bin kerbside collection or at a local recycling point. In the compilation of this publication, every care is taken to ensure accuracy. Any errors or omissions should be brought to the attention of the UCD Development & Alumni Relations Office. However, UCD does not accept any liability to any person for loss or damage arising from anything contained in this publication or for any error or omission in it, even if such loss and damage is caused by the negligence of UCD or its servants and agents.
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LETTER TO ALUMNI
ÁINE GIBBONS, VICE-PRESIDENT FOR DEVELOPMENT AND ALUMNI RELATIONS
Dear Alumni, Over the past year it has been a delight to welcome numerous alumni to our many events, reunions and celebrations, both on campus and off, in Ireland and overseas. In many ways, this year is a special one. When we set out a number of years ago to broaden and deepen the participation of alumni with the University and to acknowledge what you have collectively accomplished, we did not expect this relatively straightforward mission to have such an impact. This issue of UCD Connections 20132014, (also available digitally at www.ucdconnections.ie), as well as keeping you up to date with life on campus, gives some hint as to the extent and strength of the alumni base worldwide. It is an extraordinary global network, and one which has played a significant role in transforming the
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University over the past ten years under the stewardship of UCD President Dr Hugh Brady, whose term of office ends this year. It is no coincidence that his Forming Global Minds strategy has propelled the University into the global elite. This transformational decade (see Bricks and Mortarboards, page 24) has seen the student population become more international, the launch of the modern Horizons curriculum, the development, expansion, and yes – beautification – of the Belfield campus: the superb facilities and 50-metre pool in the UCD Student Centre and Sports Complex. The UCD Sutherland School of Law will open to students this autumn and the newly completed Phase 2 of the Science Centre will open officially in October. The Centre highlights the ongoing investment in science and innovation and will be home to more than 4,500 students and researchers. We are also working closely with UCD School of Business on securing the resources to realise its new and transformative vision. The School has had a very strong year, having added twelve internationally renowned faculty members to its academic body and risen significantly in the global rankings. In recognition of tough times for third-level institutions, a culture of giving back has emerged. Gifts that have been made by alumni have helped us achieve transformations that would not have been possible – or would not have been possible to achieve as quickly.
UCD CONNECTIONS ALUMNI MAGAZINE
Alumni have, through their generosity, funded scholarships, academic chairs and capital campaigns. The philanthropic support of alumni is in large measure responsible for the ever-growing reputation of the University and the enhancement of the value of every degree from UCD. We are deeply grateful to our alumni for their support. Notwithstanding our sadness at his untimely passing, alumnus and recipient of the Foundation Day Medal 2012, George Moore is remembered for his devotion to his family, his great success in business in the US and here, his great personal warmth and his fondness for the country of his birth. George continues to be a role model for our graduates and students and his legacy of giving back to his alma mater continues to encourage the generous support of others. You too can get involved in many ways, but first and foremost, keep us posted about where you are and what you are doing by emailing alumni@ucd.ie and we can make sure to let you know about class reunions and other events in our programme that might interest you. See our Alumni Survey (page 56): we invite you to engage in whatever way suits you best. n
VISIT www.ucd.ie/alumni to RE-CONNECTwith your University
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LITIR CHUIG AN ALUMNI A chara, Ba mhór againn an deis fáilte a chuir roimh roinnt mhaith dár alumni chuig go leor dár gcuid imeachtaí le bliain anuas. Imeachtaí teacht le chéile agus ceiliúrtha, ar an gcampas agus lasmuigh den champas araon, in Éirinn agus thar lear. Is bliain speisialta í seo ar go leor bealaí. Nuair a leagamar amach roinnt blianta ó shin, rannpháirtíocht an alumni san Ollscoil a leathnú agus a threisiú agus aitheantas a thabhairt don méid atá bainte amach agaibh ar fad, ní rabhamar ag súil go mbeadh tionchar chomh mór ag an méid a bhí beartaithe againn. Is féidir an t-eagrán seo de UCD Connections 2013-2014 a fháil go digiteach ar www.ucdconnections.ie, ina bhfuil an nuacht is déanaí ar an gcampas agus tugtar blaiseadh beag ann freisin ar chomh mór agus chomh láidir is atá an alumni ar fud an domhain. Is líonra domhanda den scoth é a raibh baint mhór aige le hathruithe a rinneadh ar an Ollscoil le deich mbliana anuas faoi mhaoirseacht Uachtarán UCD, An Dr Hugh Brady, a bhfuil deireadh lena théarma oifige i mbliana. Níl aon dabht ach gur chuir a straitéis Forming Global Minds an Ollscoil chun cinn i measc scothaicmí ar fud an domhain. Sna deich mbliana seo inár tharla go leor athruithe (féach Bricks and Mortarboards, lch 24) tá líon mór mac léinn idirnáisiúnta againn anois, seoladh an curaclam nua-aimseartha
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Horizons agus rinneadh campas Belfield a fhorbairt, a leathnú agus anois tá cuma i bhfad níos tarraingtí air - tá áiseanna den chéadscoth ar an gcampas chomh maith le linn snámha 50-metre in Ionad Spóirt agus Ionad Mac Léinn UCD. Beidh Scoil Dlí Sutherland UCD oscailte do mhic léinn an fómhar seo agus osclófar go hoifigiúil Céim 2 den Ionad Eolaíochta atá díreach críochnaithe i mí Dheireadh Fómhair. Léiriú é an tIonad ar an infheistíocht leanúnach atáthar a dhéanamh in eolaíocht agus in nuálacht agus beidh áit ann do bhreis is 4,500 mac léinn agus taighdeoir. Bímid ag obair go dlúth le Scoil Gnó UCD le hacmhainní a aimsiú chun fís nua agus athraitheach na Scoile a bhaint amach. Bhí bliain an-láidir ag an Scoil, ina ndeachaigh dhá chomhalta dhéag bhreise nua a bhfuil cáil idirnáisiúnta orthu leis an Dámh agus a chur lena rangú domhanda. Sa tréimhse seo atá rí-dheacair ag institiúidí tríú leibhéil, tá cultúr na roinnte ag teacht chun cinn. Tá tabhartais tugtha ag alumni a chabhraigh linn athruithe móra a dhéanamh nach bhféadfaí a dhéanamh murach sin nó nach bhféadfaí a dhéanamh chomh tapa. Tá maoiniú déanta ag alumni, le teann gnaíúlachta, ar scoláireachtaí, ar ollúnachtaí agus ar fheachtais chaipitil. Tá baint mhór ag an tacaíocht dhaonchairdiúil leis an dea-cháil atá ar an Ollscoil agus cuireann le fiúntas
gach céim de chuid UCD. Táimid thar a bheith buíoch don alumni faoin tacaíocht a thugann siad dúinn. Ainneoin an bhróin a bhí orainn nuair a bhásaigh sé go tobann, cuimhnítear ar George Moore, alumnus agus buaiteoir an Foundation Day Medal 2012, maidir le chomh dílis is a bhí sé dá theaghlach agus chomh maith is a d’éirigh leis i gcúrsaí gnó sna Stáit Aontaithe agus anseo, chomh teanntásach is a bhí sé agus an tóir a bhí aige ar a thír dhúchais. Is sampla é George dár gcéimithe agus dár mic léinn agus spreagann a ghnaíúil is a bhí sé lena alma mater tacaíocht ghnaíúil ó dhaoine eile. Féadfaidh tusa tú féin a bheith páirteach ar go leor bealaí, ach ar dtús báire, coinnigh ar an eolas muid faoin cá bhfuil tú agus faoin méid atá ar bun agat trí ríomhphost a sheoladh chugainn ag alumni@ucd.ie agus beimid in ann tú a choinneáil ar an eolas faoi aon teacht le chéile ranga agus imeachtaí eile sa chlár a mbeadh suim agat iontu. Féach Suirbhé Alumni Survey (lch 56): Iarraimid ort a bheith páirteach bealach ar bith a fheileann duit féin. n
VISIT www.ucd.ie/alumni to RE-CONNECTwith your University
UCD CONNECTIONS ALUMNI MAGAZINE
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| ALUMNI ACHIEVEMENT |
A year in the
Spotlight
From architects to actors, neuroscientists to Arctic adventurers, meet the ALUMNI OF UCD who are in the news. SIOBHAN TALBOT CEO of Glanbia, BComm 1984, DipProfAcc 1985, Glanbia Plc, Ireland’s flourishing international food and agribusiness group has appointed UCD graduate Siobhán Talbot as its first female CEO. Talbot, who has been group finance director since 2009, will assume her new role at the end of this year. Hers is only the second appointment of a female CEO to a publicly listed company in Ireland. COLM TOIBIN Acclaimed Author and Playwright, BA 1975 The critically acclaimed Broadway production of The Testament of Mary, a dramatisation of Colm Tóibín’s novella of the same name, has been nominated for a prestigious Tony Award for Best Play. The onewoman show, which stars Fiona Shaw as the mother of Jesus telling the story of his
AUTHOR & PLAYWRIGHT
COLM TÓIBÍN Gets a Tony nomination
crucifixion, also received nominations for lighting and sound design and delighted audiences who showed their appreciation with a standing ovation after every performance. ROISIN O’REILLY Singer/Songwriter, BA 2011 In September 2012, Róisín O’Reilly, who is the daughter of Mary Black and Joe O’Reilly, and a sister of Danny O’Reilly of The Coronas, followed the family tradition and launched her debut album “The Secret Life of Blue”. O’Reilly, whose distinctive voice was described by the Sunday Times as “evoking the likes of Joni Mitchell, Joanna Newsom and Kate Bush,” also performed in a special Saint Patrick’s
THE BIOCHEMIST
Day 2013 concert broadcast from Áras an Uachtaráin. FERGUS LINEHAN Artistic Director of Edinburgh International Festival, BA 1989 Fergus Linehan has been appointed artistic director of the prestigious Edinburgh International Festival and will assume the role in October 2014. The Dubliner has already directed two major international festivals, the Sydney Festival in Australia and the Dublin Theatre Festival. From 2010 to 2012 he held the post of head of contemporary music at the Sydney Opera House. As a student, Linehan was a very active member of DramSoc. SAM MCGOVERN BA 2013, Ad Astra Perfroming Arts Alumnus, has recently finished filming Quirke for BBC opposite Gabriel Byrne and was also cast in All
DR PEARSE LYONS, BSc 1967 Dundalk-born founder and president of Kentucky-based animal health and nutrition company Alltech, Dr Lyons used his Gulfstream 550 jet to bring members of the Kennedy family to Ireland in June to celebrate the 50th anniversary of JFK’s visit. Lyons also hosted an event in Dublin in July, attracting 3,000 delegates, to see products and technology developed by Alltech.
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ARTISTIC TYPE
FERGUS LINEHAN
Edinburgh International Festival director
| ALUMNI ACHIEVEMENT | she is currently working on the second book in her trilogy for young adults.
THE ADVENTURER IAN LACEY, BA 2007, MSc 2009
Ian Lacey spent much of 2012 cycling from the Arctic Circle to South America, raising an astonishing €20,000 for the Carers Association. He completed the 17,000-km trek in 350 days.
Is By My Side – the Jimi Hendrix biopic filmed in Dublin and set for release this year. JESSICA TRAYNOR Hennessy New Irish Writer of the Year, MA 2008 The prolific young writer, who works in the Abbey Theatre literary department and teaches playwriting with Big Smoke Writing Factory, received the Emerging Poet Award and was named overall winner of the Hennessy New Irish Writer of the Year Award for 2013. Traynor also won the Listowel Poetry Prize in 2011 and was shortlisted for the Patrick Kavanagh Award in 2012. The manuscript for her first novel was shortlisted for a Scottish Book Trust New Writers Award in 2012. As well as writing poetry
KILLIAN SCOTT Actor, BA 2007 and GAVIN DREA Actor, BA 2011 The cast of the massively popular RTE television series Love/Hate is enjoying success away from the crime-ridden streets of the capital. Killian Scott, who plays Tommy, had a supporting role in the wellreceived musical biopic, Good Vibrations and will soon star alongside Brendan Gleeson and Chris O’Dowd in John Michael McDonagh’s Calvary, a followup to The Guard. While studying at UCD, Scott was involved with DramSoc and also found time to drum in a band. Fellow cast member Gavin Drea, who plays Luke, starred in What Richard Did, and also received a 2013 Best Supporting Actor nomination for his portrayal of Des in the Druid Murphy production of A Whistle in the Dark, directed by Garry Hynes. PROFESSOR WILLIAM WALMSLEY HALL Director of US organisation Atlantic Philanthropies Professor of Microbiology at UCD, William Hall was recently awarded an insignia by the Vietnam Union of Friendship Organisations for “Peace and Friendship among Nations”, in recognition of his positive contribution to the Vietnamese health and education systems.
CAITRIONA ENNIS Actor, BA 2010, MA 2013 In January, Caitriona Ennis, a former auditor of UCD DramSoc, received a Best Actress nomination at The Irish Times Theatre Awards for her role as Young Girl in Anú Productions The Boys of Foley Street. Ennis was awarded the UCD Ad Astra Academy scholarship for Drama in 2011 and trained under Director in Residence Kellie Hughes. She also received the Patrick Semple Award for outstanding academic achievement in Drama from UCD. When she’s not on stage, Ennis teaches drama to children in the Dublin Academy of Dramatic Arts. Ennis has been filming a new series with Paul Mercier and is currently in rehearsals in Smock Alley Theatre. FIONNUALA O’LEARY Executive Editor of Independent.ie, BA 2004 In March, O’Leary, previously news editor with the Evening Herald, became executive online editor of the recently re-launched Independent.ie, the online version of the Irish Independent newspaper. During her time with the INM Group, O’Leary also worked as a features writer and columnist. Editor Stephen Rae described her as “one of the most experienced news executives on these islands.” EDMOND HARTY CEO of Dairymaster, PhD 2001 Dr Edmond Harty, CEO and technical director of Dairymaster, a world leader in the development and manufacture of dairy farm equipment, was named Ernst & Young Entrepreneur
ACTOR
KILLIAN SCOTT
Television series makes him a star
WRITER
JESSICA TRAYNOR
Wins a Hennessy literary award
PROFESSOR
WILLIAM HALL
Receives award in Vietnam
SINGER SONGWRITER
ROISIN O’REILLY Releases debut album
UCD CONNECTIONS ALUMNI MAGAZINE
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| ALUMNI ACHIEVEMENT | of The Year for 2012 and went forward to represent Ireland at the World Entrepreneur of the Year Awards in June. While completing his PhD at the UCD School of Biosystems Engineering, Dr Harty developed a radical new method for the evaluation of milking units by measuring performance under flow conditions. ANNE ANDERSON Ireland’s Ambassador to the US, BA 1972 Anne Anderson, who previously served as Ireland’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York, has been appointed ambassador to the US. Prior to taking up her post at the UN, Anderson was Ireland’s ambassador to France and non-resident ambassador to Monaco. From 2001 to 2005 she was Ireland’s Permanent Representative to the European Union in Brussels, becoming the first female ambassador to the EU of any EU member state. Of her time at the UN she said, “I feel a tremendous sense of privilege in representing Ireland abroad. At the UN, there is real respect for what we stand for.” PROFESSOR AUSTIN LEAHY Consultant Vascular Surgeon and Associate Professor at Royal College of Surgeons, MB BCh BAO 1977, Dip Child Health 1980 Consultant vascular surgeon at Beaumont Hospital, associate professor at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland and also editor in chief at The Surgeon, the journal of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and Ireland, Leahy has somehow found the time to
THE PROFESSOR PROFESSOR PETER CLINCH, Vice President of Innovation in UCD and Jean Monnet Professor of Economic Integration, BA 1992, MA 1994, PhD 1997, DipEIAMgmt 2002 Appointed to the National Competitiveness Council, Professor Clinch holds BA, MA and PhD degrees in economics, a Diploma in Environmental Impact Assessment and is a graduate of the Advanced Management Programme at Harvard University.
release a debut album “In the Town of the Foreigner’”. As well as being recognised as one of our foremost medical practitioners, Leahy has impeccable musical credentials. At just eight, he joined the Palestrina Choir and since then he has performed with several bands. ELIZABETH FRANCIS Founder, Atelier Francis, BArch 1993 Donegalborn architect, Elizabeth Francis, who practices in Bologna in Italy, was appointed Commissioner for Ireland’s representation at the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale, La Biennale di Venezia, an exhibition of which opened in Dublin’s CHQ Building in May. Francis, who has studied and worked in Italy, France, Ireland and the UK, founded Atelier Francis in 2010 in order to cultivate cultural links between Ireland and Italy through architecture, art and research. Her first major project was a collaborative sculpture exhibition of 14 Irish artists in Bologna.
O’FAOLÁIN Novelist and JULIA O’FAOL Writer, BA 1953, MA Short Story Writer 1955 In April, Faber & Faber published O’Faolain’s Trespassers, a vivid memoir from the acclaimed Irish novelist and short story writer. Born in London in 1932, O’Faoláin was educated at UCD, the University of Rome and the Sorbonne. Her aptitude for languages allowed her to work as a translator and language teacher before she became a successful writer. O’Faoláin, who is the daughter of one of Ireland’s greatest writers, Sean O’Faoláin, is most celebrated for her civil war novel, No Men, shortlisted for the Country for Young Men Booker Prize in 1980. PROFESSOR DERMOT MORAN Professor of Philosophy (Metaphysics and Logic), BA 1973 Professor Dermot Moran received the Royal Irish Academy Gold Medal in the Humanities for 2012. Professor Moran, who graduated from Yale University with MA (1974), MPhil (1976) and PhD (1986) degrees in Philosophy before taking up teaching posts in several Irish and International universities, has held the Professorship of Philosophy at UCD since 1989 and is an elected Member of the Royal Irish Academy. Each year two gold medals – one in the sciences and one in the humanities – are awarded following a detailed international peer review assessment of nominated candidates. These
PROFESSOR
DERMOT MORAN
Receives RIA Gold Medal AMBASSADOR
ANNE ANDERSON
Becomes ambassador to Washington
CEO
EDMOND HARTY
Expands dairy business
10 | UCD CONNECTIONS ALUMNI MAGAZINE
| ALUMNI ACHIEVEMENT | medals represent the premier award for Ireland’s academic community. CHRIS O’DOWD Actor, ARTS ALUMNUS, The actor and writer from Co Roscommon may be an international star thanks to roles in Bridesmaids, Girls, Sapphires and the new HBO series Family Tree, but he certainly hasn’t forgotten his roots. His much-loved television series Moone Boy, which he co-wrote and in which he stars, is set and filmed in his home town of Boyle, and the second series, which will air on Sky One this autumn, features references to everything from Italia 90 to the Gaeltacht. O’Dowd married the British writer and television presenter Dawn O’Porter last year. CATHAL MC GLOIN CEO of FeedHenry, BE 1986, MBA 1992 The Waterford-headquartered cloud and mobile software company FeedHenry has secured €7m in a funding round that will lead to the creation of more than 100 jobs at the company’s offices in Waterford and Dublin, bringing the total number employed to 140. CEO Cathal McGloin confirmed that 2012 had been a great year for the company and that this latest success would allow FeedHenry to accelerate growth plans across Europe and North America, and continue their commitment to a research and development base in the south-east.
BRIGHT BUSINESSMAN EMMET O’NEILL, BComm 2001 The Smiles Dental Group, established by O’Neill in Dublin in 2005, has acquired James Hull Associates, which has 70-plus dentistry practices across the UK. Smiles now has 17 clinics in Ireland.
PROFESSOR ELEANOR MAGUIRE Deputy Head, University College London, BA 1990, PhD 1995 Professor Eleanor Maguire, Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow and Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging at University College London, features as a “Role Model in Science & Engineering” in the USA Science and Engineering Festival Schools Programme for 2014. Professor Maguire is best known for her landmark five-year study of London taxi drivers which demonstrated that cognitive exercise can produce profound physical changes in the brain. A fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, she heads the memory and space research laboratory where she and her team study how memories are formed, represented and recollected by the human brain.
PROFESSOR RONAN FANNING, Professor Emeritus of Modern History at UCD and Director of Archives at the UCD school of History and Archive, BA 1963 In April an Irish film based on The Lives of Eliza Lynch, Lynch the authoritative 2009 biography co-authored by Michael Lillis and Ronan Fanning, was shown privately to an invited audience in the Paraguayan capital of Asunción. The film, starring Irish actor and singer Maria Doyle Kennedy, draws on the scholarly research undertaken by Lillis and Fanning to rescue the reputation of woman erroneously portrayed as bloodthirsty and immoral for decades. It will debut officially at one of the major film festivals later this year and Irish audiences will see it in 2014. Professor Fanning’s latest book, Fatal Path, which examines torturous Anglo-Irish relations from 1910-1922, was published in May. JEANNE BOLGER Vice-President Venture Investing at Johnson & Johnson, MB BCh BAO 1984 Dr Jeanne Bolger has been appointed Vice-President of venture investing at the London-based Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation. Dr Bolger, who has more than 25 years experience in management roles in the pharmaceutical industry, is a fellow of the Royal Academy of Medicine of Ireland (RAMI) and has served as sole pharma industry representative
THE COMEDIAN
ACTOR
CHRIS O’DOWD
JARLATH REGAN BA 2002, DBS 2004
Enjoys fame and fortune
BUSINESSMAN
CATHAL MC GLOIN
Comedian Jarlath Regan released an album of jokes and stories recorded live in Dublin’s Laughter Lounge in November 2012. A former advertising account executive before turning his stand-up hobby into a fulltime occupation, the former Auditor of the L&H has gigged all over the world, presented his own television series and published two illustrated books. He recently relocated to London with his wife Tina, who he met in UCD, and their son Michael.
Expands his Feed Henry operations
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| ALUMNI ACHIEVEMENT | on two Irish government task forces. Her new role will involve identifying and leveraging investments in areas of strategic interest to Johnson & Johnson. LAURA MAHONEY CEO of The Royal Irish Academy, MA 1997 Laura Mahoney becomes the 13th CEO of The Royal Irish Academy and only the second woman to hold the position in the Academy’s 228 year history. Britishborn Mahoney joined the Academy in 1999 and led a series of successful funding applications that resulted in the establishment of the Digital Repository of Ireland. She has also successfully managed numerous grant programmes including those for Science Foundation Ireland and Atlantic Philanthropies. In addition to her MA from UCD, Mahoney has a first class degree in history from the University of Sussex. SHAUN MURPHY Managing Partner of KPMG, BComm 1990, DipProfAcc 1991 In May, Murphy took over the role of Managing Partner of KPMG Ireland. Murphy, who became a partner at KPMG in 1999, has worked with clients across a range of industry sectors, specialising in the Irish-headquartered plc, consumer and industrial, and the privately-owned Irish business sectors. He has also played a key role in the development of KPMG’s tax practice.
NUMBER 10
JONATHAN SEXTON Chosen for the Lions Tour 2013
STEPHEN FLYNN Joint Founder of STIRLING STUFF The Happy Pear, BComm 2001, Three Irish architectural firms have MBS 2002 Stephen Flynn and been shortlisted for the prestigious Stirling his identical twin brother, David Prize 2013. All three practices have executed set up The Happy Pear natural signifi cant projects in Ireland and overseas. food market, café and juice bar Heneghan Peng’s founder ROISIN HENEGHAN is in Greystones, Co Wicklow in an alumna. Grafton Architects’ directors YVONNE 2004. This year they have taken FARRELL and SHELLEY MC NAMARA are their business online, allowing both graduates of UCD as are many members customers from anywhere in Ireland of their team. Principal of the London-based to order healthy produce delivered to NIALL MC LAUGHLIN architectural their door. In keeping with their policy practice is Niall Mc Laughlin, who of creating “happier, healthier and more graduated from UCD in sustainable communities that support 1984. the local economy”, The Happy Pear runs fun and lively healthy eating education courses. the Most Excellent Order of the British BRITISH AND IRISH LIONS SQUAD A total of five of the nine Ireland players selected in the British and Irish Lions squad that toured Australia this summer are either studying at UCD or are graduates of the University: Brian O’Driscoll (DipSportsMgt 1998), Jonathan Sexton (BComm 2012), Rob Kearney (BA 2010), Jamie Heaslip (currently studying for a masters degree in management at the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School), and Sean O’Brien (studying sports and exercise management) who is also an Elite Athlete Scholar in the UCD Ad Astra Academy.
Empire) in June for his services to music. Over the past twelve years Gilhooly has overseen the development of Wigmore Hall, thought to be the finest platform for chamber music in the world, presenting over 400 events in a season. He is credited with the huge financial success of the Hall and the expansion of its artistic programme. Also chairman of the esteemed Royal Philharmonic Society, Gilhooly is currently organising events throughout 2013 (in both Britain and America) to celebrate the 50th year of its existence.
PROFESSOR STEPHEN O’RAHILLY Research Scientist (Genetics of Obesity), MB BCH BAO 1981 After 30 years of JOHN GILHOOLY Director of Wigmore research, renowned scientist Professor Hall, BA 1994 Limerick-born John Stephen O’Rahilly was knighted by Gilhooly received an OBE (Officer of Queen Elizabeth II in June. Having resided in Britain for over half his life, O’Rahilly received the distinction with pride and will be known as Professor Sir Stephen O’Rahilly. A member of the Academy THE SUPREMES of Medical Sciences and Following enactment of new the Royal Society, he legislation, the Supreme Court is believes there is much increasing its numbers to alleviate progress to be made in delays and permit simultaneous sittings the field of obesity and of the court. The Government has its links to cancer and nominated Justice MARY LAFOY diabetes. The Finglas and Justice ELIZABETH DUNNE, both educated at UCD, for the native continues to teach ENTREPRENEUR additional posts. and practice medicine in STEPHEN FLYNN the UK. ■ Business goes online
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| ARCHAEOLOGY |
DIGGING IT The UCD School of Archaeology – one of the oldest in the world – is well placed to become a leader in Experimental Archaeology, having not just the credentials but the space on campus to build huts and make objects, just as our prehistoric forebears did. BRIDGET HOURICAN reports on this fascinating new programme.
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ew buildings are going up all around Belfield. The most immediately impressive is the magnificent Sutherland School of Law, just opened by the new lake. But take a walk by the lovely, undeveloped Roebuck-Foster’s Avenue end of campus and you’ll see the most unusual building yet – what looks like a giant tepee or yurt, with smoke rising from the “chimney” at the apex. Get closer and you’ll find this isn’t the latest design in tents from The Great Outdoors. It’s a structure of long timber trunks, held in place by smaller sticks and weaves, and covered over by animal skins. If you look inside you may see people firing flints and cooking over a fire in rudimentary earthenware pots. It looks like something out of the Stone Age, and is in fact a working
reconstruction of a Mesolithic huntergatherer hut, based on the only surviving example on this island, Mount Sandal in Co Derry, which dates from 7800BC. It has been built by Dr Greame Warren and his team, as part of the new Experimental Archaeology programme. In 2014, UCD’s School of Archaeology celebrates its 160th anniversary. It was founded in 1854, one of the first such departments to be established anywhere in the world, only four years after the first Archaeology Chair was endowed in Cambridge. Today UCD Archaeology is trailblazing again, establishing one of the first Centres of Experimental Archaeology in Europe. “Experimental Archaeology is a way of teaching which gets the students to build buildings, make objects, and use past technologies to gain an intellectually sound appreciation of peoples’ pasts, and to develop
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a sense of empathy with their daily lives,” says Dr Aidan O’Sullivan, last year’s Head of School, and one of the designers of the new Experimental Archaeology programme. As of last year, BA students in archaeology began digging up clay, adding sand and water to process it, mixing temper – which might be crushed bone or dung – moulding it into a pot, and then firing it up at a fire, using fuel they’d chopped themselves with Stone-Age axes. It all sounds great fun – if exhausting – but where’s the intellectual and disciplinary gain? “Our students say that when they go into a museum now, they look at all types of material culture very differently,” says Dr O’Sullivan, “they see the decisions potters are taking and the problems they encounter. Our students are better informed than many archaeologists, just by doing.” He gives an example: “In archaeology literature, you can get silly assumptions,
| ARCHAEOLOGY | EARTHLY PLEASURES FOR ITS 160TH ANNIVERSARY, the School of Archaeology is organising a year-long commemoration. The programme of events will run from January to December 2014, with a special event, UCD Big Digs, organised on June 29th, the anniversary of the appointment of Eugene O’Curry to the first Chair of Archaeology. UCD Big Digs is a celebration of all the famous excavations conducted from UCD. All former staff and students are invited to attend. For more info see www.ucd.ie/archdata
such as that all pots were made by itinerant potters travelling through communities. Well, we know from doing it ourselves that pots were certainly being made by everyone – you can make and fire a pot in a few hours. We’re not taking from past skills – we’re just saying don’t make assumptions, until you’ve tried it yourself. “On the other hand, some of the pots you get in the archaeological record are extraordinary beautiful – significantly larger and very thin – and they’re beyond our ability to make. They’re the work of master craftsmen. Our students understand the differentiation and range of skills involved between making a basic pot and a work of art.” John Murphy, a third year student, made an ash bow for his project, using StoneAge tools he made himself. He says: “We sometimes think of prehistoric people as having only simple, basic understanding. But to make these objects you have to think five steps ahead. So we know they had forethought, great understanding of their materials, and a plan of action.” The pioneer of Experimental Archaeology is a Cambridge professor, John Coles, who published ground-breaking studies in the
1960s and 1970s. He has left his archive to UCD. Once catalogued, digitally scanned and placed online, the archive will link to the Experimental Centre, bringing international renown to UCD. UCD is excellently placed to be a world leader in Experimental Archaeology – it has a long-established School, a distinguished tradition, the Coles archive, and the space to develop. Experimental Archaeology can’t be crammed into a lecture room – you need what UCD has: big open fields. The Centre currently occupies a 40mx40m field area, set in meadowland. Belfield also has 50,000 trees, easily enough to spare the 23 birch trees which the archaeologists felled for the Mesolithic tepee. Although only a year up and running, the Experimental Centre is already collaborating with other institutions and disseminating to the wider world. Dr O’Sullivan shows me a squat pot, modelled into an amusing face. “This is based on a pot found in Mitchelstown two years ago. It’s almost unique, dating from 1800BC, we call it a face-pot. We’ve been making replicas for museums so they can have handling
collections for children. You couldn’t have the public handling the real one, obviously.” For Culture Night on September 20th, Experimental Archaeology students will be in the National Museum to show people how to work flint. Ultimately the Centre is hoping to build more structures, including a roundhouse, a Viking longhouse and a deer park farm structure. Some of these structures, made from clay and wattle, will naturally decay in a number of years – “and then we’ll just build them up again which is what people in the past did,” says Dr O’Sullivan. These built structures will require funds, which are also needed for site costs, trackways, pathways, stock purchase, and core research projects. The School is hoping for a capital investment of €350,000. It seems a modest sum for what will lead, says student John Murphy, to “a better understanding of the culture and manufacturing processes of prehistoric people.” Or, as Aidan O’Sullivan puts it: “Archaeology is a form of travel not unlike anthropology, except the societies we travel to are long-vanished. We’re always reaching back, asking what was it like to do that and to be in that world. Experimental Archaeology helps us get that bit closer to the answers.” n
SAMPLE A SEMESTER OF ARCHAEOLOGY AT UCD
UCD WARMLY INVITES ADULT LEARNERS to sample First Year degree-level modules through a new flexible learning initiative. The modules available are Exploring Archaeology in Semester 1 and Introducing the Archaeology of Ireland in Semester 2. Modules can be taken for credit, with coursework and assessment, or by audit only. To learn more about how you can enjoy the student life at your own pace, please see: www.ucd.ie/adulted/flexiblelearning or call 01 716 7123.
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right ENERGY MIX GETTING THE
When Irishman and UCD Alumnus, DAVID O’REILLY departed Chevron Corporation in 2009, he had been CEO of the second largest oil company in the US for ten years. To the list of his memorable achievements, he adds his latest role, leading a new energy venture on Irish soil. Douglas Dalby met him on campus ... 16 | UCD CONNECTIONS ALUMNI MAGAZINE
P H OTO G R A P H BY CO N O R H O R G A N
David O’Reilly, photographed at Belfield House, University College Dublin.
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avid O’Reilly would make an unlikely JR Ewing. The former Chevron boss is tall and lean and there is no sign of a stetson or a fat cigar. He is also quick to shoot down the classic Hollywood depictions of the oil industry, replete with black gold spurting hundreds of metres into the air. “It doesn’t happen that way any longer,” he says simply. “These days you can hardly tell there is even a well there because so little is above ground. Once the well is drilled the oil is pretty much contained.” O’Reilly, 67, has kept a relatively low profile since stepping down after a decade at the helm of the world’s second biggest energy exploration company in late 2009. But during a recent visit to his native Dublin, he talked tough on a range of contentious issues including fracking, the Corrib gas controversy, peak oil, Ireland’s corporate tax regime and the sacrifices required for the development of green energy. O’Reilly has returned to UCD to detail ambitious plans for a new Energy Institute, which he will chair. An avowed optimist by nature, the hard-headed businessman was also to the fore when he outlined his vision for the project. “Ireland is in the very unique position of being a small enough country with a small yet significant energy system where you can gather data and test research theories in real time,” O’Reilly enthuses. “We have one grid operator and essentially one major generator collaborating to make data available so this will gain a lot of attention from outside Ireland because those who want to test theories or new equipment in a real-time environment would be better able to do it here than in a big country like the United States where there are multiple systems and operators.” The initial €14m funding for the Energy Institute will come from a 50-50 split between private donations and matching government grants. O’Reilly asserts it will become self-sustaining within five years, creating several high-end jobs and enhancing Ireland’s reputation internationally in the process. The Institute will focus on identifying and developing ways to create more robust and sustainable energy systems. Its research will have worldwide application. Central to this research, of course, will be the emerging renewable energies and overcoming the remaining obstacles to them becoming even more mainstream. O’Reilly does not believe renewables will displace oil and gas as the main energy sources in the foreseeable future but he argues there is a compelling reason to pursue their development, particularly the holy grail of storing the power they produce. “People, when they think renewables, think intermittent renewable energy, so we have to figure out how to take the intermittent out of it – we have to develop the technology to store it,” he says. “Renewables are worth it because we don’t know how far we can go with them: even if we got to provide ten-15 per cent of the world’s energy needs on a global basis that’s still equivalent to 15m barrels of oil a day, which is an enormous amount.”
| INTERVIEW | – DAVID O’REILLY – The career path of the former highest-ranked Irish-born CEO in the US David O’Reilly attended BLACKROCK COLLEGE before UCD, where he graduated in 1968 with a Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering. In 2002, he received an honorary doctorate from the University and subsequently became an adjunct professor. He had always had a fascination with the oil industry but luck shone on him when Chevron included UCD in its recruitment drive for the first time and he was among three students chosen to go to its research headquarters in California, where he started out as a process engineer. “My education equipped me particularly well,” he said. “I was better than on a par with my American counterparts.” The downside of the intensive coursework during his time in UCD was that he found little time for anything else. “When I was at UCD I was studying, you didn’t have time to do anything else. They worked you very hard,” he recalls with a wry chuckle. When he flew to CALIFORNIA in August 1968 it was his first time in America. He had travelled abroad before, however, working summer jobs in canning factories in England to help pay his way through college. He took to the West Coast lifestyle immediately, noting in particular the opportunities it presented and the lack of red tape compared with Ireland. “I was blown away by the scale of things: the buildings were bigger, the roads were bigger, but it seemed easier to get things done,” he recalls. “You sign a lease on an apartment and you’re in the next day – it seemed to me there was far less bureaucracy and more of a ‘get things done’ attitude.” Two colleagues from UCD who travelled with him returned home after a few years but he decided to stay. He married Joan, who is American, and he was fulfilling his career potential. “I thought about coming back at one point or doing something different but CHEVRON is so big they were able to give me different jobs and different experiences without having to move company,” he said. By the mid-1970s he was no longer engaged in the production end of the business, concentrating instead on helping Chevron’s executives to negotiate massive contracts in the MIDDLE EAST. “I spent four or five years there and got into the commercial side of the business,” he recalls. “Just before then I had been getting itchy feet so Chevron provided what I needed and by the early 1980s, I was being moved into various management positions.” He insists it took him a long time to recognise that he might become a candidate for the top job but he was more than ready for it when the opportunity arose. “In the mid-1990s, I began thinking I may not be selected but I was certainly capable of doing the top job,” he says. “I had experience in various aspects of the business and in running large parts of it. I felt confident in my own abilities to manage and lead.” In January 2000, he became head of Chevron, a position he held for almost ten years before deciding to retire in December 2009.
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| INTERVIEW | Aside from the costs involved in developing green energy, he warns there is no such thing as pain-free progress. “People have to make up their minds if they want to have reliable energy and there are always compromises that have to be made – there are no free lunches,” he says. “At some point it is a matter of what sacrifices people are prepared to make for the good of the whole. Even with renewable power some people are going to be adversely impacted.” O’Reilly instances the appearance of wind turbines on high ground across the country as the kind of visual compromise that had already been accepted in many communities but he also tackles the potentially more contentious practice of fracking, which he defended as a “game-changer”. “It has been successfully deployed in the United States and the vast majority of production has been trouble free,” he said. “It has significantly strengthened the economy and brought employment in those areas of the country where it is going on, as well as less dependence on imports.” O’Reilly also asserts the technology is not new – merely the intensity of its usage. “Fracking was first deployed in 1947 so we have a 65-year history with very, very few environmental consequences over that time,” he says. He is well aware of the local opposition to fracking in the UK and along the border counties of Ireland, which many believe will follow a similar pattern to the events that have mired the Corrib gas project in Co Mayo. “I think [the Corrib controversy] gave Ireland a bit of a black eye. It is a big world out there and people can look elsewhere and there are opportunities for companies to invest everywhere. And that includes Irish companies so at some point if resistance is high they are going to go down the path of lesser resistance,” he says. However, companies will likely persevere with ever more difficult oil and gas exploration projects because of a combination of persistent demand and high prices. “Peak oil in my view is an above-ground issue – an access and technology issue rather than a resource-based one,” he says. “On the other side of the coin, oil and gas are being used more efficiently, even in the US.” He argues higher prices will continue to drive demands for fuel efficiencies rather than fears over global warming, an issue he “is not knowledgeable enough to comment on”. However, he also believes lower levels of carbon pumped into the atmosphere as a result of greater efficiencies “can only be a good thing”. He is certainly smart enough to recognise the political dimension to the energy industry but cautions against an over-
simplistic view of the party divide in the United States. “I’m for people who are pro-business with a balanced view on energy, whatever stripe they claim to have. There are Republicans who I consider to be good for business and Democrats the same. President Clinton was a good advocate for American business outside the US – his was a pro-business administration whereas the current administration I don’t consider to be pro-business at all.” Similarly, he believes Republicans should also be judged on their own merits and some of their policies did not benefit the development of business, particularly beyond US borders. “Some Republicans can be very isolationist and there are others who are pro-trade. It is easy to stereotype people but the US is so big and complicated and the political drivers for people in different parts of the country vary; you have to be more discerning than blithely saying Republicans are good on this and bad on that and vice versa. That simply doesn’t work.” And, when it comes to dealing with politicians, O’Reilly gives a further glimpse into why he became one of the most powerful executives in the world. “You can say there is too much political interference in any business but you have to be dogged about it and not give up and continue to make the case until you overwhelm people with facts. Sometimes you wonder why you have to overwhelm . them but sometimes that’s what it takes,” he says. It is the kind of advice he would likely impart to politicians here too. It pains him that Ireland is being painted as a tax haven in some circles in the United States and he argues the Irish government must state their case strongly to protect inward investment. “The government is going to have to jump on this: Ireland is not a tax haven,” he says. “Does it have a low corporate tax rate? Yes. Does this attract business? Yes. Does it give Ireland an advantage? Yes. Does it create employment? Yes. But is it a tax haven in the sense you can hide money? I don’t see it that way.” O’Reilly says transparency exists in Ireland’s corporate tax rate but the country is being tarred with a similar brush to other countries with less stringent regimes. “The Irish government needs to be very assertive about getting the message out and explaining how things work here – otherwise the mud will stick,” he says. He says a multinational corporation would be failing in its duty to shareholders if it did not minimise its taxes. “The point is, when businesses are successful they have a legitimate right to avoid tax; that is part of your fiduciary duty to
It pains him that Ireland is being painted as a tax haven in some circles in the United States and he argues the Irish government must state their case strongly to protect inward investment. “Does it have a low corporate tax rate? Yes. Does this attract business? Yes Is it a tax haven in the sense you can hide money? I don’t see it that way.”
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| INTERVIEW | your shareholders. You should distinguish between avoidance and evasion. Apple, for instance, is a very honourable company. It was doing nothing illegal – in fact it has a responsibility to behave as it does. “The irony is that there is a lot of cash sitting outside the US in companies just like Apple that would come back if those companies were allowed to repatriate it without paying the highest income tax rate in the world aside from Japan. “If the US made its own corporate tax rate more competitive it would take care of a lot of this very quickly but to imply it is illegal and to use terms like evade – when it’s really avoid – is very unfortunate.” And as for the future of the oil business, the man who spent his entire career in the industry says reports of its demise are greatly exaggerated. “There are still great opportunities out there for companies that are willing to take the risk,” he says. “I don’t think I would like to be starting again now – I have had my turn but I believe it is great for young people starting out today. I remember people trying to tell me 20 or 30 years ago oil and gas was a dying business and strongly disputing and refuting it. I still do so.
“The world is always going to need energy and that creates business opportunities and I would encourage young people who pursue technical careers, whether in science or engineering or the like, to go for it.” As if to puncture the Dallas stereotype still further, O’Reilly notes the transition from a male bastion to a business where women are increasingly heavily involved. “It was an exclusively male environment when I joined in 1968 but that began to change in the 1980s when there were more women starting to come into engineering. It’s very sophisticated now; the industry has become a lot more technology driven and that attracts everyone.” And if he had to start over again, would he still choose the oil industry? “I always had a great love for this business and I probably would have worked for another company. Chevron just tried the hardest to bring us. I never really seriously considered doing anything else. There were other companies interviewing for the US and if I had signed up for them I would have had a different career. It is always down to luck; there is always luck involved in life.” ■
THE ENERGY INSTITUTE
Images courtesy of Renewable Energy Information Office / ESB International
A NEW ENERGY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVE AT UCD
As countries around the world grapple with the need for secure, sustainable and economically efficient energy, there are areas in which Ireland can lead the way internationally while also securing its own energy future. The country has a strong renewables resource, and has overcome technical challenges to integrate renewables onto a modern and flexible electricity grid to an extent that has attracted considerable international interest. The country’s strong industrial base in ICT (information and communications technology) sees significant opportunity in the marriage of ICT with energy technologies, and the impact of this on consumer behaviour is the subject of national investigations with international significance. Alongside all this is the ongoing drive to understand and utilise our fossil fuel resources. The new UCD Energy Institute, launched in September 2013, will be a transformational resource for energy research in Ireland and internationally. The Institute will host a critical mass of world-class energy researchers focused on a small number of strategically important themes, working in partnership with industry and the energy policy community. The Strategy for the Institute was the work of the UCD Energy Advisory Board led by David O’Reilly, and builds on the
reputation of UCD as a leading centre for energy research, in particular the Electricity Research Centre, the UCD Earth Institute and the Tullow Oil Centre for Petroleum Sciences. Alongside its activities in engineering and science, the Institute will increase capacity in the cross-cutting areas of policy and economics – vital in helping translate research into practical solutions for Ireland and the world. It will attract and train high-quality Irish and international students who will constitute the graduate pipeline, entrepreneurs and leaders of Ireland’s energy industry. A national resource of international significance, the Institute will operate at a scale not previously achieved by the Irish energy research community, increasing the sector’s profile and impact internationally, and enabling access to global partnerships and initiatives of scale that were previously inaccessible. In particular, the Institute is developing a major national initiative Future Grid Test Bed – Ireland in collaboration with EirGrid, ESB and the Electricity Research Centre. This activity feeds into a further collaboration with the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Danish Technical University (DTU) to advance an initiative in the area of Energy Systems Integration at a global level.
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| GIVING TO UCD |
Fund Research
Name a Building
Establish a Scholarship
MAKE A BEQUEST Legacy gifts and bequests by alumni, faculty and friends have been a significant source of financial support for University College Dublin for over 150 years. The continuation and expansion of this tradition of remembrance contributes to UCD’s financial strength and continued academic excellence. If there is a school or subject area you wish to benefit, research that is important to you, a scholarship you would like to establish, or a library you would like to support, you can make a difference by leaving a gift in your will. We are grateful to all donors whose foresight will build the future of UCD.
FOR INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT ELIZABETH DUFFY by email at elizabeth.duffy@ucdfoundation.ie or by telephone on 00353 1 716 1496
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| IN THE HOTSEAT |
Q&ALUMNI AN ALUMNA QUIZZED ... EMILY LOGAN
The Ombudsman for Children EMILY LOGAN is nearing the end of her second successful term of office. As well as providing an independent complaints-handling service, the office has been active in terms of ensuring that Irish law and policy on children meet the highest standard, the most significant of which included the strengthening of children’s rights in the Constitution.
WHAT DEGREE DID YOU TAKE AT UCD AND WHY? An MBA. Although I have a nursing qualification, a masters in Psychology and, more recently, a masters in Human Rights Law, to have a masters in Business Administration, developing financial and strategic management, is a key strength for someone in my position. And I’m a believer in lifelong learning. WAS IT A POSITIVE EXPERIENCE?
I enjoyed every aspect, including the Socratic methodologies employed for our study groups in Bewley’s at 7.30am on a Saturday morning! Five people, all from different backgrounds, all working fulltime – it was fascinating. DESCRIBE YOUR ROLE? As an
independent officer of the State I am mandated to give a voice to children in Ireland, to ensure the rights and dignity of children are respected and protected by public bodies, through independent complaints handling, advising on legislation affecting children and promoting their rights more generally. TELL US ABOUT YOUR EARLY LIFE? I grew up in north Dublin and went straight into paediatric nursing after secondary school at Manor House. I was keen to work in Great Ormond Street Hospital so before I finished my training at Temple Street Hospital, I went to London with a friend to see if we could line up jobs. We were offered posts in areas of our clinical interest. In 1980s London, during a period of huge
change under Margaret Thatcher, if young people showed promise, they were given opportunities. DESCRIBE YOUR CAREER PATH? By
26, I was a clinical manager at Great Ormond Street, overseeing 25 staff. Four years later I was appointed clinical director with a budget of €5m and 150 staff. The culture was so different to Ireland at the time – an egalitarian, patient-centred environment where your opinion was valued and you were actively encouraged to challenge. When I was 33, the director of nursing post became available at Our Lady’s Hospital in Crumlin. Sally Nethercott, director of nursing at Great Ormond Street, was so encouraging, affirming my ability to run not just a directorate, but a hospital. So I came back, apprehensive, to a place where the clinical work was great but the management culture was outdated. Even simple changes were problematic. There were 750 staff and a budget of €20m but the structures were undeveloped. It was a challenge to make changes. In 2002 I was appointed director of nursing at Tallaght hospital where there were over 1,000 staff. Now, while I have a team of only 15 and more than a million children to think about, I have greater influence to effect change to make children’s lives better. WAS BEING ALLOWED INNOVATE AT AN EARLY STAGE IN YOUR CAREER IMPORTANT? When I was a clinical manager
at Great Ormond Street, I was permitted to take a day off every UCD CONNECTIONS ALUMNI MAGAZINE
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| IN THE HOTSEAT | week to take my degree in pyschology. I had decided to do my thesis on gender differences in dealing with chronic illness. My experience was, when mothers were faced with a child’s illness, no matter how grave, their instinct was to engage, to talk and to become involved with their care. For fathers, the symptoms of stress were much more physical, you would see them lose weight and look very stressed. They internalised everything and would become isolated – it was very hard on their families. So we set up a clinic dedicated to fathers – an example of understanding the reality of people’s situations, and taking action. DID YOUR JOB AS A PAEDIATRIC NURSE ENCOURAGE YOU TO MAKE CHILDREN’S ISSUES YOUR CAREER? Yes. As well as seeing the effects of disease and illness, I saw many injuries that were non-accidental and the repercussions of social injustice. WHAT IS YOUR STYLE? DO YOU SEE YOUSELF AS A FIGHTER OR A PERSUADER?
not yet happened. While the referendum was won by a narrow margin, an existing challenge to the government’s campaign means we must await judicial determination before it will hopefully be incorporated into the Constitution. DO YOU WELCOME CHILDREN TO YOUR OFFICE? Schools
and groups visit every week. The education programmes run by my staff allow a positive and direct interaction with children – a two-way street of information where children share their views on issues of relevance to them.
I believe in public sector reform and have met many committed public servants through investigating the actions of public bodies.
I think I come across as determined and calm though I am by nature impatient. I am also an idealist and yet know the value of pragmatism. I am happy to stand my ground and assert the independence of this office. I’m also anxious to persuade organisations to think about how they engage with families and children. As Ombudsman, I investigate poor administration but I also respect those trying their best to provide a service. HOW DO YOU INFLUENCE GOVERNMENT THINKING?
I believe in public sector reform and have met many committed public servants through investigating the actions of public bodies. We encourage them to consider the interests of children when making decisions which can have a profound effect on the lives of entire families. This requires a more flexible approach towards families and a responsive approach to policy development. WHAT ARE THE WORST ENVIRONMENTS THAT CHILDREN FIND THEMSELVES IN TODAY IN IRELAND? There are still
individual cases that come to light but I hope the pervasive nature of abhorrent institutional abuse has been rooted out. There are 6,300 children in care, most in foster homes, but at least 200 in institutional care, the majority of whom are Irish. We also worked with about 220 children who arrived in Ireland with no legal guardians, who were trafficked or abused. They have now been placed in foster homes and the hostels that used to house them have been closed on my recommendation. WHAT IS THE STATUS OF THE REFERENDUM ON THE AMENDMENT TO THE IRISH CONSTITUTION TO GIVE GREATER PROTECTION TO CHILDREN’S RIGHTS? After almost a decade of persuading four different ministers and Oireachtas members to pursue Constitutional change, it has
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CHILDREN CAN SUFFER IN LOW-INCOME HOUSEHOLDS. IS THIS A GREATER CONCERN DURING RECESSION? There are now 40 Ombudsmen for Children across Council of Europe member states. We know that children internationally are disproportionately affected by austerity measures. My colleagues in Greece say that public health data indicates the birth weights of babies are lower than a decade ago. TO WHOM ARE YOU ACCOUNTABLE? As an
independent officer of the state I have no reporting relationship to government. I report directly to the Oireachtas. This independence has been critical to the development of a credible Ombudsman for Children’s Office.
YOU WANT BETTER APPLICATION OF THE IN CAMERA RULE IN CHILD CARE LAW REPORTING? The in camera rule is designed to protect children’s privacy; exposing child care proceedings to the full glare of media attention would be enormously damaging to children and young people. However, in the course of statutory investigations regarding children in care, the in camera rule has been invoked to prevent my Office gaining access to certain documents to which the in camera rule applies. I have called on the government to modify the operation of the in camera rule. A principle established to protect children should not work to their disadvantage by preventing organisations like mine having access to information in the interests of those children. DO SPECIAL NEEDS SERVICES COME UNDER YOUR REMIT?
In March 2012 I submitted a report to the Oireachtas to recommend the extension of investigative powers for my Office. From May, my investigative remit was extended to a further 180 public bodies, which include special needs services. HOW MANY CHILDREN ARE IN DETENTION? In 2011, about 260 children under the age of 18 were sentenced to a period of detention. Children should be cared for rather than placed in a custodial environment. After much criticism both by myself and international human rights bodies, no child under the age of 18 will be placed in St Patrick’s Institution by the end of 2014. Research indicates the best way to assist children is to keep them away from the criminal justice system altogether. ■
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| A DECADE OF TRANSFORMATION |
Bricks The beautifying of the Belfield campus reflects a deeper transformation that has of The Irish Times and former student, revisits the campus and looks at how the
Aerial View
T
he land is fertile and green between the Dodder River and the south coast of County Dublin. It drops gradually towards the sea, rising a little here and there into gentle hills that offer elevated views across the bay. Once these were open fields where the medieval monks of Saint Mary’s Abbey grazed their flocks to yield the wool they exported through the fortified harbours at Bulloch and Coliemore. In the 17th and 18th centuries, Dublin’s rich merchants and powerful crown appointees built their country villas and cultivated their estates here.
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Sutherland Sutherland School School of of Law Law
The original Belfield was just one such estate. Estimated in Griffith’s Valuation of 1851 at 44 acres, 1 rood and 25 perches, with a land value of £190, it was built by Ambrose Moore in 1801, immediately after the Act of Union. Belfield was by no means the largest or the most significant of the fine estates developed in this area. But it has given its name to the magnificent campus that was first identified in 1934 to be home to University College Dublin. At 330 acres, the Belfield campus is about the same size as London’s Hyde Park. For local comparative purposes, St Stephen’s Green is a mere 22 acres. UCD has 24,000 students, representing more than 120 nationalities and 3,500 staff. UCD has become a vibrant community in itself with its shops and restaurants, bank
| A DECADE OF TRANSFORMATION |
& Mortarboards taken place in the University over the last ten years. CONOR BRADY, former editor programme of bricks and mortar investment has impacted favourably on University life.
Science Centre
and post office, halls of residence, sports facilities, a cinema, a theatre and a 50-metre swimming pool. The authorship of its buildings is a Who’s Who of modern Irish architecture. To UCD alumni of my generation, this is not Belfield as we knew it. We were the last generations in Earlsfort Terrace; the arts, law and commerce faculties that were spared from banishment, as we saw it, to the muddy, bleak gulag to which the scientists had already been transported. “The Terrace” was crowded and creaking at the seams. But it was warm and intimate. The social life around Kirwan’s, O’Dwyer’s and Hartigan’s was lively. It was a short stroll to Grafton Street for coffee. When the sun came out, St Stephen’s
Green and the hidden Iveagh Gardens were favoured study-spots. Belfield was isolated, windswept, poorly served by a single bus and a prefabricated public house, not inappropriately nicknamed “The Trough.” The elegant, light-filled buildings that characterise Belfield today were unimaginable in that unpromising landscape. Downes’s science block was exactly that; a functional box, fashioned from the glass and aluminium that gave Dublin so many uninspiring buildings in the 1960s. The foundations of Andrzej Wejchert’s Arts Building, to be named for Cardinal John Henry Newman, were being put down beside it. The small, timber-clad chapel, put in place by Archbishop John Charles McQuaid, was
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| A DECADE OF TRANSFORMATION |
Charles Institute of Dermatology
Quinn Quinn School School of of Business Business
incongruous but, for some, a reassurance in its very ordinariness. I went back to Belfield in the late 1970s to complete a master’s degree. Almost a decade on, the place was struggling to find its identity and it was not winning the struggle. The Tierney Building, housing the University administration, was working well; so too was the restaurant building. But Wejchert’s Arts Building, in grey concrete, facing north, with its low ceilings and intermittent light, did not in every case secure the affections of its habitués. The social infrastructure of the campus remained poor. There were, as of yet, no residences on site. After dark and
at weekends the place was eerie, empty like a shopping centre on a bank holiday. There was an increasing sense, even among staff, that perhaps those who had prophesied the failure of the entire project were being vindicated. Even in the late 1960s, The Irish Times, in a (rare) lapse from wisdom had described it as “uneconomic and unnecessary.” But like many an awkward, uncertain adolescent, Belfield has matured into a confident, coherent personality, sure of itself, aware both of the challenges and the potential of what lies ahead.
2004
2004
Hurlers win the Leinster GAA Walsh Cup in their debut appearance.
UCD awarded more SFI Basic Research Grants than any other Irish institution.
2004
2004
2005
UCD celebrates 150th anniversary of the founding of the Catholic University of Ireland, the antecedent of University College Dublin.
Womens Volleyball team wins Irish University Championships, the English Student Cup and the Irish Premier League.
New modular undergraduate curriculum UCD Horizons introduced.
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| A DECADE OF TRANSFORMATION |
Roebuck Castle Student Residence
“It isn’t just about buildings,” says Áine Gibbons, Vice-President for Development and Alumni Relations, “although we can speak of a wonderful decade of new buildings and institutions here. And all of them reflect the great improvements there have been in technique, technology and design. “Building slowed somewhat after the 1980s,” she explains. “There were certain developments in the 1990s. But it was from about 2000 onward that so many things started to happen together.” What did happen in the early 2000s was significant. The superb
Quinn building was opened in 2002 on a site to the east of the restaurant. The soaring spaces, the light-filled concourse and the state-of-the-art lecture theatres of the business school set a new standard at Belfield. Meanwhile, the Michael Smurfit Graduate School of Business was developing at Blackrock on the site of the former Carysfort Training College. The vast O’Reilly Hall, its classical proportions and lines evoking a Greek temple, had almost been completed by the end of the 1980s in the presidency of Dr Patrick Masterson. It saw its first functions in the presidency of Dr Art Cosgrove. It has been
2005
2006
A new UCD modern crest replaces 1940s version. The original 1911 heraldic crest is restored for official parchments.
Taoiseach opens Centre for Synthesis and Chemical Biology, the largest single investment in chemistry research by the Irish Government.
2005
2005
2005
New academic structures: colleges and schools replace faculties and departments.
Handball: Patrick Clerkin wins World Collegiate Championships.
UCD joins Universitas 21, an international network of leading research-intensive universities.
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Health Sciences
Courtesy of Fitzgerald Kavanagh and Partners. Photogrpah: Donal Murphy;
Courtesy of MOLA Architecture. Photograph: Mary Louise Halpenny.
| A DECADE OF TRANSFORMATION |
Student Student Centre Centre
the scene of tens of thousands of conferrings since then. But by 2004-2006 the final relocations to Belfield had been completed. The Veterinary College in Ballsbridge was closed and the faculty transferred to a new, spacious site at the northwestern side of the campus while the civil engineers at last found a home close by. Medicine, which had languished in basement rooms and outbuildings at Earlsfort Terrace moved to the impressive Health Sciences Centre to the west of the original science building of the 1960s. “It was as if finally the whole place had found a new sense
of itself, a new coherence,” Áine Gibbons says. “That showed itself in various ways, including the development of an alumni engagement programme, reaching out to the thousands of people who had gone through the University, who were proud of it, loyal to it and who wanted a way of keeping in touch. We realised, of course, that the alumni were one of our greatest resources and it’s been wonderful to see the way that whole programme has grown.” Even a summer walkthrough of the campus, with lectures suspended for the vacation, conveys a sense of vitality.
2006
2006
UCD Health Sciences Centre opens to students of medicine, nursing, radiography and physiotherapy.
Gaelic Footballers win the Dublin Senior Football Championship for the second time in five years.
2006
2006
2006
First class of Chinese students graduate from UCD/Fudan University with International Software Engineering degree.
Chinese Vice-Premier opens UCD Confucius Institute for Ireland.
Athlete Joanne Cuddihy wins 200m and 400m indoor and outdoor National Titles.
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| A DECADE OF TRANSFORMATION |
James Joyce Library
The new Student Centre with its lively café, cinema, bar, theatre and debating chamber, it’s like a bustling town on market day. The completion of this magnificent Centre – officially the Student Learning, Leisure and Recreation Facility and the buildup of the campus’s residential capacity have banished the sense of bleak emptiness of the early years. Small coffee shops buzz with conversation. There are impromptu picnics by the lake. Down on the woodland walks that flank the campus there are joggers and walkers. “The whole emphasis has been on the creation of small spaces
where people can study, interact and learn from each other,” explains Eamonn Ceannt, former Bursar of the University and now Vice-President for Capital and Commercial Development. He points to the renovated foyer of the James Joyce Library. “Like all traditional libraries, this was an enclosed, silent area. We redesigned it all as a break-out space where students could study or discuss things. It’s comfortable, informal, accessible. Within weeks it had become one of the most popular places on the whole campus.” Ceannt proudly walks the visitor through the various
2007
2008
Dublin Academic Health Care established by UCD, Mater Misericordiae and St Vincent’s University Hospitals.
Board of the Dublin Skin and Cancer Hospital and UCD establish the UCD Charles Institute, dedicated to dermatology.
2007
2007
2008
UCD bids farewell to Earlsfort Terrace – a seat of learning since 1883 – and completes the move to Belfield.
Camogie team wins the third level colleges Ashbourne Cup.
Men’s Rowing: UCD wins the Dublin Head for the first time in 35 years.
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Kevin Barry Window
Garret Garret FitzGerald FitzGerald Debating Debating Chamber Chamber
buildings and institutes that have come on stream in the past decade; the Health Sciences Centre, the Conway Institute, the student centre. He gestures to the vast science complex, pointing out where it absorbs the original block, now in the process of being gutted and refurbished. He stops at the new Sutherland School of Law building, still under construction. “It’s going to be magnificent, as you can see. That marble on the exterior will run all the way inside.” An accomplished sculptor in bronze himself, Ceannt varies the tour at intervals to show some of the University’s prized art
acquisitions and the highlights of its “sculpture trail.” The trail now counts 40 installations, including work by Edward Delaney, Colm Brennan, Imogen Stuart, Conor Fallon and others. In the Health Sciences Centre he points out the Kevin Barry stained glass window, taken from Earlsfort Terrace as a gesture of continuity with the past. He sets out the “master plan” for the campus. “The key to understanding the future development is to remember that we actually have eleven original and separate estates here, with splendid period houses still standing and preserved. There are
2009
2009
Ladies Hockey: students blaze their way to first national title in 58 years.
Soccer: Students crowned League of Ireland Division 1 Champions.
2009 UCD and TCD announce Innovation Alliance to drive Smart Economy job creation and embed innovation as third pillar of university activity, alongside teaching & learning, and research.
2009 UCD and 7 Dublin institutions of higher education officially launch Dublin Region Higher Education Alliance.
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2010 UCD and National College of Art and Design (NCAD) form academic alliance.
| A DECADE OF TRANSFORMATION |
Drama Theatre
350 species of trees, reflecting the fact that these estates all had their arboretum and their cultivated landscape. In addition, we’ve planted a further 30,000 trees. We have this extraordinary parkland setting and we have to develop around that.” He produces a computer-generated, aerial image of the future campus. “Wejchert’s original concept was a ‘spine’ running east to west along which the original buildings were located. There’s a huge, underground service tunnel still running along that spine, operating at around 50 per cent capacity. The next phase of development was a sort of ‘dog leg,’ off that, reaching down to
2010 Men’s Rowing: UCD wins Prince Albert Challenge Cup at Henley Royal Regatta.
the Science Centre, the Health Sciences Centre and so on. But for the future, we’re developing along the periphery of the campus, preserving and enhancing the green spaces in the centre, with walkways, gardens and sheltered pedestrian areas.” He refers to the aerial plan. Woodland walks ring the campus. Two perfect circles of green, each with a shining lake, and crisscrossed with walkways, intersect at the centre. The elegant period houses stand in parkland; Belfield House, Merville, Ardmore, University Lodge (formerly Roebuck Grove.) A sequence of futuresque buildings front the campus towards the present
2010
2011
Rugby: UCD wins the Leinster Senior League Cup for the first time since 1977.
Yachting: UCD team of ten wins the Student Yachting World Cup.
2011
2011
UCD launches the Ad Astra Academy to provide academic, sporting and performance arts scholarships to students.
Ciara Everard beats Sonia O’Sullivan’s Irish U23 800m indoor record at the IUAAA Intervarsity Championships
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Belfield House
Woodland Woodland Walks Walks
Stillorgan Road. There are no car parks. Ceannt laughs. “They’re gone underground. That has to happen. We have 3,500 car spaces. Stanford has 19,000 and it still isn’t enough. But the key has to be greatly improved public transport and we’re in discussions about that with the transport authorities.” What about the futuresque buildings along the Stillorgan Road? “The plan is to develop businesses in partnership with the University. The potential is enormous, of course. So that will be the point at which the University faces to the city, to the community.” He moves on from the aerial plan to show the Confucius Centre
for Chinese studies, the proposed redevelopment of the area around Ardmore House and what he describes as the “Agora,” a new, precinct to be constructed in the space between the Newman Building and the Joyce Library. Also in the plan is the development – already underway – of the International James Joyce Centre at Newman House on St Stephen’s Green, the original home of UCD’s precursor, Newman’s Catholic University of Ireland. Yet buildings and parkland, however magnificent, cannot do more than provide the environment in which the core activity of a university – learning – is conducted. What will characterise UCD
2012
2012
Construction begins on the new Sutherland building for the UCD School of Law.
Sailer Annalise Murphy finishes 4th in Laser Radial Class at London Olympics.
2012
2012
2012
Taoiseach opens first phase of €300m UCD Science Centre; the largest capital investment in science in the history of the Irish State.
Arthur Lanigan-O’Keeffe makes his Olympic debut in Modern Pentathlon at London.
UCD Student numbers in Ireland reaches 25,000 with 29% at graduate or PhD level.
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| A DECADE OF TRANSFORMATION |
Conferring
as a centre of learning in the next stage of its journey? “Dr Hugh Brady seriously upped UCD’s ambitions in the sciences,” Ceannt says. “And it has clearly paid off. It’s time now, I think, for the humanities to come to the fore. I think that’s got to be the project for the next decade.” With a new President, Professor Andrew Deeks, taking the reins, with a college and campus that have matured into their full identity and with a far-reaching programme of curriculum development in hand, that ambition is timely. It would be an appropriate reconnection to UCD’s early roots
and a fulfilment of Newman’s vision of 1854. It is perhaps worth revisiting what he said at a time when Belfield was still pastureland. “I am turning my eyes towards a hundred years to come, and I dimly see the island I am gazing on, become the road of passage and union between two hemispheres, and the centre of the world ... the capital of that prosperous and hopeful land is situated in a beautiful bay and near a romantic region; and in it I see a flourishing university which for a while had to struggle with fortune but which, when its first founders and servants are gone, had success far exceeding their anxieties.” n
2012
2013
Ladies Hockey team wins gold for Ireland at the Euro Hockey Champions Challenge.
CAO first preferences rise from 7,610 in 2004 to 8,918 in 2013.
2013
2013
2013
The public vote the UCD Student Centre as the winner of the Public Choice Award in the 2013 Royal Institute of the Architects of Ireland (RIAI) Irish Architecture Awards.
Total value of research awards over the decade tops €780 million.
Number of UCD students studying on overseas campuses reaches 5,360.
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| UNIVERSITY LIFE |
Finding BALANCE
Five academics tell Bridget Hourican about what it means to be a female professor today.
I
n 1981 there were no women professors or associate professors in UCD, and of 142 senior lecturers, only eight were women. In the early 1990s, when Brigid Laffan was appointed professor in the politics department, her husband was invited to a reception with a letter addressed to ‘Mrs’. Today UCD has 40 women professors and 33 associate professors, and leads the way in Irish universities in terms of promoting women to senior positions. Today’s women professors in UCD came of age without senior academic female role models. Though not pioneers exactly – there were a number of professors in the early 20th century, the so-called “blue stocking generation”– today’s professors are part of the first “sustainable generation” of women in academia. To get a sense of the challenges involved in being among the few women (still only 18 per cent Europe-wide) who have risen to the top in universities, I talked to female professors from five disciplines – law, medicine, business, politics and engineering. This involved a field trip round Belfield, meeting each woman in her own domain – ORLA FEELY, Professor, School of Electrical, Electronic and Communications Engineering in
PROFESSOR IMELDA MAHER: Sutherland Chair of European Law In her time as a law undergraduate at UCD, Professor Maher had only “one female lecturer”.
the Engineering block, probably the first “state-of-the-art” building in Belfield, NIAMH BRENNAN, Michael MacCormack Professor of Management in the Quinn School of Business, CECILY KELLEHER, Professor Public Health, Physiotherapy and Population Science in Woodview, one of Belfield’s 19th-century
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houses, now home to the School of Public Health and BRIGID LAFFAN, Professor, School of Politics and International Relations in the Newman Building, which we used to call the Arts Block. I would have met IMELDA MAHER, Sutherland Chair in European Law in the stunning Sutherland School of Law, but it had yet to open. These women are very different in terms of character, research and interests, but on certain points they concur. All say generously that they were lucky in having the right research area in the right discipline at the right time, and all think it’s now “much harder” for young academics, male or female, to get staff positions. Every single one uses the word “flexible” to describe academic life – you can organise your own hours, to some extent, so it’s a good career for combining with motherhood. But flexible is a relative – indeed, a flexible – term. These women direct Schools, manage boards, organise conferences, advise government, lead research consortia – all on top of the bread and butter of lecturing, researching and mentoring. That’s a lot of hours, flexible or otherwise. “You can shape the job to meet your ambitions,” says ORLA FEELY, but concedes that while responsibilities beyond research and teaching are optional, “if you don’t opt
in, then that trickles through and affects career progression”. The life of a senior academic seems flexible only in comparison to a senior partner in a law firm or CEO of a multinational, the two examples my interviewees give. As well as first-class minds, they need to put in time, effort, organisation, and strategising. Most of the women I talk to had their children in their early thirties, after they’d secured staff positions, but before they’d taken on senior management roles. All had their career paths mapped out, and their advice to young academics (of both sexes) is “to hit the ground running”. How significant a factor is gender? Did they find it a barrier? Did they encounter bias? Most say no. Orla Feely and Cecily Kelleher say their disciplines, engineering and medicine, are “meritocratic” and “gender neutral”. Imelda Maher says networking “may favour men” but not in her experience. Feely recalls only one incident where she was made aware of being a woman: “As a PhD student in Berkeley, a professor exclaimed over my work: ‘This is wonderful, you think like a man!’ I thought, no, I think like an engineer …” As a vice-president of the University, 2005-2011, when she engaged with the President of UCD, Dr Hugh Brady in ambitious root and branch reform, it was part of BRIGID LAFFAN’S job to be “gender aware” and she has given serious thought to the whole issue. She provides a number of examples of gender insensitivity: “In the midto late 1990s there was a promotion round in UCD and no woman was promoted. Those involved said the best people had been promoted, but it was remarkable there were no women – and it was remarked upon. Women mobilised, and there were rows at academic council and faculty level. It worked – that will never happen again. “And I remember applying for an academic post – I won’t say to which institution – and when I submitted my
PROFESSOR ORLA FEELY: School of Electrical, Electronic and Communications Engineering “I came from a school where almost all my teachers were women but the message at third level was: we can’t entrust your education to women.”
dossier, I was asked if I was the secretary. On another occasion – and this was in the 2000s – I was interviewed for the position of president of the University of Limerick by an all-male board. That was shocking.” Laffan suggests one way of breaking through the glass ceiling: “If a woman has a gap on her CV and if the reason for the
“Take responsibility for your personal development”. “In all my time as an undergraduate,” says Professor Orla Feely of the School of Electrical, Electronic and Communications Engineering, “I didn’t have a single lecture from a woman. I came from a school where almost all my teachers were women, but the message at third level was: we can’t entrust your education to women.” Nevertheless Feely thinks she was very fortunate: “I went to university, and was among the first generation of women in engineering. I benefited from investment by my family and this country in education. Doors were opened for me and I went through them blithely, unaware they’d ever been closed.” Feely helped set up the UCD Energy Institute, and is chair of the Irish Research Council, overseeing disbursement of the IRC’s d35 million budget. In recognition of her contributions to nonlinear discretetime circuits and systems, she is a Fellow of IEEE – the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, where only five per cent of Fellows are women. As a UCD law undergrad, IMELDA MAHER, academic director of the new Sutherland School of Law had “one female lecturer”. In 2006 she became the first woman to get a chair of law in UCD, after time working in the LSE, the Australian National University and the University of London. She is now running the new LLM in European Law and Public Affairs. Her research interests are in law and governance in the EU, in particular in relation to competition law. She believes recruitment of women to higher positions in universities should be dealt with at policy level – but using “soft initiatives, like mentoring and role models.” “I think I’ve worked as hard in UCD as if I were a partner in KPMG, but I’ve worked on my own terms,” says NIAMH BRENNAN, Michael MacCormack Professor of Management. “Universities
Today’s professors are part of the first “SUSTAINABLE GENERATION” of women in academia. gap is that she was having children, well you stop the clock. The gap is not there.” It’s an elegant proposal. It will certainly help level the playing field. But Laffan has a more important core message and it’s the same message I hear, in one form or another, from all these women:
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| UNIVERSITY LIFE |
PROFESSOR BRIGID LAFFAN: School of Politics and International Relations “I remember applying for an academic post and when I submitted my dossier, I was asked if I was the secretary.”
are demanding but they aren’t clientdriven, so you make your own hours. The kids would be in bed by 8pm and I’d do two or three hours’ work. Often I’d come in on Sundays while my husband took the kids. I do it because it’s fun and because I really enjoy it. I chose to ‘lean in’ but others may choose not to. They may be interested in a more diversified portfolio not measured by the workplace”.. It was Brennan’s experience as a non-executive director that led her to set up the UCD Centre for Corporate Governance in 2002 after she’d been appointed. “I’m a firm believer that you should be bringing back to the university your experience in the real world – and taking on roles in the business world gets me more street cred in the classroom. I was looking for information and advice on being a director and there wasn’t any so I set up this Centre to provide training for anybody taking on a governance role. We teach regulations round governance, behavioural issues, risk management, remuneration.” CECILY KELLEHER was appointed to a chair in NUI Galway in 1990, aged 33 – one son was an infant and the other was born shortly after. With her background
– medical and feminist – she was always going to work: “My mother was a doctor and all her sisters worked too. My greatgrandfather put great emphasis on women’s education and when I looked at the 1911 census, my father’s mother had signed in neat script – her firm character came through her handwriting.” After graduation from UCD, she worked briefly as a doctor but became interested in public health “because I could see that the patients in front of me had preventable diseases”. She became chair of the college’s School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Population Science in 2003. She has advised every government health minister since 1990. “The research I’ve been involved in has always been about reducing inequity in this country. Through it all, my question has been why are there social variations and how might they be reduced. In the period of the Celtic Tiger, we were not bringing through, as we should have been, the people who were most socially disadvantaged.”
PROFESSOR CECILY KELLEHER: School of Public Health, Physiotherapy and Population Science “My mother was a doctor and all her sisters worked too. My greatgrandfather put great emphasis on women’s education.”
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PROFESSOR NIAMH BRENNAN: Michael MacCormack Professor of Management “I think I’ve worked as hard in UCD as if I were a partner in KPMG, but I’ve worked on my own terms.”
After 25 years in UCD, BRIGID LAFFAN transferred to Florence last
September, as director of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies. There was a moment this year when she was a strong contender to be UCD’s first woman president, but Florence made an offer she couldn’t refuse: “The pleasure of driving a research and intellectual agenda in my own field in a resource-rich environment, and keeping that academic leadership role, which I really enjoyed.” Appointed Jean Monnet Professor of European politics in 1991, at just 36, she has been, she claims, very lucky: “I found something I loved doing at a young age, and I had an area of expertise – European Studies – which few others had in this island.” She is now looking forward to working on “framing” the Euro crisis. “This is the first very serious crisis that the EU has experienced since its foundation. I’m looking into the deep question of where the system is going.” As vice-president, “whenever I thought gender was not being attended to, I immediately did something about it.” But her message to younger colleagues is: “Don’t add to the stress of your situation. There’s lots of time. Enjoy your children. Extremely long hours are not effective.” ^
| FICTIONAL UCD |
THE
effect
OF HER IN ALUMNUS GERARD STEMBRIDGE’S LATEST NOVEL, THE ACTION UNFOLDS ON THE BELFIELD CAMPUS IN THE 1970s. OUR ANNOTATED EXTRACT TAKES CAREFUL NOTE OF THE CHANGES IN UNIVERSITY LIFE BETWEEN THEN AND NOW. NO LATTES IN THOSE DAYS, FOR ONE ...
The first wave of arts, commerce and law students arrived at Belfield in the 1970s. Their home was the Andrzej Wejchert Arts Block – now named the Newman Building. They were the newbees as the science students had already moved in to the Science Block in 1964. Engineers were still in Merrion Street, the vets were in Ballsbridge and the other faculties of medicine, architecture and … were in Earlsfort Terrace. The campus felt new – perhaps a bit raw ... but to the students, it was home.
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| FICTIONAL UCD |
OCTOBER 22, 1976
‘Extraordinarily vivid, knowing and satisfyingly irreverent’ JoHn BAnvIllE
veless where t. Her ‘“You couldn’t write it,” people say of Irish t the public life over the past fifty years, but here is o join Gerard Stembridge to prove them wrong. nd a
InThe Effect of Her, with flair and great daring,
Francis Strong, a teenager obsessed with literature, leaves his family for the dizzying freedoms of the capital.
for he has written a fictional chronicle of the 1970s Dublin. that is extraordinarily vivid, knowing, and sit. irreverent. The portrait of “CJ” alone m he satisfyingly is
oneafter eeks r for ‘What
Gráinne Kiely needed to let the lecture sink in, so she wandered over to the restaurant building for coffee and one more fag. (1) She was really looking forward to getting stuck into Mansfield Park. Her copy was in the halls of residence in Dartry, so the best plan was to head back there and spend the afternoon and evening reading. But as it was gone half twelve, she might as well have lunch first, to get that out of the way. It was in the queue for the upstairs restaurant that she met Susan Breslin. A smirk shared with a stranger in a lunch queue changed the day’s plan and began, possibly, a whole new friendship. That was college for you. (2)
Mags Perry, a journalist, flees her marriage in england to create a new life in what she hopes is a different Ireland.
CJ, a disgraced politician in search of a way back to power, meets a woman who may change the direction of his life.
is worth the purchase price.’ John BanvIlle
In his breathtaking new novel, Stembridge weaves together a cast of unforgettable voices to tell the story of a whole society in flux. as his characters struggle towards happiness and freedom, he asks where true change comes from: the individual, or her political masters.
great literature (or one kind of it, at least) should be, a marriage of the personal with the political and social . . . one of my books of the year, if not the book of the year.’ John haRDInG, author and critic, on Unspoken
£20
lITeRaRY FICTIon
Taken from The Effect of Her, published by Old Street Publishing, out now.
1 Unfortunately for Gráinne Kiely the Java Arts Café did not exist in the 1970s. Being essentially a somewhat lazy character she would have enjoyed saving herself a long walk, although her need for a “fag” could not be satisfied. She would have to grab a takeaway latte and stand in the cold.
****
A student was paid to stand at the entrance to the restaurant and shout out the lunch menu, so that everyone queuing up the stairs could decide in advance what they would have. A demeaning job, but he gave it great welly. “NUMBER ONE, STEAK AND KIDNEY! NUMBER TWO, CHICKEN CURRY! NUMBER THREE, SELECTION OF SALADS! NUMBER FOUR, SPOTTED DICK WITH CUSTARD, OR JELLY AND CREAM! NUMBER ONE, STEAK AND KIDNEY!...” (3) Gráinne couldn’t help muttering to the girl beside her that she hoped they were paying him well for this daily humiliation. The girl replied that the amazing thing was he seemed to relish it, as if he saw himself as a sort of combination town crier and circus ringmaster. It took off from there. Gráinne was relieved that the girl, who sounded quite English, was also pigging out on the glutinous steak and kidney pie, even though it looked “like shite” – according to Gráinne – and “pretty gruesome” – according to the girl.
2 In the 1970s students, not having the means to communicate by cellphone, text, tweet or Facebook, tended to rely on “chance” encounters. The author’s tone suggests he finds this a satisfying way for a student to get through the day. 3 Presumably this is an amusing flight of fancy from the author. Even in the 1970s such a character and situation seem wholly unlikely.
****
Without thinking about it, they sat together, babbling away. They’d finished eating before it occurred to either to introduce herself. Next thing they’d drunk three cups of coffee each and smoked Gráinne’s pack of ten, (4) with Susan apologising and promising several times to get her back soon. It was only when Susan looked at her watch and jumped up that Gráinne noticed the restaurant was almost empty. “Sorry, I have a half-three tutorial. Are you going to the L&H tonight?” Gráinne admitted that such a thing hadn’t occurred to her. She’d never been. Susan said it was a bit of a bear pit, but great fun. She’d even spoken at some of the debates and her boyfriend was on this year’s committee. Gráinne had to come. Please! Tonight especially the meeting would definitely be buzzing because of the President’s resignation.
****
Gráinne had been aware of the controversy all week: a big barney with the government because the Minister for Defence had insulted
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4 One can only imagine the hideous fug of smoke that must have enveloped the characters and their fellow diners.
5 Obviously in 2013 the notion of a politician resigning on a point of principle is as unlikely a scenario as smoking in a workplace, but back in the 1970s it was conceivable. There was even one recorded case of resignation – to which the author is referring.
| FICTIONAL UCD | the President in public, but she hadn’t heard that he’d actually resigned ... (5) The wind scuttering up the steps from the arts block was icy. Nearly four o’clock. Gráinne thought that rather than humping herself all the way to the halls of residence, she should box clever, stay on campus, go to the library, find Mansfield Park, read until nearly eight and then straight to the L & H. Much better use of time. First though, she needed to get more fags. The student bar was the handiest place. (6)
****
“I RESIGN” – O’DÁLAIGH (7)
****
A man in a dickie bow and linen jacket, obviously a lecturer, had the Evening Herald spread out on the bar. When he noticed Gráinne glancing sideways at the front-page story he asked her opinion on the President’s shock announcement and insisted on buying her a pint. Had his manner been even a fraction less conspicuously lupine, (8) Gráinne might have allowed herself to be charmed by him and settled in for a longer encounter, adding another twist in the road of this twisty day...
6 The student bar referred to was situated where the Daedalus Building is now. It was a brown brick affair much-loved by 1970s students who knew no better. It was surpassed in the last years of the century by the infamous “bunker” bar.
****
As she waited to order, a guy from her class she had thrown an eye over more than once but never spoken to, stood next to her. He caught her eye and nodded, unsmiling. Even though she already knew his name was Freddie and he was from Carlow, Gráinne just nodded back as if she’d never seen him before and resumed trying to catch the barman’s eye. After a few silent seconds he spoke. (9)
7 See note 5 re: politicians resigning
****
“Have I seen you in 1st English?” Gráinne did a big pleasantly surprised “Oh yeah” and asked what had he thought of the lecture this morning? He said he hadn’t been there. Jane Austen wasn’t his bag. “I’m a poet. Are you?’ Gráinne kept a straight face and said she hadn’t really thought about it. He said, “You gotta, you gotta name the thing you are.” He’d already completed his first collection, but was going to take his time before allowing it to be published. Timing was everything. “Just because the poems are ready for the readers, doesn’t mean the readers are ready for the poems.” Gráinne would have liked to hear him say that after a few more pints. Still, he paid for her Harp and she found goatees quite sexy, and his spray-on drainpipes featured a promising bulge, (10) so for the moment, she was happy to let him talk shite as much as he liked. ■
10 In a curious twist of fashion history, “spray-on drainpipes” are still very much in evidence on the modern campus under the name “skinny jeans”. So, while smoking indoors, chance encounters and resigning politicians may all be just fading memories of life in that peculiar decade, when it comes to tight revealing clothing it is plus ça change.
8 The charming/predatory college lecturer is a popular literary trope in the campus novel. Obviously it has no basis in real life. Whatsoever. Not even in the 1970s.
9 Another of the ”chance” encounters which seem to enchant the author. They could never happen in Belfield today as both characters would be too busy to notice each other: She, checking her Facebook page and he, playing Angry Birds.
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| SCHOLARSHIP |
To the STARS
UCD’s Ad Astra Academy – for the top-performing academic achievers, performers and elite athletes – isn’t just about financial support, it also offers these very gifted students unique development and mentoring opportunities.
UCD Ad Astra Academy 2013.
U
niversity scholarships have been around for a long time. But the Ad Astra Academy is something new. Not only does the programme fund the brightest and best students in the fields of academia, sport and the performing arts, but it also offers those students a unique mix of expert mentoring, workshops and other opportunities to develop their success. While the University recognises a wide range of abilities among its student body, the Director of the Ad Astra Academy, Professor Mark Rogers, believes, “It is also important to create an environment where students with exceptional ability, creativity and drive will be motivated, challenged and inspired.” The reality is that at this level, these topperforming students can go anywhere – they will be granted scholarships to universities like Oxford, Cambridge or Harvard or Yale. However, if nurtured at home at undergraduate level, the chances are they will stay in Ireland. “This is what is needed, not just for the University,” according to Professor Rogers who is also Registrar and Deputy President of UCD, “but for the nation. These students are the next leaders in business, sports and the performing arts and their skills will gain wider recognition
UCD Ad Astra Director, Professor Mark Rogers.
which can only enhance the reputation of Ireland and of the University.” The Ad Astra Academy is funded through a combination of university resources and philanthropy. Since 2010, when the Academy took in its first elite sports group (the academic and performing arts strands launched in 2011), the Ad Astra Academy has worked to develop a unique
“Everyone in the Ad Astra Academy is equally ambitious and this atmosphere drives you forward.”
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programme of internships and access to workshops and seminars with academics, guest speakers and distinguished alumni. Academic scholars get the chance to attend conferences and other events not usually attended by undergraduates. “Being part of Ad Astra promotes academic curiosity and motivates students to broaden their academic horizons beyond the confines of their mandatory course undertakings,” says academic scholar Orla McManamly, an Actuarial and Financial Studies student, “making study a more personally relevant and satisfying experience.” Mentoring is a big part of the programme – all scholars are closely guided and each scholar has an academic tutor to encourage them to develop their full potential. Musicians get to work with distinguished musical directors; drama scholars work with a professional Director in Residence, take part in masterclasses and discussions with visiting theatre professionals, train with a voice specialist and participate in high-quality theatre productions. And, as well as access to expert mentors, elite athletes have access to physiotherapy, nutritional advice and travel to national and international events. Scholars receive a fee concession of 50 per cent off the student contribution charge
| SCHOLARSHIP | achieving. Performers don’t actually have to be working towards a degree in their chosen art form – in fact, the programme actively encourages applications from talented performing artists whatever degree they choose. There is also an opportunity for continuing students to join the Academy. In 2013, 17 scholarships were awarded to current undergraduate students based on their academic achievement at the end of their first year. Current students can apply for the performing arts and athletic scholarship throughout their degree. In 2013, a total of 148 Ad Astra scholarships were awarded. The standards, unsurprisingly, are very high. Several scholars are participating in the Universitas 21 scheme, attending distinguished summer schools in the United States and working on social entrepreneurship projects in the developing world. Many of the athletes have represented Ireland internationally – sailor
Annalise Murphy came fourth in the Laser Radials in last year’s London Olympics and is a World Cup bronze medallist; rugby player Sean O’Brien was a member of the British and Irish Lions this year. Some of the performing artists have performed all over the world – medical student Oisín Ó Frighil, had a “once-in-alifetime opportunity to perform at the White House and New York City’s Metropolitan Opera House”. According to Professor Rogers, scholars must continually engage with the programme. Academic scholars must maintain a GPA of 3.68 (equivalent to a First Class performance) and the other scholars need to maintain their high level of sporting or artistic performance while fulfilling their academic course requirements. Even recognising that bright students enjoy studying, Professor Rogers emphasises the importance of developing a community of like-minded students
“I couldn’t have made it to the Olympics without the help of the Academy – I always felt supported and assisted.”
“I can honestly say that receipt of this scholarship puts students in a very privileged position commencing third level.”
“The Academy has opened up a whole new world of music at UCD. It has given me the opportunity to combine my passion for music with my academic degree.”
ARTHUR LANIGAN O’ KEEFFE, Ad Astra Elite Athlete, Modern Pentathlon Olympian, BSc Sport and Exercise Management
ORLA MC MANAMLY, Ad Astra Scholar, Actuarial and Financial Studies
KILLIAN GRUMLEY TRAYNOR, Ad Astra Performing Arts Scholar, Astrophysics
(or up to d4,000 concession for scholars where tuition fees apply), as well as a d1,000 bursary and an accommodation allowance that covers on or off-campus housing. This is very important to many scholars. “[It] alleviated a lot of financial pressure for me, which is a great relief, “ says academic scholar Ciarán Boylan. One important aspect of the Ad Astra Academy is the positive impact it is predicted to have on the entire student body. “So far, we have seen that by fostering the elite athletes, our sports teams are performing better and the clubs are being better supported,” says Professor Rogers. “By growing success, we gain reputation which is positive for every student of the University.” The success of the Academy’s top performers will also impact on the University in terms of the future. As alumni, they are bound to credit the University with an important role in encouraging their gifts and developing their careers.
The three strands of the Ad Astra programme accept students in different ways. Academic scholarships are automatically offered to UCD applicants who attain six A1 grades at honours level in their Leaving Certificate. Potential elite athlete and performing arts scholars, however, apply directly for the programme, separate to their CAO application. If their application is successful, performing arts students are expected to reach the requirements for their chosen academic course. For the elite athletes, the Academy offers flexible admission arrangements acknowledging that dedication to sport may potentially have prevented applicants from getting the CAO points they would otherwise be capable of
– THANK YOU – TO OUR AD ASTRA DONORS:
Arup Bank Of Ireland Dr Peter Gleeson (founding benefactor) Dr Thomas G Lynch And others who wish to remain anonymous
who can be mutually supportive. Ad Astra scholars who choose to live on campus are housed together and encouraged to come together. “The support network provided by the Academy is top class,” says hockey player and physiotherapy student Brenda Flannery. “It’s a great comfort to know there is always help close by if needed.” UCD is deeply grateful to the individuals, companies and trusts enabling UCD Ad Astra Scholars to fulfill their potential. In the words of medical student, Nora Tadros, “Everyone in the Ad Astra Academy is equally ambitious and this atmosphere drives you forward.” ^ To learn how you can support the Ad Astra Academy go to www.ucdfoundation.ie/adastra
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| NEWS |
SPORTS SHORTS UCD’s sportsmen and women continue to represent the University with distinction nationally and internationally.
ATHLETICS CIARA EVERARD won the
800-metre event at the University Championships, setting a new Irish University record of 2.03. Everard also won the Irish Senior Women’s Indoor 800-metre national title, setting a new national record of 2.02.54 in the process, and went on to represent Ireland with distinction at the European Indoor Athletics Championships where she finished in sixth place in the final, with a time of 2.02.55.
Ciara Everard in action.
Willis. THE SECOND AND FIFTH TEAMS also secured promotion in the Leinster League. NOTABLE INDIVIDUAL HONOURS were those of Niamh Atcheler, Nikki Evans, Leah Ewart, Brenda Flannery, Nicola Gray, Sarah Greene, Katie Mullan, Anna O’Flanagan and Chloe Watkins who were all capped at senior level for Ireland during the year. Emily Beatty, Leah Ewart, Brenda Flannery and Sarah Greene were capped for Ireland Under-21 at the European Championships.
HANDBALL MARTIN MULKERRINS won
the Men’s Open title at the 2013 USHA National Collegiate Championships in February. Mulkerrins also won the Under-19 doubles title at the World Handball Championships in November.
The victorious ladies hockey team.
LADIES HOCKEY
THE LADIES HOCKEY CLUB had a fantastic season with the Firsts securing the Leinster League title, the Chilean Cup (Universities Championships), reaching the Irish Senior Cup final and the last four of the Irish Hockey League. The team also won the gold medal at the Euro Hockey Champions Challenge I in Catania, Italy in May. THE VICTORIOUS SQUAD included Niamh Atcheler, Emily Beatty, Leah Brennan, Kate Collins Smith, Stella Davis, Hannah de Burgh Whyte (captain), Jamie Deacon, Maedhbh Delahunt, Tiffany Ellis, Nicola Evans, Leah Ewart, Brenda Flannery, Nicola Gray, Sarah Greene, Caroline Hill, Katie Mullan, Anna O’Flanagan, Rachel O’Reilly, Chloe Watkins and Samantha
Update your details with UCD Hockey Club to receive information on upcoming events. www.ucd.ie/sport/ucdhockeyclubupdateform
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MENS HOCKEY THE CLUB WON THE
LEINSTER UNDER-21 CUP TITLE for this first time in the Club’s history, beating Monkstown 9-0 in the final in April. The victorious team included Robert Burke, Nick Burns, Sam Butler, Ross Canning, Luke Chadwick (captain), Ben Dobson, Stephen Doherty, Billy Dore, Jeremy Duncan, Scott Margetson, Lorcan Miller, Ravin Nair, Shane O’Donoghue, Guy Prendergast, Conor Quinn, David Watkins and Sliabh Wells. Shane O’Donoghue was also capped for Ireland at the Champions Challenge in Argentina where the team won bronze, and also featured on the Irish team at the World Series Two event in India. He was awarded player of the match in their critical game against China.
RUGBY IT WAS AN AMAZING YEAR FOR THIS
UCD CLUB. The First team secured promotion to Division 1A of the All Ireland League following their 42-0 victory over Shannon. The team also retained the Dudley Cup. The victorious squad included Andrew Boyle, Risteard Byrne, Brian Cawley, Adam Clarkin, Sam Coughlan Murray, Andrew Cummiskey, Barry Daly, Patrick Dix, David Doyle, Niall Earls, Thomas Fletcher, Conor Gilsenan, Jamie Glynn, Shane
| NEWS | Winners of the Student World Yachting Championships.
Rugby promotion for the First team.
Grannell, Rory Hannon, Rory Harrison, Eoin Joyce, Daniel Kenny, David Lynch, Emmet MacMahon, Luke McGrath, Mark McGroarty, Kieran Moloney, Stephen Murphy, Shane O’Meara, Robert Shanley, James Thornton, James Tracy and Michael Twomey. THE UNDER-21 TEAM, coached by Vinny Hammond, won the JP Fanagan League Cup, the Conroy Cup and the McCorry Cup. The victorious squad included Christopher Best, Liam Bourke, Adam Byrne, Bryan Byrne, Edward Byrne, James Carroll, Peter Conlon, Philip Crowe, Shane Delahunt, Conall Doherty, Cillian Duff, Gordon Frayne, Jack Gallagher, James Harrison, Bobby Holland, Rory Kavanagh, Donagh Lawler, Daniel Leavy, Dylan Leybourne, Kevin Lynch, Hugo Mays, Jonathan McDonnell, Andrew Murphy, Michael Murphy, Philip O’Dwyer, Rory O’Loughlin, Philip O’Neill, Stuart O’Sullivan, Oisin Tegeler, Gavin Thornbury, Peter Tierney, Peadar Timmins, John Van Der Flier and Andrew Walsh. Three players featured in the Irish Club side that played England and Scotland: Danny Kenny, Risteard Byrne and Shane Grannell. Luke McGrath also captained Ireland at the Under-20 World Cup in France. He was joined on the squad by fellow UCD club members Adam Byrne, Peadar Timmins, Josh Van Der Flier, Bryan Byrne, Edward Byrne, Gavin Thornbury, and Dan Leavy. Liam Bourke was selected to represent America at the Under-20 Rugby World Cup. Shane Delahunt and Rory O’Loughlin were capped for Ireland at Under-19 level. Capped for Leinster at Senior Level were Adam Byrne, Andy Boyle, Jordan Coghlan, Sam Coghlan Murray, James Tracy and Luke McGrath.
NOTABLE INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCE was that of Annalise Murphy who represented Ireland at the London Olympics, finishing in fourth place in the Laser Radial class. Murphy also competed in the ISAF World Sailing Championships where she finished sixth. She finished fourth at the Miami Olympic Class regatta, seventh in the Laser Radial European Championships and third at the ISAF World Cup in Weymouth. She is currently ranked tenth in the world. She recently won the ISA Sailing Achievement Award and was voted the Afloat Sailor of the Year. She represented Ireland at the Laser European Championships in Dun Laoghaire last month.
MORE SPORTING SUCCESS & THE CENTENARY OF THE COLLINGWOOD CUP More SENIOR INTERVARSITY SUCCESS in the following sports: ^ Athletics: Mens Road Relay Team ^ Ladies Basketball ^ Equestrian: Tetrathlon ^ Fencing: Womens Foil and Womens Epee ^ Ladies Hockey ^ Karate ^ Mountaineering ^ Netball ^ Mens Rugby ^ Mens Soccer ^ Swimming ^ Table Tennis UCD MENS SOCCER retained the Collingwood Cup this year.
The Soccer Club will host the centenary of this intervarsity competition in Belfield from February 25th-27th 2014. For details see www.ucdsoccer.com
SAILING IT WAS A TERRIFIC YEAR for the
sailing club, with ten club members selected to represent Ireland at the Student Yachting World Championships in La Rochelle, France last October. The team of Ellen Cahill, Simon Doran, David Fitzgerald, Ben Fusco, Cathal Leigh Doyle, Barry McCartin, Aidan McLaverty, Isabella Morehead, Theodore Murphy and Alyson Rumball secured overall victory at the event, beating 13 rivals with a comprehensive twelvepoint margin. The club will defend the title again this year. A
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SWIMMING & WATERPOLO IT WAS A GREAT SEASON for this club,
with significant individual achievements. The Club also hosted the Varsities for the first time in the new 50-metre pool. The event was a huge success, with UCD swimmers claiming numerous Shani Stallard making the final of the 100m breaststroke at a FINA World individual titles, resulting Cup meet in Stockholm, Sweden. in the club winning the Womens Team event, the Mens Team event and the overall Intervarsity title. THE MENS TEAM included David Cooney, Donal Crowe, Michael Dalton, Henry Dean Smal, Luke Dowling, Donal Drought, Brian Feighan, Eoin Gray, Daniel Hecker, Conor Hillick, Jack Keogh, Arthur Lanigan O’Keeffe, John Martin, Niall McAuley, Callum McKinney, Phil Meagher, Paul Murphy, Conor O’Keeffe, Alex Rathke, Rob Stout and Diarmuid Sugrue. THE WOMENS TEAM comprised Sive Brassil, Kate Coleman, Lisa Comerford, Aisling Cooney, Niamh Fogarty, Caoimhe Gowran, Eva Kelly, Louise Kent, Romy Madden, Anna McKenna, Chloe Meehan, Naomi Mullins, Aoife Murray, Ciara Murray, Claire O’Donovan, Shauna O’Brien, Sarah Power, Shani Stallard, Xela
SPORTS AWARDS students are recognised for their contribution to the sporting life of the University. THE UCD ATHLETIC UNION COUNCIL SPORT AWARDS ceremony took place in the Student Centre in May. Over 500 students from 27 different sports clubs were honoured for their sporting achievements on behalf of the University over the last twelve months. A number of special awards were presented on the night. THE LADIES HOCKEY CLUB was named Elite Club of the Year in recognition of the tremendous success of its teams and players this season. THE RUGBY FIRST XV was named Elite Team of the Year, following their promotion to Division 1A of the All Ireland League and their retention of the Dudley Cup and Colours Trophy. INTERNATIONAL
Steenberge and Aleksandra Surowiec. NOTABLE INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCES at the Varsities were those of Aisling Cooney
who won the 200-metre and 100-metre backstroke events and Donal Drought who won the 100-metre and 200-metre individual medley events, Jack Keogh who won the 200 metre butterfly, Shauna O’Brien who won the 100-metre and 200-metre butterfly events, Shani Stallard who won the 200-metre freestyle event and Xela Steenberge who won the 50-metre backstroke event. THE WOMENS RELAY TEAM of Aisling Cooney, India McGlynn, Shauna O’Brien and Shani Stallard won the 200-metre medley and 200-metre freestyle events, setting new national records in the process. THE MENS RELAY TEAM of David Cooney, Donal Drought, John Martin and Henry Dean Smal won the 200-metre freestyle event. UCD also won the Cannon relay with Aisling Cooney, David Cooney, Donal Drought, John Martin, Shauna O’Brien and Shani Stallard. Lisa Comerford won the 800-metre event at the Swedish Grand Prix in Uppsala. Aisling Cooney is the short course National Champion in both 50-metre and 100-metre backstroke. Shauna O’Brien set two Irish records in the 50-metre butterfly, 27.75 seconds long course and 27.30 seconds short course. O’Brien also won national titles in the 50-metre and 100-metre butterfly events, both long and short course. Shani Stallard represented Ireland at the European Championships in both the 50-metre and 200-metre breaststroke events and is also the current 50-metre breaststroke short course national champion.
GAA HANDBALLER Martin Mulkerrins was named Dr Tony O’Neill Sportsperson of the Year, in recognition of his victory in the Men’s Open event at the 2013 US Handball Association National Collegiate Championships and his victory in the Under-19 event at the World Handball Championships. Emma McHugh from the LADIES GAELIC FOOTBALL CLUB was named the Gerry Horkan Club Administrator of the Year. The SAILING TEAM that won the Student Yachting World Cup was named Varsity Team of the Year and the CANOE CLUB was named Varsity Club of the Year. Commenting on the sporting achievements, UCD’s Vice President for Students, Dr Martin Butler, said, “Sport is an integral part of student life at UCD and the fact that we have so many students from so many clubs, not only triumphant at intervarsity level, but also taking on the cream of competition nationally and internationally, underlines the quality of our sportsmen and women.”
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Captain Risteard Byrne with Director of Rugby Bobby Byrne.
Sportsperson of the year Martin Mulkerrins is presented with his award by Dr Marjorie Fitzpatrick, sister of the late Dr Tony O’Neill.
| SWIMMING |
A RICH HISTORY: The 1938 UCD Waterpolo team: BACK ROW: Unknown, Wilfie Nolan, Kevin O’Doherty and Liam Boyd. FRONT ROW: Jimmy O’Toole, Eddie Byrne, Terry Bradley and Justin Tallon.
A POOL OF THEIR OWN The UCD Swimming and Waterpolo Club is celebrating its 100th birthday – and at last it’s got its own pool.
I
n March, UCD played host to the Irish University Swimming and Waterpolo Association Annual Intervarsities in the brandnew 50-metre pool at the Sport & Fitness complex. UCD’s swimming team won all three major trophies. One hundred years ago, in 1913, James Tallon became the very first captain of UCD’s new Swimming and Waterpolo Club. A year later, the Freeman’s Journal reported that “it was very apparent that the University College Club will ere long take that prominent place in Irish swimming which should rightfully be theirs”. Over the decades, several UCD swimmers would go on to the Olympics and the team would win many Intervarsity competitions. In terms of UCD’s waterpolo history, the first mention of the sport dates back to 1925 but evidently its conception accompanied that of the swimming contingent. In any
case, by 1938 the University had junior and intermediate teams playing regularly in Irish leagues. Back then, the University didn’t have its own pool. Dr Oliver Lawless, who was captain of the Club in 1958, says having a pool would have made a huge difference. “I went to Tara Street Baths from Earlsfort Terrace on my bicycle five days per week and then to the Iveagh Baths for waterpolo,” he recalls. UCD has had a long history of both swimming and waterpolo. But according to current captain, Eoin Gray, due to the competitive nature inherent in both, students now often choose to focus on one of the two sports. This was not the case in years gone by. Last year the Olympic-sized swimming pool was completed in the new Sport & Fitness complex. Now all members can be brought together under one roof and
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can retrace the roots of the Club, regaining a sense of history and camaraderie. For Eoin Gray, the new pool also allows for more varied and flexible training regimes: “There is a varsity team which trains four times a week and we are hoping to increase this next year.” Swimmers can now balance their studies and early morning sessions more effectively. This has certainly worked wonders to boost the profile of both swimming and waterpolo in the University and for Gray this is just the beginning. The hope is to organise more club activities, thereby attracting more members. The new facilities have attracted a great deal more interest from swimmers abroad and have raised the profile of both sports in Ireland, helped by the recent success achieved by current members. For former Olympic swimmer Earl McCarthy, the complex’s aquatics manager who is also the swimming
| SWIMMING | coach, this is something he has been looking forward to for years. “It’s very hard to run a swim team without a pool,” says McCarthy. McCarthy took a degree in sports management as a mature student, which led to him volunteering as coach. “The teams were training just once or twice a week in a 20-metre pool.” Without its own pool, members used various pools around Dublin. “We even trained outdoors for a year, swimming in the rain and snow.” The low-profile nature of the sport in Ireland can be attributed to the lack of facilities in the past: “There have traditionally been few opportunities for Irish swimmers to train seriously once they get older. Swimming clubs focus on younger swimmers. Then they hit 17 or 18 and go to college,” he says. “Life changes. There’s nothing for them if a coach invites them back to swim with a group of twelveyear-olds.” McCarthy says: “It got easier for the swimmers once we knew there was going to be a 50-metre pool,” And it encouraged him to build up the team of swimmers, so that once the pool opened in 2012, they wouldn’t be starting from scratch. “They’re very disciplined,’ says McCarthy. And McCarthy’s dedication to the Club is paying off in other ways. “I think it’s getting more well known. But with [UCD swimmer] Aisling [Cooney] going to Beijing and the team setting nine national records since we started the profile has risen. I think that in a year or two it’ll be one of the first sports that come off the tongue when people speak of UCD.” The waterpolo team has also enjoyed success this past year in the Intervarsities and several of the Club’s members represented Ireland at the Celtic Nations. “We hope to continue with the growth of this aspect of the Club as well, attracting more members, fielding more teams and continue to be competitive at the Intervarsity competitions over the coming years,” confirms Eoin Gray. Earl McCarthy is clearly proud to be taking the swimming team into the future, but he has a keen sense of history. “There have been good years and bad years but
somebody always held it together, and if they hadn’t it could have ceased to exist. I try to tell the team that the Club is not just about you, it belongs to those who studied here over the generations.” People like Oliver Lawless, who have strong memories not just of the cameraderie but also of “winning the intervarsity championships”. Former member Robert Feddis also recalls the “proudest memory”
ABOVE: The UCD team of 2013 with 1956 captain Ronnie Wilson. BELOW: The team with Bank of Ireland’s Conor Johnson.
ABOVE: UCD President Dr Hugh Brady and director of sport, Brian Mullins with UCD’s record holders, Shauna O’Brien and Shani Stallard, India McGlynn and 2008 Olympian Aisling Cooney. RIGHT: The first intervarsity championships to be held in the new complex.
of his time as a member, “when we won the Intervarsity championship in 1947 and 1948”. Now it is as apt a time as any to celebrate 100 years of swimming at UCD. It is a chance, as Eoin Gray believes, for students past and present to come together, to reconnect and celebrate the memories formed in the water and he encourages a continuing involvement by alumni to keep the spirit of swimming alive. McCarthy knows that while students come and go, the Club spirit is eternal. “Degrees are only three years, so there’s a fast turnover [of swimmers],” he says. “But you’re not joining a training group,
you’re joining something bigger than yourself. The Club is something that was gifted to you, and you’ll gift it to the next generation.” n As part of the centenary festivities, this year’s captain Eoin Gray and the centenary committee are organising an open swim for all members, past and present, on Saturday 2nd November 2013. The swim will be held in the new facilities and a reception and dinner will follow. Register your interest in this event at www.ucd.ie/alumni/events All queries to ucdswimpolo@gmail.com
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| EVENTS LISTING |
DATES for your DIARY
Book online at
www.ucd.ie/alumni/events
UPCOMING EVENTS AT UCD
September
October
12th September, 6.30pm – UCD Conway Institute UCD CONWAY INSTITUTE has
9th - 28th October – UCD Science Centre The CERN EXHIBITION
created a dedicated research environment bringing together over 550 research staff from across the University. Join us to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Institute. 15th September, 11am – UCD Sport Centre
Join alumni, friends and neighbours of UCD for an afternoon of WOODLAND WALKS. Environmentalist Duncan Stewart will lead the guided walks on the day. 20th September, 10am - O’Reilly Hall, UCD CLASS OF 1963, join us in O’Reilly Hall to
celebrate your Golden Jubilee. 24th September, 7.30am – Mason Hayes & Curran, Dublin 4 UCD BUSINESS ALUMNI
invite you to a panel discussion “Earth, Wind & Fire: The Future for Ireland’s Energy Market”. 27th September, 10.30am – UCD Science Centre Join UCD PHARMACOLOGY alumni
at a PharMerville Gathering. A symposium will involve agencies including IBEC, IDA, Enterprise Ireland and SFI, and alumni speakers from the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and venture capital sectors.
“Mission Higgs” comes to UCD: Alumni are invited to attend the exhibition launch in the new UCD Science Centre. 15th October, 6.30pm – The University Club, New York Join UCD
Business Alumni at a networking reception for alumni living in NEW YORK. 19th October, 7.15pm – O’Reilly Hall, UCD Past Auditors,
committee members and friends will gather to celebrate the centenary of the COMMERCE & ECONOMICS SOCIETY
at a special black tie dinner.
November - December 2nd November – UCD Sport & Fitness
As part of the centenary celebration of the SWIMMING AND WATERPOLO CLUB an open swim in the new 50-metre pool will be organised for all members, past and present, followed by a reception and dinner. 13th November, 1pm & 7pm – Astra Hall, UCD Student Centre The UCD SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA proudly presents a concert
of music for children featuring Saint-Saens’s Carnival of the Animals, Rossini’s William Tell Overture & Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf with live animation and narration. orchestra@ucd.ie 13th -15th November – UCD Science Centre Earth Institute hosts EARTH GATHERING; a three-day event
demonstrating how research, enterprise and policy can shape our economy and society to help sustain our economy and environment. 18th, 19th, 20th December, 7.15pm – Newman House UCD CHORAL SCHOLARS perform at our annual Christmas
concerts held in Newman University Church, with a mulled wine reception beforehand in Newman House.
EVENTS IN 2014 25th-27th February 2014 – UCD The UCD SOCCER CLUB will host the centenary of the
intervarsity Collingwood Cup in Belfield. www.ucdsoccer.com February 2014 - UCD CLASS OF 1954 – join us
for your Diamond Jubilee celebration in UCD. 4th April 2014 – Four Seasons Hotel, Dublin Join us for the BUSINESS ALUMNI AWARDS DINNER at which we will recognise our 2014
Business Alumnus of the Year award winners. April/May 2014 – UCD As part of the centenary of UCD LAWN TENNIS CLUB a celebration event is
planned for April/May 2014.
2nd May 2014 – UCD Medical Classes of 1954, 1959, 1964, 1974, 1984, 1989, 1994, 2004, join the celebration at the MEDICAL SCHOOL GALA REUNION event. A scientific meeting takes place during the day and the event ends with a formal social evening in O’Reilly Hall. June 2014 - UCD As part of the 160th
Anniversary of Archaeology in UCD, a year-long commemoration is planned for 2014, January to December, with a special UCD BIG DIGS event in June 2014. www.ucd.ie/archdata June 2014 - UCD Class of 1974, join us for your RUBY JUBILEE celebration in UCD.
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| RE-CONNECTIONS |
RE-CONNECTIONS Whether it’s four years or 40 since you graduated, find out what your fellow classmates are up to. Our thanks to all who submitted details, some of which are reproduced here. For more, see “Reconnect with Friends” on www.ucd.ie/alumni 2000s GREGORY COYLE MSc 2004
I am currently working in the life sciences department of Enterprise Ireland, focusing on the devices, pharma and chemicals sectors. After qualifying with a MSc in Technology Management in 2004, several of us in the applied innovation department of Enterprise Ireland developed a defined process for helping SMEs build innovation capability.
PETER FRANCEV MA 2001
I am finishing my first year at Leicester, writing a PhD thesis on Byron. I am currently president of the Albert Camus Society USA and editor of The Journal of Camus Studies.
ANASTASIA BATZOULIANOU MA 2002
I went home to Greece after my graduation in 2002. My masters degree in film studies allowed me to teach screenwriting and film in an American college in Thessaloniki called New York College where I have been for two and a half years. I also taught theatre classes for a year and co-wrote the script for the independent production of The Return of Dominic Deladoor which was part of the Forum at the 47th Thessaloniki Film Festival. I write for a local magazine called Libre and several other print and online magazines. My short film The Noir Project is currently in production.
VISIT www.ucd.ie/alumni to RE-CONNECT with more classmates
ERIC LECHER
GAVIN O’ HALLORAN
MA 2009
BComm 2009, MSc 2010
I was recently promoted to principal at Providence Cristo Rey High School in the United States. PRCHS is a private, Catholic, college preparatory high school. I received my BA in Theology from Marian University and my MA in Philosophy from UCD. Subsequently, I returned to Marian University to complete the building level administrator programme through the Academy for Teaching and Learning Leadership, joining the faculty of PCRHS in 2012 as a theology teacher. I was previously philosophy teacher at the Charles A Tindley Accelerated School, theology teacher at Central Catholic High School in Lafayette, Indiana, and served as a site director for the youth programme at Jeremiah Gray-Edison Elementary School in Indianapolis and as a teacher selector with the New Teacher Project/ Indianapolis Teaching Fellows. In 2007, I was selected by the Diocese of Lafayette to serve on its High School Theology Curriculum Committee.
Eight former UCD students were part of the Monkstown Hockey Club treblewinning team and will now fly the flag for Ireland in the Euro Hockey League (EHL) or Champions League equivalent, in October. Monkstown Hockey Club ended a 99-year wait for Irish Senior Cup glory, beating Pembroke 5-4 in extra time and then completed the Irish double by winning the Irish Hockey League against Banbridge in May. There was also Leinster Senior Cup victory on St Patrick’s Day. Pictured are Nick Dee (BComm 2012), David Fitzgerald (B&L 2013), David Cole (BComm current), Gareth Watkins (BA 2007), David Carson (BA 2013), Gavin O’Halloran (BComm 2010), Runar O’Moore (Sports Management 2009) and Shane Nolan (BA 2011).
FLORENTINA NIJSSEN MA 2000
COLUM O’KEEFFE BE 2005
After completing a masters in Edinburgh in 2007, I moved back to Dublin and worked for a design practice for four years. Since then I have started work for a stockbroker in Dublin. My fiancée and I are planning our wedding in 2014.
After graduating I was a fulltime mum to my eleven children for a little while but I soon found a job teaching drama. Things developed and then I was appointed principal of a Waldorfschool in Lier near Antwerp. The school ran a six-year course in general secondary education to prepare students for third level. After a few years we wanted
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| RE-CONNECTIONS | to reach another demographic, so we developed a new vocational school in a sustainable and ecological building. We prepare students through practical work on building sites, which has turned out to be a very efficient way of teaching. We are unique in Belgium and – even if it is very far from drama studies – I enjoy developing this branch of education.
SIEW CHONG KEIT MSc 2012
I was born and raised on the sunny island country of Singapore in South East Asia, and recently decided to step down from the corporate ladder to start my own firm, Questview Pte Ltd. Having completed my MA, I founded my information technology services company with a view to creating more start-ups. I bolstered my business management skills with a course, and combining this new knowledge with my IT background, not only have I improved my proficiency in IT but also in business management. I am beginning to realise there is more than meets the eye to running a sustainable business, which includes sales and marketing, finance, strategies and policy implementation. I hope to make entrepreneurship fun and sustainable, lending strong advocacy to other entrepreneurs.
LINH NGUYEN MSc 2012
I recently accepted an offer from the Friede Springer scholarship programme to do a PhD at HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management in Germany. The research area I will focus on is trust in strategic alliances, especially international R&D collaborations. There are a few constants all postgraduate researchers can relate to, for example, the perpetual worry, the pressure of paper writing and publishing, the uncertainty regarding your progress, the loneliness of being so far away from home. PhD is the last stage in academic assessment, and it’s appropriately rigorous and comprehensive. I relish the opportunity to become a world-class
researcher and uniquely contribute to the pool of knowledge for today’s management scholars, practitioners and policy makers. I hope that my PhD journey will be challenging yet rewarding.
RMM PRADEEP
services clients in corporate immigration matters, as well as small and mediumsized foreign firms and entrepreneurs seeking to establish in the US market. As well as being admitted to the New York Bar, I qualified as a solicitor in Ireland and have previously practiced immigration law in Dublin.
BSc 2007
I received an BSc in Civil Engineering from University of Maoratuwa in October 2012.
BARBARA WALSHE-KEANE MA 2010
I completed a masters in arts management and cultural policy and have been working in the National Gallery of Ireland (a dream cherished since leaving school) for the past year. My background is in management consultancy which facilitated my entry to this excellent MA programme which includes working with such companies as Ericsson, Microsoft, Eircom and Barclays. The projects I am working on at the Gallery are technologydriven, and include negotiating issues with regard to access to the arts, digitising the collection and social media. I am grateful to UCD for the outstanding opportunity afforded me by the excellent masters programme and also the opportunity to work within UCD Given my very positive experience in research there in 2010, I am considering pursuing a PhD and will be exploring this option further in 2014.
1990s AISLING RYAN BCL 1995
This year, I was promoted to partner at New York law firm Gibney Anthony & Flaherty LLP. I represent multinational financial
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NIALL MC ARDLE BA 1993, MA 1994
I remember writing for the College Tribune, debates at the L&H, Law Soc, lunchtime plays at Dramsoc, the bar, films in Theatre P, Arts Day and working at the campus bookshop. I moved to Asia in 1994 and worked as an ESL instructor in Korea and Japan, returning to Dublin in 1999 to work as an English language teacher. I left Dublin for the second time in 2002, moving to Canada and settling in the Ottawa Valley, where my wife and I ran a giftshop and B&B. I have been back to Dublin twice in ten years, but I would love to return for good. I am thinking about going home for an extended stay sometime in 2013, and would love to catch up with anyone from Belfield.
ALAN HEARTY BBLS, 1996
I was recently promoted to partner at Allen Matkins Leck Gamble Mallory & Natsis LLP. Allen Matkins is a 220attorney California-based law firm specialising in real estate, litigation and business law and is ranked by Chambers & Partners USA as the number one real estate law firm in California. I am a trial attorney based in the firm’s Los Angeles office. My practice focuses on complex litigation with an emphasis on real estate and corporate business disputes. I continue to maintain strong links with Ireland and frequently counsel Irish businesses on US legal issues. I was a recipient of the 2010 Irish Legal 100 Award, which honours those of Irish heritage for their efforts in supporting the Irish-American legal profession.
| RE-CONNECTIONS | JOHN JENNINGS BA 1999, HDipEqualS
LNG. This is all taking place in a Class A nature reserve.
2001
In the past year my artistic life as a writer and manga animator has gone from strength to strength. I continue to be exhibited worldwide. Not only that, but my haiku have been getting some attention too. At the beginning of the year I was listed among the Top 100 Most Creative Haiku Writers in Europe.
ELIZABETH O’KANE DBS 1994
This year I was commissioned by the UCD Societies Council to create a bronze bust of Dr Garret FitzGerald. The bust was unveiled by Dr Maurice Manning at the official opening ceremony of The FitzGerald Chamber, within the UCD Student Centre. My other public sculpture commissions include a lifesize sculpture of famous Irish tenor, Count John McCormack, in The Iveagh Gardens, and champion Irish greyhound Mick the Miller, in Killeigh village, Co Offaly. Collectors of my work include the International Rugby Board, the IRFU, The National Concert Hall and Belfast City Hall. I will be exhibiting work in the Sculpture in Context Annual Exhibition, at The National Botanic Gardens, Dublin and at The Water Colour Society of Ireland Annual Exhibition, The Concourse, Dun Laoghaire County Hall, Dublin until October. This year I won the Irish Sculpture Award 2013 at the Mill Cove Galleries in West Cork.
BRENDAN TRAPPE BE 1997
I am currently working on a natural gas project on Barrow Island in Western Australia, as part of the world’s largest resource development project – Gorgon
JOHN RYAN PhD 1996
In the first year in my new role as director of services at Certification Europe Ltd, the company I co-founded in 2001, I have successfully provided our recently-opened London operations with government approval, via UKAS accreditation. This recognition gives us a top positioning in the ISO Management System certification market, both in the UK and internationally. I have also been travelling in the Middle East, where we have opened a high-potential market for services such as energy, quality, health and safety and environmental management systems. I have been an ambassador for sustainable energy management at a number of events across the UK. Over the past year in my role as chairman of ISME, I have been lobbying government to support our indigenous SME market, so that job creation and retention remains at the forefront of their plans.
DENIS BOYLE BE 1992
Having been diagnosed with bipolar disorder 14 years ago, I have had to re-think my life’s direction and get a new perspective on things. As a result of this life-changing experience, I have come out the other side a better and stronger person. I now find myself the chairperson of a peer support centre for Physical and Mental Health (www.arasfollain.com; www.facebook. com/aras.follain) and am presently involved in a new nationwide project with ARI (Advanced Recovery in Ireland; www.imroc.org) which hopes to bring about positive change as to how mental health services are delivered in Ireland.
DAMIAN AHERNE BSc 1997, PhD 2006
After graduating from UCD in 2006, I accepted a position at Trinity College Dublin as a post-doctoral researcher. In early 2011, I started a new job at Intel in the yield department and have been there since. I spend most of my days analysing data to identify impact on yield. After living in the US for almost six years, I returned to Ireland in 2004. I have three boys, Thomas, Joseph and Oscar, and live with my partner Keara in Kildare.
1980s FR MARIO D’SOUZA CSB BA 1981
Having graduated from UCD in 1981, I earned a MA from the University of Calgary and a PhD from the University of Toronto in 1984 and 1988 respectively. I was ordained and went to Boston College for post-doctoral studies. I have taught at the University of Windsor and at St Joseph’s College, University of Alberta, where I was academic dean. Subsequently, I served as President of Assumption University, Windsor. At present, I am Dean of Theology, University of St Michael’s College Toronto, where I also hold the Basilian Fathers Chair in religion and education. I travel to Dublin as often as I can, and when I do, I always visit UCD.
KAMAL ELKHALIFA MScAgr 1986, PhD 1990
After returning home to Sudan in 1990, I worked in Khartoum University for seven years as assistant professor, and ten years as associate professor. I was promoted to professor in 2007, and seconded to Saudi University, and Riyadh’s development authority. I am now planning to relocate back to Sudan. I would be interested in hearing about Professors Gardiner and Patrick Joyce (forestry), and David Williams (statistics) who supervised my research till 1990 and any forestry graduates, between 1986-1990.
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| RE-CONNECTIONS | DECLAN O’KEEFFE
THOMASINA BARRON
BA 1980, HDipEd 1981,
After graduating, I stayed a further seven years in UCD (PhD in Woodview in tumour biology and post-doctorate research in Merville in in-vitro toxicology) and then returned to the real world! I got a job in the Department of Agriculture as regulatory toxicologist (pesticides) and have been there since. I still fondly remember the good years spent with friends in UCD. I now have a daughter studying law in UCD.
MA 2009
I am a historian, a mountaineer and head of communications in Clongowes Wood College, where I also teach history, edit The Clongownian and am working on the Clongowes Bicentenary Project (2014). I completed an evening arts degree in economics and history in 1980, followed by a HDipEd, after which I was appointed business studies teacher in Clongowes. I returned to the School of History and Archives in 2008, while on career break, to complete an MA in modern Irish history. During my second coming in UCD I was elected auditor of the UCD History Society. As an undergraduate in UCD I joined the Mountaineering Club and discovered a passion for climbing, which has never dimmed. Uniquely I was both auditor of the UCD History Society and captain of the Mountaineering Club (the latter celebrated its 50th birthday last year and I edited the Incomplete History produced to mark the event). I am an experienced alpinist, have served as president of Mountaineering Ireland, the national representative body for walkers and climbers and edit the journal of the Irish Mountaineering and Exploration Historical Society.
BSc 1988, PhD 1998
BRIAN KELLY BE 1987
I recently started Brian Kelly Consulting, an energy consulting company located in Phoenix, Arizona. Previous to this, I was a director at First Solar. I am enjoying the varied challenges and focused work of being an independent operations consultant. It is very satisfying to make improvements in all situations. Best wishes to all the UCD community.
EAMONN O’BRIEN-STRAIN BE 1984
I recently accepted a position at Google, in San Francisco. I was previously employed at Hewlett-Packard Labs as computer science researcher and principal engineer. I will be joining the Google cloud team in their San Francisco office, enabling other companies to build automatically-scalable cloud back-ends on the Google infrastructure.
PAUL ROHAN BComm 1988, MSc 2010
I was formerly head of emerging sectors at AIB Business Banking. In this position I developed AIB’s interaction with the new economy sectors of the indigenous Irish economy and subsequently was appointed head of AIB transaction banking in April 2013, developing and implementing the design of electronic payment and cash management services across AIB.
JOHN MC CORMACK BAgrSc 1986
I have worked abroad since graduation in southern Africa, west Africa, central and eastern Europe. I was formerly a consultant for a variety of bilateral and multilateral organisations, including FAO, World Bank, USAID, and EU. My expertise lies in livestock development, agriculture, food security and rural development. I am based in Northern Virginia and work as senior advisor for USDA/USAID, supporting agriculture sector development in Afghanistan and
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Pakistan. I have fond memories of the Lyons Estate and the Equestrian Club.
1970s PATRICIA O’CONNOR BSc 1970, MSc 1980
I am a professor of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Limerick, having been appointed in 1997 as the first woman there at full professorial level. My sixth book, Higher Education and the Gendered World of Senior Management will be published by Manchester University Press this autumn and is based on research on senior management in Irish universities and part of an eightcountry research project. I am currently principal investigator in the University of Limerick on an EU-funded five-year project on a related area of academic experience, Female Empowerment in Science in Academia.
BEATRICE DORAN BA 1971, DibLib 1972, MA 1998, PhD 2012
I graduated with a PhD from the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School in September 2012. My research was carried out under the direction of Professor Raymond Kinsella. I also hold an MBA, BA and a diploma in library and information studies from UCD. Before I retired I was librarian at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. I was acting university librarian and deputy librarian at University College Cork during the 1970s and 1980s and am a former member of the library staff at the University of Ulster and the RDS. My local history of Donnybrook is to be published by The History Press in October. I have had a keen interest in local history, being a former organiser
| RE-CONNECTIONS | and vice-president of the Cork Historical & Archaeological Society. I am a member of the Ballsbridge, Donnybrook and Sandymount Historical Societies, The Georgian Society, The Royal Society of Antiquaries in Ireland and the Irish Association of Art Historians.
NEIL COGHLAN BE 1978, HDipEd 1980
My most vivid memory is of driving my motorbike in through the gates of what is now the Department of the Taoiseach every day. I would often be in the Baggot Inn playing pool when I should have been at organic chemistry lectures. Over 35 years later, I have three children completing degrees in various parts of the world, with the eldest in Harvard doing a masters in architecture, another a scratch golfer, and my daughter planning to “rule the world.”
BRENDAN SCHUTTE BComm 1978
After a BComm at UCD, I worked in human resource management and development in high-tech multinationals, healthcare, education and finally in Trócaire. In 2000, I set up a consultancy and for the last three years I have balanced working in Ireland with working in London for the TCM Group. My big interest has been the development and use of mediation in resolving disputes and disagreements. A fellow BComm graduate, Brian O’Kane of Oak Tree Press, published my book Fixing the Fighting in 2003. I am married to Myra and we have three children – Niamh, Ciaran and Ronan.
having appointed a new managing director. When I left UCD, I pursued a MA in English at McMaster University in Canada and later an MSc in Communications from Boston University. I have worked for over 30 years in the communications industry in Ireland, am a council member of the Institute of Directors and a nonexecutive director of St Francis Hospice.
DONNCHADH MAC CARTHAIGH BAgrSc 1974
DAMIAN GALLAGHER BComm 1978 & MARK HUTCH
I retired from my interior design company in 2008 and completed a MSc in bereavement studies (RCSI). I then trained as a civil funeral celebrant in the UK. I have recently accepted a position of celebrant at civil funerals.
We are both 1978 BComm graduates who recently celebrated 20 years working together in the accountancy partnership Doody Crowley. We are also active investors in the nursing home industry and in the last two years have secured over e20m in funding for investment in new and existing homes.
I was founder dean of the School of Agriculture in Adama Science and Technology, Ethiopia, from October 2009 until August 2012. Each faculty of the University had a foreign dean who worked in tandem with Ethiopian colleagues. There were many challenges: high expectation on the part of government with regard to improving the quality of education without financial support, too-rapid expansion of the tertiary sector with a consequent lack of qualified teaching staff, enormous challenges in administration not prepared for rapid expansion and challenges engendered by different ethnic and religious groups. In spite of this, many positive changes were made in the School of Agriculture.
DENIS COTTER
ITA GIBNEY
PATRICK J BRADLEY
BA 1974, MA 1977
BA 1974
MB BCh BAO 1973, DCH 1975
Does anyone remember Father Thomas Dunning, lecturer in Middle English, teaching Chaucer’s “The Pardoner’s Tale”? In a small Belfield lecture room, upstairs, he pressed the moral of the tale, “radix malorum est cupiditas” and carefully stressed to us young adults that “cupiditas” really meant “the excessive love of material things.”
I established my own PR agency Gibney Communications, in 1995, which has grown and developed as an independent firm operating in financial and corporate PR. I recently became chairman,
I pursued a career in surgery following graduation in 1973, initially in general surgery (FRCSIr) in Dublin, and followed by Otorhinolaryngology (ORL) (FRCSEd) in Liverpool. I was appointed Head and Neck Oncologic Surgeon at University Hospital Nottingham in 1982. During my career I have been
BComm 1978
PATRICIA (DALY/BERRY) WOJNAR BA 1972, DipCar 1973
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| RE-CONNECTIONS | National Clinical Lead Clinician for Head and Neck Cancer for the English NHS. I was awarded a NHS Bursary and an MBA (Health) from the Nottingham Business School in 2002. I have lectured all over the world on topics pertaining to head and neck cancer and have been awarded honorary fellowship of the Royal Australian College of Surgeons (2007) and of The Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (2006). I retired from NHS work in 2009 but continue to teach in many countries. I am Honorary Visiting Professor at Nottingham, Middlesex and most recently have been appointed Honorary Visiting Professor of Anatomy and ENT at Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine Singapore. I am married to Sheena (Kelly) a medical school classmate and consultant radiologist.
MARTIN MC CARTHY BE 1973
There was a full house of 70 for the largest ever class reunion of engineers in Ireland, when all disciplines from 1973 combined for a 40th anniversary dinner at Carton House in May. Seven came from Canada, John Quirke came from Manila, Ted Hally from Charlotte and Paul Sullivan from Houston, Texas. Paul was president of the SRC (as the Students’ Union was known in those days) in 1972. Engineers were based in the College of Science in Merrion Street, now the Department of the Taoiseach. The event was preceded by golf, for which Donal Flynn (BE 1973) got no less than 24 players on the course. Guests were honoured with the attendance of Vincent McCabe, former Dean, an icon of Irish engineering and mentor to the class of 1973. The class had the opportunity to thank him and the staff of the faculty for their efforts during four years under their care. The Engineering Graduates Association was represented by its president PJ Rudden and committee member Tony O’Brien while Dr David Timoney and Professor Tom Brazil represented current staff. Classmates no
longer with us were remembered and the event was a wonderful occasion to renew acquaintances and set the foundation stone for the revitalised EGA.
1960s PAUL MC NULTY BE 1965
After retiring in 2005 as an emeritus professor of Biosystems Engineering, I have been associate editor of Food and Bioprocess Technology and the peer-reviewed journals of the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, in St Joseph, Michigan. I have also participated in UCD adult education programmes in genealogy and creative writing. The Genealogy of the Anglo-Norman Lynches who Settled in Galway was published in the Journal of the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society in 2010. I am writing three historical novels and have recently been blessed with the arrival of a first grandchild, Lily Marie, daughter of my son Dara and Joanne Mitchell.
corporate consultant in business strategy and management. I also served as guest lecturer in several private business universities in Bangkok, speaking on business development and operational management and am currently guest lecturer at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences. In February, I was proud to return to my alma mater to give two seminars on cross-cultural management.
JIM MADDEN BA 1963, HDipEd 1964
I obtained an MLitt (TCD) 1973, and a diploma in career guidance in 1966 and have worked as a teacher, guidance counsellor, adult education organiser and principal. I have published on aspects of education and local history and have had a lifelong involvement in community affairs in my native Banagher, Co Offaly.
JOHN GERARD MAC NAMARA BE 1966, MEng 1968
MARGARET MEYER MB BCh BAO 1964
I live in the Bronx in New York with the Medical Missionaries of Mary, working in mission education in schools and mission appeals in churches. I hope to travel to Ireland in 2014 for our 50th anniversary celebration of MB 1964.
ANANTAVICHAI DHANASUNTHON BA 1968
Returning to Thailand after my degree at UCD, I worked for government in industrial development and financing for 26 years, before joining a multinational firm. I am now a
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The season 1962/63 was an outstanding one for the UCD Rugby Club with the Senior team winning the Leinster Cup; the Seconds team winning the Metropolitan Cup and the Freshers winning the Leinster Minor Cup, also known as the O’Connell Cup. The Freshers team was managed by the late Dr Sean Quigley and captained by Finn O’Sullivan, and defeated Blackrock College in the final. The team included the late Dr Barry Bresnihan, who played many times for Munster and Ireland, and toured with the Lions in Australia in 1967, and the late Archbishop Michael Courtney, who, while Papal Nuncio to Burundi, in Africa, was assassinated in 2003.
| RE-CONNECTIONS |
BOOKS
BELFIELD BABIES PATRICK MOLONEY BSc 1970
JIM MADDEN BA 1963, HDipEd 1964
Jim Madden’s most recent publication was titled Fr John Fahy 1893 -1969, Radical Republican and Agrarian Activist and was published by Columba Press in 2012. The book carries a Foreword by Gearoid O’ Tuathaigh, Professor Emeritus in History, NUI Galway.
RACHEL FEHILY HDip, 2007
Rachel Fehily’s book Managing Litigation in Business was published in June. It details the steps a business can take to minimise conflict and how best to deal with the litigation process. The world premiere of Fehily’s play Under Pressure – A Legal Drama was presented at Bewley’s Cafe Theatre in May.
JOHN RYAN PhD 1996
In 2012 John Ryan authored the book Reducing Energy Consumption – How to Accelerate Your Energy Efficiency Programme in association with British Gas and MEUC, The Major Energy Users’ Council.
Ulysses Uncovered Patrick Moloney’s recent publication is a summary, a guide, a commentary and an analysis of James Joyce’s great epic. It tells the story of a huge number of characters, real and imaginary, who lived in Dublin city on June 16th 1904. The text is saturated with comments and explanations with the intention of making Joyce’s text accessible and penetrable. Patrick Moloney, from Shanagolden in Co Limerick, graduated from UCD with a degree in science in 1970, gaining a masters in computer science from Trinity College in 1979. He spent his working life in education, first as a school teacher and later as deputy principal, in Pearse College of Further Education, Crumlin. He is presently living in Dublin. He is the author of Gunna Dan, An Angel for Everyone.
PHILOMENA MURRAY BA 1978
The Palgrave Handbook of EU-Asia Relations –this book fills a gap in the literature on EU-Asia relations.
CHARLES LYSAGHT BA 1961, MA 1963
Charles Lysaght wrote an Irishman’s Diary in the Irish Times on April 22nd, recalling the first annual Finlay lecture given in April 1933 by Maynard Keynes and regretting that this lecture series, which had attracted world-famous economists to lecture in Dublin, had been allowed to lapse. The full text is available on www.irishtimes.com.
IVANA STEFANAKOVA BA 2012
Ivana Stefanakova got married and welcomed a baby girl named Claire.
PETER FRANCEV MA 2011 Peter and Jennifer Francev are proud to announce the birth of a baby boy, Michael Alexander. He was born on February 14th, 2013 in Fullerton, California.
WEDDINGS ORLA BREE (BComm 2004, MAcc 2005) AND COLIN O’REILLY (MBS 2006) Orla Bree and Colin O’Reilly celebrated their marriage on April 13th in St Patrick’s Church in Strandhill, Sligo and welcomed guests from both the Quinn and Smurfit Schools. After enjoying a honeymoon in the Maldives and Tioman Island they returned to their home in in Sydney, Australia.
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UCD continues to be the university of first choice in Ireland, with 8,918 first preference applications on the CAO form in 2013; more than any other third level institution in Ireland
| STATS IN ACTION |
UCD in NUMBERS
From cinema seats (there are 86) to resident students (2,500), how does UCD add up? Here are the numbers that count ... FOUNDED IN
1854
UCD has a student population of
30,869 of which 25,532 are based in Ireland.
100
The University has
STUDENT SOCIETIES of which the oldest is the Literary and Historical which is in its 158th session and has achieved a , making it membership of the largest student society in UCD and in Europe
5,143
Apartments on campus can accommodate over
2,500 students
GIVING
The University raised over €10.8m from 142 alumni to fund the new UCD Sutherland School of Law The UCD Newman Fellowship Programmer offered 10 new post doctorate fellowships in 2013 at a yearly stipend of
€35,000
DOING THE BUSINESS
The new UCD SCIENCE CENTRE alone will eventually have capacity for 2,000 undergraduates, 1,500 masters and PhD students and 1,000 researchers
50% Over
The flagship fulltime MBA programme is ranked 64th in the world (Financial Times 2013). UCD School of Business offers 22 postgraduate degrees, 5 undergraduate degrees and has 6,700 students in 15 countries – 35% of all MBA students in Ireland – and 55,000 alumni in over 55 countries The UCD School of Business is one of only 57 schools globally and the only school in Ireland to hold “the triple crown” of accreditation
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of graduates progress to 4th level masters and PhD studies
THE KEY It costs €10 to rent a
locker for the academic year. Lockers are now rented via student ucards
40 sculptures on campus
The new UCD cinema has
86
seats
IN THIS ISSUE
A NEW ECONOMY UCD’S ROLE IN A CHANGING IRELAND PAGE 58
ACCESS ALL AREAS A TWIN-TRACK APPROACH TO DISABILITY PAGE 63
THE IRISHMAN AND THE GLOBAL BEAUTY BUSINESS AN INTERVIEW WITH ALAN ENNIS PAGE 66
GREAT EXPECTATIONS
BUSINESS SCHOLARS ASPIRE TO EXCELLENCE PAGE 72
| BUSINESS VISION |
A NEW MINDSET
During his first two years as Dean of UCD School of Business, Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh has overseen a number of important developments. He shares his vision for the future of the School with DOUGLAS DALBY. “We have reached an inflection point in the development of the School and our contribution to Ireland,” says Professor Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh, Dean of Business at UCD in a recent wide-ranging interview. “We have done well and our alumni have done well. We can do much better: In fact, we must do much better. We are a leader in business education and we have a responsibility not only to keep up with the future, but to actively shape it.” Considering Government funding to universities has fallen by around 25 per cent in the past five years, it would have been tempting to circle the wagons, hunker down and wait for the storm to pass. Instead, the faculty has opted to come out fighting with a strategy to propel the school into the top ten European business schools. The Financial Times’ bellwether rankings places the UCD Smurfit School’s full-time MBA 18th in Europe and the MSc in Finance is placed 34th in the Financial Times Global Masters in Finance ranking. The School is among fewer than 60 worldwide to hold the “triple crown” of accreditations, signalling academic excellence: AACSB (US), EQUIS (Europe) and AMBA (UK). “Rankings are important because potential students are influenced by them to a significant extent,” says Professor Ó hÓgartaigh. “The School of Business has improved its position despite the
significant philanthropic investment by our competitors and several new entrants, particularly from Asia.” This has been achieved through its people: in the Financial Times survey, graduates have maintained salary levels despite the worldwide recession and its faculty has a growing reputation for quality research – two of the key criteria that influence the rankings. However, the Dean says that while the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School and the UCD Quinn School of Business, which comprise the UCD Business School, are “punching way above our weight”, it cannot afford complacency. And to follow the boxing analogy, faced with increased competition from schools with far greater resources, a nimble UCD has chosen to pick its punches rather than slug it out with the heavyweights. External funding will ensure the success of the strategy. “These are exciting times and new opportunities are emerging all the time but we must be in a position to capitalise on them,” he says. “Building on the work of my predecessors, we have done well but we cannot stand still – we must build on the work we have already done, particularly in leading business education in Ireland and in attracting students from overseas.” WORLD-CLASS EXPERTISE
“We need to re-envision business”, says Ó hÓgartaigh. “We need to learn and
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therefore teach new perspectives as a result of the crisis,” including in areas such as responsible leadership, strategy, innovation and change, and in the interfaces between business and other disciplines. A review of the School offering, the strengths of the University as a whole and of the broader economy, has led him to hone in on three areas of interest which will potentially characterise the School’s development, “drawing on Ireland’s strengths and needs to enhance our international reputation and reach”. In particular, the School is exploring distinct industry strands where Ireland enjoys demonstrable success: Food; Financial Services, with particular emphasis on aviation finance and law and reinsurance; Digital Business and Society. “Certain business schools are regarded for certain areas of focus: we want to focus on our already considerable reputation in these areas so we are recognised as the place to study food, digital business and society and financial services,” Professor Ó hÓgartaigh says. The case is certainly compelling: eight of the top ten global ICT players have a significant presence in Ireland; the top ten “born on the internet” companies are based here; the percentage of ICT sector employment is the highest in the EU; the €9bn Irish food sector produces enough food for 40m people; in 2012,
| BUSINESS VISION |
Professor Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh on campus.
Irish food sector exports were up 28 per cent compared with 2009; more than half of the top 20 insurance companies in the world are based in Dublin; nine out of ten of the top aviation finance companies are located here; half of the aircraft leased in the world are leased out of Dublin. Crucially, these sectors have also been chosen because the School believes it can add significant value to them. “Given their importance in Ireland and internationally, we will contribute to sustaining foreign direct investment and scaling indigenous enterprises,” Professor Ó hÓgartaigh says. “We will further enhance our international reputation and reach by internationalising the student experience and developing a cadre of talent for a sustainable future.” Having chosen the three core sectoral areas, a matching three-pronged strategy invests in people. This involves: 1 Recruiting and nurturing senior academic talent with a view to developing a “new economy”
“We believe a multidisciplinary approach is required in dealing with increasingly complex scenarios.” curriculum to capitalise and extend the school’s core strengths, expertise and worldwide partnerships. 2 Creating a “Global Classroom” to enhance distance learning. 3 Providing a comprehensive scholarship programme to attract and retain exceptional students, particularly those from emerging economies. STRENGTH IN DEPTH
With the support of its stakeholders, the School intends to invest €24m over the next five years to recruit additional professorships to build on the existing strength of the School and academic appointments already achieved over the past two years. These included a Chair in
Global Leadership funded by the school’s North America Advisory Board and a Chair in the Business of Biotechnology, supported by the pharmaceutical company, Élan. A key part of the overall strategy rests on the fact the School of Business is part of the broader University, whereas many of its international competitors are standalone entities. This allows the school to tap into a wider expertise. “There are so many aspects of these industries to which we can contribute – including digital marketing, business analytics, change management and R&D,” Professor Ó hÓgartaigh points out. “Being a business school in a university gives us a potential advantage over the standalone schools as we can draw on the expertise on campus and the research going on in other disciplines around us. We believe a multi-disciplinary approach is required in dealing with increasingly complex scenarios.” In the area of food and health, for
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| BUSINESS
VISION
|
example, UCD is potentially a world leader in R&D and the School of Business intends to dovetail with courses such as those currently offered in the Smurfit School, in association with Bord Bia, to enhance the overall offering for students. In 2012, the School launched a new MSc in Digital Marketing. This has attracted very strong demand in its first two years and symbolises the focused direction of its portfolio in the area of digital business and society. Similarly, the MSc in Business Analytics has gone from strength to strength. In 2013-14, about half of the Smurfit School’s graduate students will come from overseas. In an open economy such as Ireland’s, dependent on exports and international relationships, this creates a very valuable learning experience for its students. The planned introduction of aviation leasing into the mix is a perfect example of allying the School’s core expertise in accounting and finance with the courses provided by other faculties. In this instance, the School of Law already offers a module in aviation regulation and the Dean believes the joint initiatives planned
INNOVATION AT UCD
GLOBAL CLASSROOM
A core part of the strategy involves the creation of a dedicated Global Classroom IT centre, underpinned by a nextgeneration technology platform to enable virtual learning. This new €30m enterprise will allow the school to increase its geographical reach, which in turn will enhance its reputation. It also reflects the technological reality faced by students before they come to the School and when they graduate. On a recent trip to Canada, Professor Ó hÓgartaigh could only marvel at the “spanking new” €145m facilities of its Canadian CEMS partner underpinned by significant private funding. Although his own ambitions are altogether more modest, he believes building a centre for future technologies and providing much-needed infrastructure for learning that transcends geographic boundaries, will play an integral part in
helping to ensure the School remains relevant in international terms. The Dean envisages the planned new initiative will shape the future of learning and, will be available to all of the university’s 25,000-plus students, quickly becoming the go-to place for the testing of new learning technologies and the development of e-learning modules “so that from being behind the curve, they are ahead of it”. It would also facilitate “blended” learning where students benefit from education delivered both in-person and through state-of-the-art technology linking them with similar education centres on other continents. Professor Ó hÓgartaigh is also blunt about the prospects for the School without such an initiative. “We recognise business education is changing and will continue to change dramatically over the next decade or more, primarily because of new technologies,” he says. “Leading universities we would not have seen as our competition in our backyard are now very much so because of their investment in distance and blended learning technologies. We feel we have
AVIATION FINANCE INSTITUTE: READY FOR TAKE-OFF
In the 1970s, Tony Ryan, a young Aer Lingus executive, pioneered the growth of an entire new market and Guinness Peat Aviation (GPA ) propelled Ireland into an unlikely world leader in the lucrative aviation leasing sector. The company’s demise in 1991 was as dramatic as its dizzying rise to prominence; collateral damage of the destabilisation in the Middle East caused by the Iraq war of the time. But strong foundations were in place and former GPA executives used their specialist knowledge to build one of the great unsung success stories of modern industrial Ireland. “Largely as a result of an ecosystem that emerged from GPA , Ireland has developed the diverse skills essential to success in aircraft leasing,” says
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with the business school will create a unique multidisciplinary course of likely interest to industry professionals seeking career development and students looking to enter a vibrant sector.
Professor Eamonn Walsh of UCD Smurfit School. Although firmly established, with an estimated 50 per cent of the global leasing sector’s share of annual airplane deliveries now managed through Ireland, the industry is about to change dramatically over the next decade, primarily driven by demand in Asia. This is where the proposed Aviation Finance Institute comes in. “There is likely to be a demand for professional management training and developing skill sets to successfully navigate the Asian markets in particular,” Professor Walsh says. “The knowledge base for aviation finance includes law, taxation, finance and engineering – this is homegrown intellectual capital. “While professionals from these disciplines are most likely to join the
UCD CONNECTIONS ALUMNI MAGAZINE
industry, there is a need for interdisciplinarity as successful transactions are likely to involve optimal combinations of these individual disciplines.” Professor Walsh illustrates the complex nature of the aviation leasing business by pointing out the complexities involved in instances where an operator defaults on a loan. “Even in cases where the loan documents have been carefully drafted, there are so many considerations before commissioning a crew to fly a plane out of an airport thousands of miles away from Ireland: compliance with international law; possible negotiation of local taxes and outstanding landing charges and assessment of airworthiness to name but a few.” Typically, professionals in the industry would be expected to have a thorough knowledge of aircraft finance, credit risk analysis, the legal and tax issues associated
| BUSINESS VISION | to be part of this and to give ourselves a competitive advantage or we might well be dead.” A similar initative has been launched by the Yale School of Management and a number of leading partner universities in the Global Network for Advanced Management, of which the School is a member. Although new technologies increase the opportunities for distance learning, they are likely to be only part of the mix. “The challenge in part is not just to pile in for the sake of it – it is about enhancing the experience for students,” he says. “We are developing teamwork and leadership behaviours, so blended learning is really important because that can’t be done online. One can’t replace the other – you need the interactive, personal element. The real challenge is to put them together to make them meaningful.” He is also keen to stress that personal interaction that will continue to help drive and differentiate the UCD business offerings.
“Our people are strong research-led educators: it is not one rather than the other,” he says. “During the recent visit of the peer review team when we successfully retained our AACSB accreditation, they were amazed that some lecturers had given students their mobile phone numbers to contact them out of hours. They saw this as a measure of our commitment to our students.” THE SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAMME
The final strand comprises a €6m scholarship programme. Schools now recognise bursaries as crucial to attracting the highest quality students whose research enhances the reputation and future revenue streams of a university by maintaining and improving rankings. With the support of its stakeholders, the aim is to double the number of scholarships offered to students. While annual MBA fees of €29,500 are not expensive when benchmarked against peer schools, particularly in the US, they
are at the premium end of the market for very many aspirants, both in Ireland and in developing countries. Recipients of scholarships who go on to benefit from their education can also be expected to help others in a similar situation. “Scholarship students will be introduced to their benefactors and the idea is to create an ongoing and long-term connection to the School. It is all about building a sense of loyalty and passion,” the Dean said. And giving is certainly the key to the transformative vision becoming reality. The Dean exudes confidence on this score, signalling the case is so compelling it invites support – for the future of the school, the University and the country. “This is not about us. It is about our students and how we contribute to social and economic change in Ireland and internationally. We are ambitious for our students,” the Dean says. “We cannot do it alone, we need the support of our stakeholders.” n
“We are developing teamwork and leadership behaviours, so blended learning is really important because that can’t be done online. One can’t replace the other – you need the interactive, personal element.” with cross-border leasing and the regulatory and technical aspects of aircraft management. Beyond these, there is an
According to leading aviation analyst, Joe Gill of Bloxham Stockbrokers, the future of airline leasing depends on two
20 years. The airline manufacturer believes 35,280 new airplanes, worth $4.8 trillion, will have to be built to
increased need for advanced training in other specific areas such as pre-delivery
main factors: expansion of the global commercial fleet and a rise in the share
cater for this. Based on Boeing’s growth
payment finance. Professor Walsh says the Institute will
of funding managed by lessors. He concludes the signs are encouraging.
projections, Professor Walsh estimates the industry will create at least 8,000
seek to meet the needs of a fast-evolving industry by developing flexible courses to
“Leasing is a flexible and attractive option for airlines that are carefully
new jobs in the aviation leasing sector over the next two decades and he
address the myriad problems it faces. “We aim to ensure new professional employees in the industry share a common understanding of the multidisciplinary nature of aviation finance; create an educational infrastructure to support the professional development of employees within the industry; encourage students studying finance to consider the aircraft leasing industry as a career option and; identify and exploit opportunities for academic research that directly address aviation finance issues.”
managing cashflows and balance sheet structures,” he told Aviation Finance magazine in July 2013. “In addition, growth airlines that are newly established use leasing as a mechanism to achieve critical mass over a short period of time.” And on the second front, the prospects would appear even more encouraging. According to Boeing’s long-term forecast, annual world passenger and cargo traffic will average five per cent growth for the next
believes UCD can be the “go-to place” for professionals across the globe seeking a career in this speciality area. “The challenge is to create a durable institutional structure that will be responsive to the changing needs of the industry,” he says. “The programme will be the first of its kind internationally and has the potential to very quickly establish a leadership role in this space, enhancing and sustaining Ireland’s prominence in aviation finance and law.”
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C
aroline Casey was 17 years old when she was told she was legally blind. Having spent 17 years unaware of her disability, for the next ten years, including those spent earning her BA, DBS and MBS degrees at UCD, she opted to hide it from most of the people in her life, including her eventual employers at international consultancy firm Accenture. When further deterioration to Casey’s eyesight meant she could no longer hide her visual impairment, she embarked on a 1,000km charity trek across Southern India to raise funds for the Irish National Council for the Blind and SightSavers International, a trip which gave her an opportunity to reflect on the disability she had hidden for so long, why she had hidden it and what she could do about it. The reflection resulted in the creation of the notfor-profit organisation, The Aisling Foundation, since renamed Kanchi, which she founded on her return, whose mission is to create a new image of disability, that focuses on the value of difference and unleashing the power of the more than one billion disabled people in the world. From a business perspective, the commercial power of a consumer market roughly the size of the population of China, is potentially massive. People with disabilities have a combined spending power of d3.3 billion in Ireland, £80 billion in the UK and $3 trillion in the US. “People with disabilities want to go out and live an active life,” says Casey, “they have money to spend, and businesses miss out if they don’t make their bars, restaurants and shops accessible.” So developing access and services for the disabled community makes good business sense, but it’s a twoway street, with both business and the disabled benefiting, leading to an eventual sea change. “Traditionally disability was seen as charity,” says Casey, “not a viable market. We want to change the mindset and behaviour of businesses, open their mind to that market and in doing that change society.” Referring to disability as the new green movement puts the idea in perspective. It took a while for the idea to gather momentum but now there is an expectation that most businesses will be green. Social responsibility is every bit as important to the consumer as other sales drivers. According to Casey, Generation Y no longer accepts companies that only care about the bottom line. “It wants companies that care about people, the environment, green issues and the community.” A good customer service experience will be rewarded with customer loyalty but a bad experience can mean that the disabled person, their family, friends and carers will be less likely to return.“If you are someone with a disability and you find it easier to shop in a particular store, family and friends will also probably be loyal to that store.” Aside from the market opportunities derived from catering for the disabled, Casey says there are also commercial benefits to employing people with disabilities. To be competitive and effective, she says workplaces need to ensure they recruit the best person for the job and then retain
| BUSINESS |
Caroline Casey presenting Looking Past The Limits at TEDTalks, Washington DC.
ACCESS all
AREAS
While research into the value of entrepreneurship for those with a disability is being carried out at UCD, entrepreneur and UCD Business Alumna of the Year, CAROLINE CASEY, herself an entrepreneur who is visually impaired, uses her own experience to encourage a greater role for disability in the workplace.
and develop them. If people are excluded from the job market for reasons that do not relate to their ability to do the job, workplaces will miss out on skills, talent and energy. “Having different outlooks, experiences and opinions is what drives innovation. Diversity is traditionally seen in gender or race terms, but should feature disability too,” says Casey. “Companies such as Google, L’Oréal, Volkswagen, McDonald’s and Abbot are positioning themselves as being representative of their community, respectful to the environment and treating staff well. Companies that do this get the best talent.” UCD CONNECTIONS ALUMNI MAGAZINE
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| BUSINESS | in self-esteem, and this was the case, but what UCD School of Business lecturer DR BRUCE we also found was that the process of starting MARTIN agrees with Casey that there are the business also had a positive impact on selfopportunities for established businesses to esteem. The disabled entrepreneur is also more embrace persons with disabilities as valuable likely to employ others with a disability, which employees but his focus is on entrepreneurship increases the possibilities for employment.” as “an attractive job route for many people with Dr Martin says that “when you combine disabilities”. the approach that Caroline Casey and Kanchi Martin’s PhD research at McMaster University is taking, with other activities designed to in Canada examined entrepreneurship in DR BRUCE MARTIN: help people with disabilities start their own disadvwantaged groups with a particular focus UCD SCHOOL OF BUSINESS businesses, you see the potential for real on people with disabilities. “Even though we’ve improvement for this important, disadvantaged progressed in making jobs more accessible, there are still many barriers, such as physical accessibility, negative group.” Dr Martin’s research has now been shared with other attitudes and social stigma.” He says the internet has allowed people universities and interest groups. Research is the first step, lobbying with mobility problems to run their own home business, resulting and policy change must follow. Casey finds it disappointing that Ireland is among the last three in an increased number of self-employed people with disabilities, the evidence suggesting self-employment better suits some people countries in the EU – together with Finland and the Netherlands – yet with disabilities, due to mobility, and social or other factors. Dr to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Martin found the focus of employment training for people with Disabilities. The convention, which considers non-discrimination, disabilities tended to be on workplace training rather than on equal opportunities and social inclusion of people with disabilities to preparing them for self-employment, despite the fact that people be a human rights matter, entered into force in May 2008. It has been with disabilities have higher rates of self-employment than the rest ratified by more than 100 countries worldwide. Businesses are starting to recognise how they must include of the population. Also interesting was evidence that suggested increased self-esteem and a readiness to employ other disabled people with disabilities as customers and as employees. It simply people as their businesses grew. “We expected that people who makes good business sense. And in an ideal world, no one need ever had become successfully self-employed would exhibit increases hide a disability again. ^
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64 | UCD CONNECTIONS ALUMNI MAGAZINE
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THE IRISH TIMES THE IRISH Take a fresh TIMES look. Take a fresh look.
THE STORY OF WHY
| BUSINESS INTERVIEW |
THE IRISHMAN and the GLOBAL BEAUTY BUSINESS
M
ost men probably don’t spend too many sleepless nights worrying about make-up. Fewer still get exercised about mascara’s anti-clumping properties; the drying times of non-chip nail varnish and the moisturising claims of lipstick. But Alan Ennis, 43, belongs firmly in the method acting school of chief executives. The UCD BComm graduate who heads up Revlon, the multinational cosmetics firm, isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty – or his face or hair, for that matter. He routinely tests his company’s products to see if they live up to their billing and sometimes even finds himself catching sight of his brightred nails on the home commute. “When I took the job I told myself I must understand not only what we are producing but how the consumer thinks about our products,” he says in an interview during a flying visit to his native Dublin, where in April he received the 2013 UCD Quinn School of Business Alumnus of the Year Award. “If someone tells me a nail colour dries in 60 seconds, I will try it on and see if it does what it claims.” When Ennis says he doesn’t consider himself a typical CEO, he is merely understating the obvious. In many ways, he is a poster boy for the versatility of accountancy. It may not always have been his chosen career but his current position certainly underlines the myriad hues of a profession often dismissively depicted as uniformly grey. Aside from a $3m a year salary package,
When Dubliner ALAN ENNIS assumed the role of chief finance officer of New York-based multinational cosmetics firm Revlon, he was tasked with putting the debt-burdened company back on a secure footing. All in a day’s work for Ennis, now Revlon’s President & CEO, who spoke to PETER KANE about the positive aspects of a job in the international beauty business. the job also has some rather obvious attractions. It’s not everyone who gets to hang out with the likes of Halle Berry, Eva Mendes, Emma Stone and Jessica Biel. It’s tough work but somebody’s got to do it. “I get the final sign-off on all of our brand ambassadors so it is important to meet them all on a regular basis,” he says. “My wife and I recently had dinner with Halle Berry and I can confirm she is absolutely gorgeous from head to toe.” Ennis also recounts a recent meeting with the actress Emma Stone, who came to his office incognito during negotiations to extend her partnership with the company. “She arrived on her own with a hoodie over her head to disguise her – no
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agents, just her,” he says. “She wanted to know about Revlon’s continued support for philanthropy – particularly breast cancer charities. I reassured her of our commitment to her brand and that her message would be amplified by continuing to work with us.” While there is more than a hint of an inexhaustible supply of such anecdotes, it’s certainly not all play and no work: peddling aspiration is serious business. Ennis is responsible for guiding a multinational company with global revenues of $1.4 billion and 4,800 employees in an infamously fickle, highly competitive industry. His career path to date has been way marked by a combination of good advice, patience, pragmatism, timing and luck. Ennis took his first faltering steps to accountancy more by accident than desire. He had wanted to study medicine but an oversight in his Leaving Certificate choices left him short of a necessary science subject so he followed his late father Michael’s advice and opted for a BComm at UCD. Ennis not only credits his father with steering him in the right direction in his career choices but also for instilling the character traits he believes have helped him succeed in business. “He was a very engaging character, he was a leader and his staff respected him so I have probably got all that from him,” he says. In 1981, when Michael Ennis, a career banker with Bank of Ireland, accepted a temporary transfer to New York it interrupted his son’s “straightforward upbringing” in the southside Dublin suburb of Booterstown. As often happens, twelve months would turn into seven years.
JASON CLARKE
| BUSINESS INTERVIEW | In the meantime Alan, then 13, and his two brothers were shipped back to boarding school at Blackrock College after two years’ schooling in America. “After the first six months or so it took to get over the homesickness, I took to it like the proverbial duck to water ... it instilled tremendous discipline in me from a relatively early age,” he says. After leaving in 1988, he plumped for commerce in UCD. He had liked business-related subjects at school, particularly accounting and economics, so the BComm appealed. “I loved my time at UCD, it was great – even though I hated accountancy,” he says. After graduating in 1991, again he heeded his father’s advice and took a job with Arthur Andersen rather than pursuing a master’s degree. He remained with the firm until 1997 and although his ambivalence about his profession never waned, he excelled and he came to appreciate its pluses. Aged 27, having spent six years doing other companies’ books, the industrial products behemoth Ingersoll-Rand headhunted him to Manchester to become internal auditor at its European division. “I looked on it as an opportunity to join a $10 billion company – it was a stepping stone,” he says, without specifying where he thought the stones would lead. For most of the next three years he based himself in Bolton, even buying a season ticket for the local football club, but never really settled. It probably didn’t help when he met his future wife, Michelle, who had been on a one-year secondment with Ingersoll-Rand to the UK but who then returned to the company’s New Jersey headquarters. “I remember one time when I was pining for her and it was lashing rain and the woman I had fallen in love with had moved back and was encouraging me to follow her, so I did,” he recalls. After securing a transfer, he spent the next six years with Ingersoll-Rand, completing an MBA at NYU Stern in the interim, before taking probably the biggest gamble of his career when in 2005 he jumped from compressors to cosmetics.
It’s not everyone who gets to hang out with the likes of Halle Berry, Eva Mendes, Emma Stone and Jessica Biel. It’s tough work but somebody’s got to do it.
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| BUSINESS INTERVIEW | Although he could never have foreseen his accession to the top job in such doublequick time, even without the benefit of hindsight Ennis says he would have made the same decision. He was also confident in the skills he had acquired and developed to realise his ambitions should the chance come his way. “I had an opportunity to take a much bigger and far more influential role in Revlon – albeit in a much smaller company that was in a far more challenging financial situation,” he says. “In Ingersoll-Rand I was offered some interesting positions but I didn’t want to live in any of the places where they were based ... Kentucky, Pennsylvania or Fargo, North Dakota.” As it transpired, his timing could not have been better. Revlon may have been a damn sight sexier than the company he left but its position was a lot more fragile. In 2005, it was haemorrhaging money and was weighed down with a level of debt few analysts believed sustainable. It turned out to be a match made in heaven for his particular skills and management style. Soon after his arrival to take up a familiar role as internal auditor, a disastrous product launch failure precipitated the resignations of three of the most senior executives at the company. The pecking order to the top had become much shorter and he won promotion to chief financial officer in 2006. Over the next three years – and “a very long period of sleepless nights” – he oversaw a costreduction programme that excised $55m from the operating budget, shedding 1,200 jobs in the process. “We worked with the banks to make them understand what we were doing but really it was about re-instilling hope in the organisation – it’s not dissimilar to what the Irish economy is going through,” he says. “We had to let people go, cut back on all kinds of expenses we considered were nonessential or discretionary, end bonuses, freeze pay or even impose reductions in some cases ... We had to put money behind the brands and cut money elsewhere and that’s what we did.” Those three years may have marked him out for the top job but he recalls them with
anything but fondness, particularly the culling of the workforce. “I’m not proud of it from a human standpoint but I am proud of it from a business standpoint: had we not done what we did at the time we would have withered on the vine,” he says. “I’m very conscious of morale. When I take restructuring decisions concerning lay-offs, I take them very seriously. We are all human after all, you know, despite our titles.” The company is much more stable now. Staff turnover is relatively low, morale is good and redundancies have been sparked by improvements in automation and consolidation of production rather than
Over the next three years he oversaw a COST-REDUCTION programme that excised $55m from the operating budget.
the result of cost reductions. That’s not to say the future is all plain sailing. The debt burden still weighs heavily and the competition remains fierce. Aside from his work, Ennis says he doesn’t use beauty products, unless you count deodorant and the odd dab of moisturiser. He does see this as a huge growth area in the future, pointing out that in Asia, for example, men go to their graves with nary a grey hair in sight. In the future Revlon, he says, would be interested in developing more products aimed at men. The obvious pressures of making the right decisions in a company that sells products in over 100 countries mean long days and few holidays but he does not believe in being at the office for the sake of it. He arrives at his desk early but finishes up at what most people would regard as a reasonable hour, particularly for a person running such a large company. On weekdays he rises at 5.30am, catches the 6.21am train from near his home in
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the plush New Jersey area of Scotch Plains “to join the other six million worker ants who cross into Manhattan” to reach his desk by 7.15am. It’s not hard to get a sense of a numbercruncher’s admiration for the punctuality of the rail network: “It’s all about precision; it is 6.21, not 6.20 or 6.22,” he muses. Typically, he leaves the office at 5pm to be home at 6.30pm in time to squeeze in a run before helping to put his three young children to bed. Exercise is important to him. Running is his endorphin release of choice but he also cycles and practices kick-boxing. At one time he loved competing in marathons but two knee operations now preclude this. Aside from the feel-good rush exercise brings, his lifestyle ledger dictates it. “I love good food and good wine so you have to do something to burn that off,” he says. Somehow, he has also found the time to become involved in an association for former Blackrock College students who are based in the US and to sit on the board of the Ireland-US Council, an organisation that fosters business links between the two countries. Considering that for the first eight years after he moved to America, Ennis made a point of avoiding the Irish communities, there is little evidence of a transatlantic accent. Also, his children’s names: Bridget, Timothy and Daniel more than hint at native pride. “When I first went to America I always steered clear of the Irish places and Irish people because I felt it was very narrow and ghettoised in many ways so I stepped back from that,” he says. “It has only been in the last three or four years that I began to believe I was in a position to give something back in a business context.” Ennis says being Irish in his particular industry makes little or no difference but it certainly helps in general when living in New York. “I think the Irish personality works well in America,” he says. “Americans can be very clinical; they can be overly programmed. There is a certain lilt in how we communicate, a certain charisma in our soul, a little bit of humour, of tongue-incheek – we have endeared ourselves.” n
INDUSTRY LEADING SUCCESS IN EXPLORATION
Tullow’s main competitive advantage stems from the calibre of our people. We have built an exceptional team of oil and gas specialists working across our global business. Some of our key exploration teams, the Geophysical and Subsurface Technology Groups, are based in our Dublin office. In 2009, these Groups established mutually beneficial collaboration agreements with the UCD School of Geological Sciences. More recently, Tullow agreed a new partnership with UCD which involves the establishment of new academic positions and the support for an oil centre for Petroleum Sciences. In return UCD will help build capacity in geosciences in countries where we operate. Tullow and UCD are delighted to be partnering in these exciting technical challenges whilst contributing to developing specialist skills both in Ireland and overseas.
Tullow Oil Limited
Number 1, Central Park, Leopardstown, Dublin 18 Tel: 01 213 7300 Fax: 01 293 0400 www.tullowoil.com
| BUSINESS |
PRACTICE
Makes
PERFECT
The MSc in Marketing Practice is a one-year full-time master’s degree programme based around the concept of “Action Learning”, in other words, learning through doing. For students who want real experience of the cut and thrust of the business world, it has lots to offer. To mark the 30th year of the programme, SOPHIE ROGERS talks to some alumni about how the degree helped shape their careers.
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ounded in 1983, the MSc in Marketing Practice at UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School was the first of its kind in Europe. The Action Learning technique, which underpins the academic structure of the course, blends the theoretical knowledge of marketing with commercial experience in real businesses, with students working on commercial projects for external corporate clients from an office at UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School. The programme’s founder, Professor Anthony C Cunningham, neatly captures the essence of this approach with a quote from the late Carl Rogers, an unfluential American pyschologist and a proponent of student-centred learning. “That which can be taught directly to another,” said Rogers, “is relatively trivial, whereas things of significance can only be learned.” Professor Cunningham says the distinction between being taught and learning is key. “The design of the MDP (Marketing Development Programme) allows students to interact directly
with live business problems and to take personal responsibility for delivering appropriate solutions to the client.” The Action Learning technique’s success is dependent on the involvement of experienced business managers on the corporate client side. As students typically lack business experience, subtle changes have to be made in the intervention process with the cooperating business clients, according to Professor Cunningham: “The challenge of blending theory and practice was a major objective. The outcome is a significant boost in the student’s professional development as well as better satisfied client companies.” The MDP is based on the consultancy house model rather than the typical placement model, which makes it virtually unique.” The contact with clients provides the opportunity to network with senior business people and helps students develop their personal and professional skills. The majority of the marketing graduates in the country qualified to apply do so each year. Programme alumni go on to successful careers in many different business sectors.
PROFESSOR ANTHONY C CUNNINGHAM
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| BUSINESS |
MARCUS GOODWIN
a great anchor in my career. Every day working in marketing is unique: fast-paced, challenging and exciting. ON THE PROGRAMME: Managers have constantly commented on how the programme sets members of their team apart because of the experiences gained through the real life client-facing environment the programme provides.
DEREK LIDDY
and consumer research. Together with the agency online marketing team, I plan and deliver blended approaches SINEAD DOOLEY, Brand Manager at 2001 I am involved in brand strategy and Reckitt Benckiser, USA, MSc Marketing to digital which often includes a mix creative development for the Bulmers Practice 2008 Marketing is notorious of social media, email marketing, brand and direct many of the company’s for its unpredictable nature; it’s a search, website builds and other digital sponsorship programmes. A typical day reactive industry and disciplines and channels. ON THE includes meetings with Commercial, to stay on top you PROGRAMME: The programme Production, Quality or Packaging, a need to respect impressed on me the important catch-up with my PR consultant and that. Each day for roles research and metrics calls or meetings with advertising me is different play in the development and agencies to discuss upcoming digital which keeps implementation of an effective campaigns, reading market research things exciting. business and marketing strategy and writing briefs. I’m always planning I get to my desk and helped me adopt good work SINEAD DOOLEY the next sponsorship and encouraging by 8am, which gives habits including effective teamwork feedback from my current sponsorships. me a chance to catch up and personal organisational skills. To ON THE PROGRAMME: The MDP on emails, read the latest industry and be honest, there is very little practical gave me insight into marketing and competitor news and do some quiet learning from my time in Smurfit I market research, and prepared me in a strategic thinking before the day begins. haven’t used to good effect. more succinct way for the commercial I meet with my team to check if things RONAN MC CLAFFERTY Business world, than a lecture-based master’s are on track. I just finished developing a Unit Lead, Pfizer Consumer Healthcare degree, as we were working with real new television advertisement which will Ireland MSc in Marketing Practice business clients. It provided me with a air in September, and we are currently 2002 I’m involved in most aspects of strong platform for entry into business, finalising our financial plan for next the business: planning and activation along with a network of contacts. The year. ON THE PROGRAMME: Alongside with the marketing team, execution programme has a strong reputation, gaining the theoretical understanding of with the sales team, staying on top is perceived as both professional and marketing, I had the opportunity to work of inventory and accounts, while useful and was better preparation than a on real commercial projects. Clients ensuring customer satisfaction. ON lecture-based master’s programme. had high expectations and genuine THE PROGRAMME: The programme business problems. The focus on results provided practical business experience SINEAD O’GRADA Facebook, was constant, while accountability and EMEA SMB Marketing Manager, MSc which allowed for a fast start to my ownership were at the core of what we Marketing Practice 2005 The MSc in career. I met and worked with great did. Both skills are fundamental within Marketing Practice provided me with people on a lot of interesting projects. any organisation. the skills and experience to At the time of graduating, be able to hit the ground it was a key factor DEREK LIDDY, Head of Digital running from day in securing an Strategy, Continuum, Higher one in my first job Diploma in Marketing Practice interview. Now I and the action 1993 I help create digital always consider learning approach strategies for our clients that and recommend is something that use a combination of planning graduates from has stuck with and strategy approaches in the programme me and provides addition to business, market for relevant roles. n SINEAD O’GRADA MARCUS GOODWIN Brands Manager (Beer) & Sponsorships Manager, Bulmers Ltd, MSc Marketing Practice
RONAN MC CLAFFERTY
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| SCHOLARSHIP |
GREAT
Expectations At UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, the fourth year of Aspire Scholars are embarking on their post-graduate degrees. Scholars from the inaugural class tell us how the programme helped their careers.
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here are many people who dream of studying at UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School. But for some of those students, the cost of the fees prevents them from fulfilling that dream. For those ambitous would-be students, the Aspire Scholarship Programme might offer a solution. The scholarship was founded in 2010, funded by an anonymous donor whose declared wish was to contribute to the Irish enconomy by funding the postgraduate business studies of those who couldn’t otherwise afford to attend UCD Smurfit School. And as the fourth year of scholars commence their studies, it’s clear the programme is thriving. More than 30 scholars have benefited from the programme since its launch in 2010. The first wave of Aspire scholars are now either employed in leading companies in Ireland, such as Google, Citi, KPMG, PepsiCo, Microsoft and PwC, or establishing themselves in successful business careers abroad.
“We take our responsibility towards wider participation in our programmes seriously,” says Dean of the Business School, Professor Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh.“The scholarship programme offers graduate students an opportunity to advance their career prospects with an MBA or MSc from the leading business school in Ireland. We are looking for graduates with the drive and the initiative to study at UCD Smurfit School, who best represent our vision for tomorrow’s business leaders.” Jennifer Griffin was one of the first Aspire scholars, graduating with a first class honours MSc in Marketing Practice. She’s now a chief of staff analyst, supporting Citi’s Shared Services in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. “The masters prepared me for the professional working environment, encouraged me to be proactive and gave me great confidence to do well. It allowed me to dream big and go for it!” Her fellow scholar Paul McCormack, who graduated with an MSc in Project Management, works for Allied Irish Banks
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Plc, giving financial support and advice to SMEs in distress. He’s unequivocal about the impact the masters degree had on his career. “It has allowed me to develop deep knowledge and skills in the areas of project management, and business management, providing me with the self-awareness and sense of perspective to make smart choices in the future.” He also says it boosted his confidence and “allowed [him] to stand out as a candidate in the business world”. Other Aspire scholars have moved abroad to further their careers. Aine
2012 Aspire Scholars: Andrea Lyng, Pamela Uddin, Jamie Fahy and Claire O’Hara.
Whelan, who graduated with a first class honours MSc in Management Consultancy before taking a job at PwC’s Dublin office, recently recently secured a position with Ernst & Young. Likewise, Caoimhe Cox, whose MSc in International Business first helped her secure a role on Google’s SMB sales team, assisting Irish and British small-to-medium enterprises expand their businesses, went on to become a senior accounts manager at the London office of RadiumOne, a Silicon Valley-based start-up. The Aspire Scholarship programme is
funded for a ten-year period and provides scholarships to approximately twelve new students each year. The scholarship covers half the tuition fees and arrangements can be made to facilitate a loan to pay the other half. Anyone legally resident in Ireland can apply, as long as they meet entry requirements and demonstrate financial need. Successful applicants are selected by a review committee, this year chaired by Cormac McCarthy, chief financial officer, Paddy Power, and two representatives from the UCD School of Business.
Aspire scholars also recognise the value of the network provided by UCD Smurfit School. In Jennifer Griffin’s words, classmates become “almost like family”. “We literally did everything together for eleven months and grew very close. We still make an effort to meet up.” Paul McCormack echoes this, saying he made friends from all over the world and has stayed in touch with them. “I believe,” he says, “the most valuable aspect of being a UCD Aspire scholar has been the network I have built over the past two years.” n
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ALUMNI EVENTS at UCD
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1: Julie and Cyril McGuire. 2: Sally and Shane Cooke. 3: Professor Colin Scott, Ruth Shipsey, Brendan Dillon and Julian Yarr. 4: Lorcan O’Broin and Aoife Doherty. 5: Áine Gibbons and Angela Moore. 6: Dr Yvonne O’Meara, UCD President Dr Hugh Brady, MC Miriam O’Callaghan. 7: Gordon Jeyes and Eibhlin Byrne. 8: Mark Stokes, Paddy Guiney, Eoin Heffernan, Rachel Breslin Michael Gallagher and Shane Comer. 9: Eilis O’Brien, Mariano Amelio and Noeleen Hartigan. 10: Jane McGowan and Jane Harmon. 11: Sandra Dawson and Martin Lawless. 12: Qiao Li and HE Chinese Ambassador to Ireland Luo Linguan, Marion Creely and Eamon Drea. 13: Professor Imelda Maher and Sean and Deirdre Murray. 14: Gene Dalton and Ronan Wall. 15: John Hannon, Ashlyn Moore, Michael Hughes, Miriam O’Callaghan, Angela and George Moore, Laura Hughes, Dr Hugh Brady. 16: Ad Astra performers. 17: Niamh Murphy and Aidan Nutley.
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FOUNDATION DAY DINNER UCD honours the late philanthropist and businessman George G Moore
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The Foundation Day Dinner is an important date in the calendar of the University as it celebrates the founding of the University in 1854. For the past decade, a Foundation Day Medal has been presented to an outstanding alumnus for his or her achievements on an international scale. In 2012, the Foundation Day Medal recipient was philanthropist and businessman George G Moore (BComm 1972, MBS 1973), who sadly passed away earlier this year. One of UCD’s most distinguished alumni, George Moore, together with his wife Angela, made an extraordinary gift to complete the funding of the new UCD Science Centre which will open this year. Those at UCD who came to know George very well, were grateful
George G Moore
to have had the opportunity to honour him at this very special event at which the musical programme – featuring the UCD Choral Scholars, Ad Astra Scholars and Ad Astra Ensemble – represented an historical and geographical tour of Co Louth, his birthplace and the place which he still called home when the family returned regularly from the US, where most of his business interests were based. An active and generous supporter of his alma mater, George Moore campaigned tirelessly for UCD enthusing all those around him. He will be sadly missed by all who knew him.
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2 1: Olivia O’Leary and Rhona Mahony. 2: The audience. 3: Breda Bennett and Anne Madden. 4: Nicola and Anne Dunphy. 5: Margaret McCambridge and Kay Dolan. 6: Breda O’Malley, Patricia O’Connell and Jean Forbes.
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CHARACTERS IN CONVERSATION The Successful Series Continues
Don’t miss out on the next event – update your details with us at www.ucd.ie/alumni
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UCD Alumni Relations were delighted to welcome medical alumna Dr Rhona Mahony and arts alumna Olivia O’Leary to the Clinton Auditorium in UCD where they entertained an audience of alumni and friends who gathered to hear their frank and informative discussion. Both discussed their backgrounds and memories of University days, with Rhona speaking on current issues and her life as a Master of the National Maternity Hospital. See a video of the event at www.ucd.ie/alumni/past-events
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11: Richard and Wendy Philips and Eilish and Michael Prendergast. 12: Terry Nulty and Cyril Loughlin. 13: Tracey Donnery and Emelda Duffy. 14: Maura O’Reilly and Nuala Leonard.
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| EVENTS |
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BLOOMSDAY ACCOLADES Honouring Arts Achievements
UCD awards the Ulysses Medal and Honorary Degrees to mark Bloomsday, a day synonymous with James Joyce and his novel Ulysses, and a significant day in the University calendar. Awarded this year to playwright and theatre director Tom Murphy, the Ulysses Medal is the highest honour the University can bestow and is reserved for individuals whose work has made an outstanding global contribution. “Without doubt, over a 50-year period, Tom Murphy has produced a body of work that matches the very best of those writing in the English language since the turn of the 20th century,” said Dr Eamonn Jordan of UCD School of English, Drama and Film. Previous winners include Seamus Heaney, Brian Friel and Bill Clinton. Irish theatre producer and director Patrick Mason, formerly of the Abbey Theatre, was also present to receive an honorary degree alongside playwright Conor McPherson, actor Sinéad Cusack and theatre designer and director Bob Crowley.
2 1: Bob Crowley. 2: Patrick Mason, Conor McPherson, Sinéad Cusack, Bob Crowley and Tom Murphy. 3: Conor McPherson and Dr PJ Mathews. 4: Tom Murphy receives the Ulysses Medal. 5: Finola Cronin, UCD School of English, Drama and Film and Patrick Mason.
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6: Dr Eamonn Jordan, UCD School of English, Drama and Film and Tom Murphy. 7: Conor McPherson, Bob Crowley, Deputy President Professor Mark Rogers, Sinéad Cusack, Patrick Mason and Tom Murphy.
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PORTRAIT OF THE ARTISTS Alumni Celebrate Bloomsday
1: Professor Frank McGuinness and Patrick Mason paying close attention to actor Sinéad Cusack. 2: Sinéad Cusack keeps the audience entertained. 3: Sinéad Cusack, Professor Frank McGuinness and Patrick Mason.
UCD Alumni Relations were delighted to welcome Professor Frank McGuinness, Sinéad Cusack and Patrick Mason for a very special Bloomsday Characters in Conversation event which took place in the Astra Hall on the Belfield campus. Friends and alumni gathered to hear Cusack and Mason discuss their experiences in the world of theatre. Cusack recalled the extreme lengths she has gone to in preparation for various roles (pumping iron and learning ballet among them) not to mention a particular costume drama with Bob Crowley. Patrick Mason, meanwhile, waxed lyrical about theatre directing and his awareness of the art from an early age. 3
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Don’t miss out on the next event – update your details with us at www.ucd.ie/alumni
| EVENTS | Join the EngineeringGraduates Association at www.ucd.ie/eacollege/enggrad/membershipform/ 1: Regina Finn giving her lecture. 2: Outgoing and incoming presidents of the UCD EGA, Michael Loughnane and PJ Rudden.
CONOR HEALY
3 3: Three former presidents of Engineers Ireland – John McGowan, 2013 Distinguished EGA Alumnus Award recipient Liam Connellan and Michael Higgins.
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EGA ANNUAL LECTURE 2013
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A Timely Topic
There was a record attendance at the UCD EGA Annual Lecture 2013 given by Regina Finn, chief executive of OFWAT, water regulator for England and Wales, who gave a fascinating account of setting up OFWAT in 2006. The England and Wales solution to the regulation of water was the attraction of private sector expertise management and capital coupled with the setting of environmental and quality standards and the protection of consumers from monopoly power. After the lecture there were many varied questions from the audience, ranging from the challenge of sustainability and how OFWAT deal with customers who don’t pay their bills to universal metering. Finn maintained “metering is the fairest way to charge for water”. The issue of a possible “generous free allowance” to domestic customers was raised in England and Wales in terms of adverse customer reaction.
A GERMAN MODEL FOR IRELAND’S RECOVERY
4 4: Jerry Grant,Head of Asset Management, Irish Water and EGA President PJ Rudden with Regina Finn. 5: UCD Dean of Engineering, Gerry Byrne, Regina Finn, UCD EGA President PJ Rudden, UCD Deputy President Professor Mark Rogers.
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The EGA Panel Discussion
Following the AGM in November 2012, the EGA organised a panel discussion, chaired by broadcaster Pat Kenny, entitled “Can we shape Ireland’s recovery on the German model?” Led by the German Ambassador to Ireland, HE Dr Eckhard Lübkemeier, the five speakers debated the current EU fiscal Dr Pat Kenny. crisis – so impressive was the quality of the debate that Pat Kenny devoted an hour-long slot to it on Today with Pat Kenny the following month. Dr Lübkemeier led with a speech which was both frank and informed on the German approach to the Euro Crisis. Other panel participants were Dr Brian Sweeney, former chairman, Siemens Ireland; Professor Brigid Laffan, UCD College of Human Sciences; Mr Stephen Donnelly TD, Wicklow and East Carlow and Professor Gerry Byrne, UCD College of Engineering and Architecture.
PJ Rudden, Professor Brigid Laffan, Dr Eckhard Lübkemeier, Professor Gerry Byrne, Dr Brian Sweeney, Mr Stephen Donnelly and Pat Kenny
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MBA CONNECTIONS UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School Alumni Reception
In September 2012, over 250 UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School MBA alumni gathered for the School’s annual MBA reception in The Conrad Hotel, kindly sponsored by MERC Partners. MBA alumni were joined by current MBA students, faculty members and UCD Smurfit School advisory board members and guests. The evening commenced with a reception in the main ballroom, followed by an inspiring talk by guest speaker Kingsley Aikins, CBE, former president and CEO of The Ireland Funds and networking specialist. 4: Frank McCooey, Gordon Richards, Siobhan Byrne, Margaret Kavanagh and Michael Deeney. 5: Tony Condon, Gerald Farrell, Tara Collins and Professor Pat Gibbons. 6: John Bourke, Hlue Pham, Lien Pham and Adrian O’Connor.
1 1: Kieran Duff, Tara Collins, Kingsley Aikins, Professor Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh and Orla Nugent. 2: Kingsley Aikins and Ronan Murphy. 3: Gerry Harvey and Frank Kennedy.
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2 2: Professor Peter Kelly, Dr Tristan Cooper, Medical Director and Ralf Zimmermann, Managing Director at Bayer Ltd.
1 1: 2013 Newman Fellows with UCD Deputy President and Registrar, Professor Mark Rogers.
NEWMAN FELLOWSHIP DINNER Fostering Links And Funding World-Class Research
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6: Dr Chris McGuigan, Loretto Callaghan, CPO Head of Novartis Ireland, Dr Laura Williams, Novartis Newman Fellow and Professor Niall Tubridy. 7: Dr Edel McDermott, Boston Scientific Newman Fellow, Dr Chun Seng Lee, Helsinn Birex Newman Fellow and Dr John Keaney, Actelion Pharmaceuticals Newman Fellow. 8: Dr Gadintshware Gaoatswe, Ipsen Newman Fellow, Dr Conor Woods, Sanofi-aventis Newman Fellow and Professor Donal O’Shea. 9: Dr Mary Codd, Professor Declan Sugrue and Dr Dima Abdallah, Edwards Lifesciences Newman Fellow.
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In April, UCD Deputy President and Registrar, Professor Mark Rogers, welcomed over 20 corporate donors, Newman Fellows and their academic mentors to the annual Newman Fellowship Dinner. The initiative was set up in 1989 with a view to providing support for world-class research across the humanities and sciences. The donors each fund a two- or threeyear post-doctoral fellow who has the freedom to pursue a particular area of research. During the dinner, Dr Andrew Sanders, the John Moore Newman Fellow, and Dr Karen O’Connell, the Biogen Idec Newman Fellow, presented their research to representatives from industry and academia. Demonstrating the breadth of the programme, Dr Andrew Sanders spoke about his research into the role played by Irish-Americans in peace-building in Northern Ireland between the Kennedy and Clinton Administrations and Dr Karen O’Connell spoke about her work to establish the incidence of Multiple Sclerosis in 10 Ireland and to examine the role of potential environmental factors in MS development.
10: Dr Andrew Sanders, John Moore Newman Fellow in Conflict and Diplomacy.
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CONNECTING IN NORTH AMERICA UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School Annual Benefit Dinner
In October 2012, UCD Smurfit School hosted its annual fundraising dinner in the Metropolitan Club in Manhattan. The event honoured Alan Ennis, President & CEO, Revlon Inc and was attended by over 250 business people, including members of the School’s North American Advisory Board, UCD alumni and friends of the School.
1 1: Tony Condon, Dr Hugh Brady, Alan Ennis, Professor Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh, Paul Haran and Michael Dowling.
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2: John and Helen Sharkey and Michael Buzzy O’Keeffe. 3: James Kelly, Michael Dowling, Anna and Brian Ruane. 4: Jacqueline Botting, Tony Condon and Ann Murtagh.
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5: Dr Hugh Brady, Noel Kilkenny and John Duffy. 6: Bertie Hourihane, Maggie Ennis, Loretta Brennan Glucksman and Alan Ennis. 7: Andrea Haughian, Sarah-Anne Hughes, Grace Smith and Maeve Judge.
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9: Alan and Michelle Ennis. 9: Laura Conway, Tara Collins, Monica Gaffney and Áine Gibbons. 10: Rachael Nichol, Aoife Millar, Martine Williamson, Tracy Rohrbaugh and Sue Feng.
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DOING THE BUSINESS IN NEW YORK
Alumni Gather to Network
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Update your details with UCD School of Business at www.ucd.ie/businessalumni
Also in October, on the eve of the Benefit Dinner, UCD Alumni Relations hosted an informal drinks reception and networking event for over 100 alumni living and working in New York. Attending the event were Dr Hugh Brady, President of UCD, Professor Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh, Dean of UCD School of Business, Paul Haran, Chairman of the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School, members of the School’s board of management team and members of the School’s North American Advisory Board.
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1: Molly Dineen, Laura Conway, Tara Collins and Sarah-Anne Hughes. 2: Jack Hogan and Catherine Hogan-Conlon. 3: Professor Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh, Dr Hugh Brady and Frank Bonner.
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10: Peter Clarke and Áine Gibbons. 11: Nicole McGreedy, Tracey Monaghan, Sarah-Anne Hughes and Tara King. 12: Gerard Frewen, Jennifer Barry and Brendan Connellan. 13: Dudley Hornberry, Dr Hugh Brady and Susan Towers.
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BUSINESS ALUMNI AWARDS DINNER Business Alumni Honoured
Alan Ennis, President & CEO, Revlon Inc, one of the leading global and beauty care product companies, and Caroline Casey, founder of Kanchi, a not-for-profit disability organisation, were honoured at the UCD Business Alumni of the Year Awards 2013 fundraising dinner at the Four Season’s Hotel, Dublin. The Alumnus of the Year Awards, which have been running since 1991, are the highest honour UCD School of Business can bestow upon its graduates, recognising alumni who have demonstrated proven leadership skills, notable achievement in business and a significant contribution to the community, whether in Ireland or abroad. Speaking of this year’s winners, Professor Ciarán Ó Alan Ennis and Caroline Casey. hÓgartaigh, Dean, UCD School of Business, said, “We are delighted to honour Alan Ennis and Caroline Casey, our 2013 Business Alumni of the Year. Both are leading two very distinctive organisations with very different goals and objectives. But what they both share as CEOs is exceptional leadership that inspires others, and an unwavering commitment to excellence. I hope that UCD Business School students will strive to emulate their determination and success.” The Alumni of the Year Awards Dinner is kindly sponsored by Tullow Oil. All profits raised are in aid of the UCD Centennial Scholarship Fund, supporting the next generation of business leaders.
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1 1: Paul Haran, Tara Collins, Alan Ennis, Caroline Casey, William McMahon, Justin Thomas and Professor Ciarán Ó’hÓgartaigh. 2: Liz Giltinane and Avril O’Flynn. 3: James DeHayes, Ronan Murphy, Laurence Crowley and Tony Condon.
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4: Rahul Jindal, Anuj Singhal, Aidan Heavey and Ian Dunleavey. 5: Richie Boucher and Susan Davis. 6: Brian Marrinan, Siobhan O’Dowd, Christine Heffernan and Professor Damien McLoughlin. 7: Helen Brophy and Orla Wynn.
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8: Gerald Farrell and Trevor Madigan. 9: Ronan Murphy, Rahul Jindal and Terence O’Rourke. 10: Brian Harmon, David Courtney and Senator Eamonn Coghlan. 11: Colm Lyon, Ross McMahon and John Teeling.
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1 3 1&2: Senator Feargal Quinn. 3: Hugh and Anne McCluskey.
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ALL IN A LIFE’S WORK Senator Feargal Quinn Presents His Life Story
12 12: Kris McCaffrey and Gearoid O’Byrne. 13: Siobhan Byrne Learat and Kasao Learat.
Newman House was the setting for the Life Stories in Period Houses series, with UCD Alumnus Senator Feargal Quinn (BComm 1959) entertaining guests with a personal insight into his early years growing up on 5 the northside of Dublin, his student days, the business of retail and the Seanad. The evening started with a reception, followed by an introduction Don’t miss out on the next to the history of Newman House with UCD Alumni Relations event curator Ruth Ferguson. – update your details with us at www.ucd.ie/alumni
11 4: Diarmuid and Mary Brereton and Germaine and John Staunton. 5: Ruth Ferguson, Senator Feargal Quinn and Áine Gibbons. 6: Eimer Carroll, Aidan Somerville and Helen Lalor.
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7: Michael Boyle and Fionán de Barra. 8: Brendan Kirby, Catherine Brugha and Niall Murphy. 9: Tom Moloney and Kate Bateman. 10: Patricia and Charles Walshe. 11: Carmel Heaney and Hazel Newman.
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POETIC INSPIRATION Launch And Private View Of The Exhibition “Yeats and His Muses”
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Maud Gonne
the most sustained Maud Gonne constitute Yeats’s poems about y of literature in e to a Muse in the histor and fully developed tribut ly love tradition, iously written in the court English. They were consc it in ‘Adam’s Curse’. called he as love’, ‘the old high way of
ns how y love tradition explai as part of the courtl t year Reading these poems fruitless, twenty-eigh nce required for a nearly courtly Yeats found the endura a sine qua non of the unattainability was tood unders Gonne pursuit of Gonne. Her lose her. win the beloved is to y to sharpl which d in on, traditi als, she focuse ing one of Yeats’s propos you call your this perfectly. In reject iful poetry out of what beaut make ‘You would be on her role as Muse: she said. ‘Marriage that,’ in happy are placed unhappiness and you – a declaration that should never marry’ such a dull affair. Poets ce. on of Dante’s Beatri title her squarely in the traditi here with its earlier g poem ‘Words’ – shown il turmo the that Yeats’s deeply movin ing stand meditates on his under ‘The Consolation’ – , and that, were it not ed his poetic engine power Muse his n by throw poor engendered no poetry: ‘I might have been have might ’s for the turmoil, there the end of his life, Gonne content to live.’ Until itly words away/And been ed, and his poetry implic ation never fully loosen the grip on Yeats’s imagin in ‘The Tower’: ‘Does the great question posed answers affirmatively n won or woman lost?’ most/ upon a woma imagination dwell the
1 1: Opening of the exhibition by Dr John B Howard, UCD Librarian. 2: Part of the exhibition display. 3: Dr Joseph Hassett, donor of the WB Yeats materials, including manuscripts and rare printed editions.
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4: Professor John Kelly, St John’s College, Oxford. 5: Professor Anthony Roche, Dr Patrick Mathews, Dr Joe Hassett, Professor Margaret Kelleher, Dr Luca Crispi, Dr Lucy Collins, Professor Andrew Carpenter and Professor Frank McGuinness.
In April 2013, Dr John B Howard, University Librarian, welcomed guests to the UCD Library and outlined the exhibition contents and the significance of the generous donation of Yeats’ materials. UCD Library Special Collections hosts this new exhibition, celebrating the women who inspired much of WB Yeats’ poetry. Yeats believed in the Greek idea of the Muses as the font of poetic inspiration, and found his muses in living women. The exhibition explores the relationship between five exceptional women and the poems Yeats wrote to or about them. Original letters, manuscripts and inscribed first editions trace the relationship between poet and muse. The exhibition is supported by a significant donation of WB Yeats materials including manuscripts and rare printed editions to UCD by Joseph Hassett. UCD Library also wishes to acknowledge the deposit by the American Ireland Fund of valuable Yeats material and the contribution of Professor Anthony Roche, UCD School of English, Drama and Film, literary consultant to the exhibition and the author of the freely available exhibition booklet. Dr Joseph M Hassett is a graduate of Harvard Law School and holds a PhD in Anglo-Irish Literature from UCD. The ideas reflected in this exhibition are discussed in his book WBYeats and the Muses (Oxford University Press, 2010). In his speech he paid particular tribute to the late Professor Augustine (“Gus”) Martin, whose widow, Claire Martin, and daughters were among the guests, and outlined the key influence that he had exercised both as Yeats scholar and friend on his path through life. The guest speaker, Yeats scholar Professor John Kelly, St John’s College, Oxford, outlined Dr Hassett’s long fascination with Yeats, his scholarship and publications on Yeats and his extensive collecting activity and other generous sponsorship of Yeats events. The exhibition runs until September and is part of UCD’s contribution to The Gathering 2013. For further details and access arrangements, go to www.ucd.ie/library/yeatsmuses or telephone 01 716 7067. 6
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6: Dr Joe Hassett, with Professor Augustine Martin’s widow, Claire, and daughters Niamh and Gráinne.
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1 1: Students and academic faculty at the 2013 UCD Medicine White Coat Ceremony. 2: Students from Penang Medical College celebrate after participating in the White Coat Ceremony. 3: Students don white coats, symbolising the transition into full-time clinical education.
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Don’t miss out on the next event – update your details with us at www.ucd.ie/alumni
A SYMBOLIC EVENT UCD Medicine White Coat Ceremony 2013 In preparation for their transition to full-time clinical education, 202 undergraduate and graduate entry medical students were “robed” with white coats at the annual UCD Medicine White Coat / Clinical Commencement Ceremony, which took place at UCD in January. Now in its fourth year, the white coat ceremony marks the midway point of students’ medical education at UCD, and serves as a reminder to students of their obligation to “do good for the people that [they] serve”.
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DOCTORS’ APPOINTMENT UCD Medicine Alumni Reunion 2013
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Nearly 120 graduates of UCD School of Medicine and Medical Science were welcomed back to UCD in May for the annual alumni reunion. Classes of 2003, 1993, 1988, 1983, 1973, 1968, 1963 and 1953 attended a scientific meeting at UCD Health Sciences Centre, followed by a tour of the UCD campus before enjoying a formal dinner at O’Reilly Hall later that evening. 1: Class of 1983. 2: Professor Patrick Murray, Dr Colm Henry, Dr Niall Henry, Dr Ruth O’Regan, Dr Ann Gallagher and Dr Siobhan MacHale. 3: Class of 1993. 4: Class of 1963.
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LAW SCHOOL PROGRESS
Don’t miss out on the next event – update your details with us at www.ucd.ie/law/alumni
Sutherland School Topping-Out Ceremony The Topping-Out ceremony of the new Sutherland School of Law was held in January, with Peter Sutherland, SC, and Dr Hugh Brady, President of UCD, in attendance, as well as various donors to the new building, and the School of Law Development Council. Following a tour of the site, Peter Sutherland commented on the marked contrast between the new building and Earlsfort Terrace, where he himself studied. He also reiterated the importance of education to the continuing development of the country, and how this new state-of-the-art facility is a major expression of UCD’s commitment to education. Dr Hugh Brady remarked on this important step in the continuing evolution of the UCD campus. He thanked all of the donors, particularly Peter Sutherland, and also those University staff involved in bringing the building to the current stage. He also paid tribute to the former Dean of Law, Professor Paul O’ Connor, for his vision in initiating this project. UCD Sutherland School of Law will be the largest and most diverse Law School
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1: Dr Hugh Brady, Peter Sutherland SC and Professor Colin Scott Dean of Law.
in Ireland. It will allow for the creation of new initiatives, the enrichment of the educational environment in the student body, the development of working partnerships with practising legal professionals and the establishment of a major, well-regarded and authoritative presence in the international legal community. UCD Sutherland School of Law is on schedule to welcome students in 2013.
A LESSON IN LAW
UCD School of Law Annual John M Kelly Memorial Lecture
1: Alexia Kelly, daughter of the late John M Kelly, Professor Gerald Neuman, Harvard Law School and Professor Colin Scott, Dean of Law. 2: Rachel Duffy, auditor, UCD LawSoc, Professor Gerald Neuman, Harvard Law School and Daniel Griffin, President, UCD Student Legal Service.
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Professor Gerald L Neuman was the guest speaker at the UCD School of Law’s annual John M Kelly Memorial Lecture, held in June. Professor Neuman spoke on “Human Rights and Constitutions in a Complex World”. Professor Neuman is the J Sinclair Armstrong Professor of International, Foreign, and Comparative Law at Harvard Law School. His fields of research include US constitutional law, comparative constitutional law, international human rights law, and immigration and nationality law. Since 2011, he has been a Member of the UN Human Rights Committee, which monitors compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The lecture is held each year in memory of John Maurice Kelly, a distinguished member of faculty at the UCD School of Law who passed away suddenly in 1991. This year’s lecture was attended by members of the Judiciary and Bar, as well as practitioners in the legal and human rights fields. Professor Neuman also chaired the UCD Human Rights Network Round Table discussion on “Strengthening the United Nations Human Rights Treaty System’”which was held the following day. The objectives of the Round Table were to discuss the proposals made by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in her 2012 report, currently being considered by an inter-governmental forum.
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THE ASIA CONNECTION
HONG KONG
Business Alumni Gather to Reconnect in Singapore and Hong Kong In May 2013 the annual UCD business alumni chapter events took place in Singapore and Hong Kong. These annual gatherings provide alumni with the opportunity to catch up with friends, network and make new connections in the local area. This year, the inaugural Alumnus of the Year Award (Singapore) was presented to Richard Achee, Head of Google Enterprise for Southeast Asia. The Alumnus of the Year Award (Hong Kong) was presented to Charles Lau, Executive Director and Chief Investment Officer of China Public Procurement Ltd.
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SINGAPORE
1: Chong Keit Siew, Pauline Wong and Orla Wrynn. 2: Professor Aidan Kelly and Richard Achee. 3: Paul Dillon, Shaun Gavigan and Brian O’Rorke. 4: Femmy Lais, Siew Kiong Cheng and Diana Wong. 5: Philip Low, Liu Steven and Eunice Ho. 6: Charles Lau.
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7: Row 1: Leon Choong, Florence Sia, HE Ambassador Joseph Hayes, Deirdre Hayes, Diana Wong and Rexanna Kok. Row 2: Emily Han, Professor Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh, Nina Ho, Jim Jackson, Peter Lewis, Lynn Chan and Rhys Johnson. Row 3: Djon Manuhutu, Femmy Lais, Helena Johnson, Siew Kiong Cheng and Jurgen Rudolph. Row 4: Amos Tan.
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A GOLDEN JUBILEE
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The Class of 1962 Celebrate
1: BSc. 2: BAgrSc. 3: BCL 4: BComm. 5: BE. 6: BA. 7: MVB.
In September 2012 the Class of 1962 gathered in Don’t miss out on your O’Reilly Hall to celebrate their Golden Jubilee. Professor Golden Jubilee – update your details at Joe Carthy and Professor Aidan Kelly welcomed www.ucd.ie/alumni guests at a special ceremony to mark the occasion and commemorative scrolls were presented. Justice Nial Fennelly (BA 1962) spoke on behalf of the class, reminiscing on the Earlsfort Terrace days. The class has raised funds for Access Scholarships and Ad Astra Scholarships in UCD – you can still donate to the Class of 1962 Appeal at www.ucdfoundation.ie 8: Dermot Mulligan, BArch. 9: Cathal Carr, BDS. 10: Dr Mary Hamill, MB BCh BAO.
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A RUBY JUBILEE Class of 1973 6 5 5: Front row: Vincent Palmer, Maeve Quinn, Ursula Dunne, Barry Harrington and Maeve Barrett. Middle row: Brid Quilty, Ciaran MacDonaill, Anthony Joyce, Anya Pierce, John O’Mullane, Patrick Quigley, Olwyn Lanigan, Eamonn Lennon and Anna Murphy. Back row: Kieran Branagan, Peter Brown and Celsus English. 6: Simone and Reinhard Pilny. 7: Pearse Farrell and Orla and Denis Forde.
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8: Front row: Patricia Carroll, Niamh Casey, Gillian Kiersey, Daragh Murphy. Back row: Randal Doherty, Vincent Crowley, Gerard Cummiskey, Bernard O’Beirne, Frances Cooke, Geraldine Pearse, Berna Hanahoe and Tom Stafford. 9: Front row: Paul Waldron, Mairéad Fitzsimons, Evelyn Lynch, Eithna Shine and Jimmy Doyle. Middle row: Tom Synott, Brendan Howard, Terence Jones, John Connolly and Donncha Cody. Back row: John Murphy, Mark Lochrin, Conor Cummins, Ann Bracken and Ken Byrne.
The UCD Class of 1973 gathered in the UCD John Hume Institute for Global Irish Studies to celebrate their 40-year reunion. Professor Mark Rogers, Deputy President, gave the welcome address followed by a short address by Access Scholar, Kate Farrelly. Building Planning Manager Elizabeth Dunne presented campus developments followed by a tour of the campus and the evening concluded with a wine and canapés reception. Professor Tom Brazil, Head of UCD School of Electrical, Electronic and Communications Engineering and also a BE alumnus from the Class of 1973, spoke on behalf of the Class, evoking fond memories of student days and comparing their times as students to the life of a student now. The Ruby Jubilee group raised much-needed funds for UCD Access Scholarships – you can still donate to the Ruby Jubilee Appeal at www.ucdfoundation.ie. Don’t miss out on your Ruby Jubilee – update your details at www.ucd.ie/alumni
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10: Front row: Patrick Linehan, PJ O’Reilly, Michael Kelly, John Groarke and Brian Cooper. Back row: John Magee, Seamus McManus, Timothy Teahan, John Richardson, John Hood, Damien Owens and James Hodgins. 11: Front row: Frances O’Reilly, John Buckley and Mary White. Back row: John Kilgallon, Martin McCarthy, Sean Moran, Tom Brazil and Commandant Cathal Loftus. 12: Tom Brazil.
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1: Back row: Hanna O’Brien, John Farrell, Anne Smyth, Mary Kelly, Professor Philip Burke, Mary O’Callaghan, Ciaran Donaghy, Joan Morrison and Ellen Brady. Front row: Anne Kilduff, Mary Maguire–McMonagle, Sarah Martin, Anne Dwyer, Doris Quish, Francis Casey. 2: Back row: Noel Mulcahy, Brian Daly, Liam Shanaghan, John Raferty, Chris Shouldice, Micheal Kennedy, Joseph Martin, David MacGowan, Eugene McCabe, Jim Cullen, Hugh O’Keefe and John Caffrey. Front row: Vincent Purcell, Maurice McMonagle, Sylvester Doherty, Thomas Mulcahy, Paddy Bannon, Michael Callery and Canice O’Mahony.
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A DIAMOND JUBILEE Classes of 1943 - 1953 Celebrate
UCD Alumni Relations were delighted to welcome the Classes of 1943 - 1953 to O’Reilly Hall for their Diamond Jubilee celebrations. Denis Cotter BA represented the Class of 1943 and Mr Justice Ronan Keane (BA 1953) gave an address on behalf of the classes gathered. The event, which attracted 180 alumni and guests, finished with afternoon tea, over which plenty of reconnections were made. The Diamond Jubilee group has raised funds for UCD Access Scholarships – you can still donate to the Diamond Jubilee Appeal at www. Don’t miss out on your Diamond Jubilee – update ucdfoundation.ie 14
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10: Bernard and Denis Cotter. 11: Anne Dwyer, Hanna O’Brien and Maureen Rogers. 12: Margaret Callanan. 13: Ciaran Donaghy. 14: Doris Quish. 15: Joan Morrison.
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6: Back row: Mary Waldron, Frank Muldowney, Una Comer Callaghan, Anthony Cleary and Maev McGrath Wren. Front row: Edmond Waldron, Pauline Clery and Morgan and Rena McElligott. 7: Back row: John O’Reilly, Charles Ellison and Brian Hogan. Front row: Mary O’Reilly, Joan Trimble and Michael O’Connor. 8: Back row: Francis Devit, John Gaynor, Malachy Mahon. Front row: Dorothy Gaynor, Dolores Cleary, Donald Cleary and Brenda Mahon. 9: Mary Kelly.
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Celebrating a decade at UCD Quinn School of Business
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Last December, UCD hosted its annual budget briefing and Christmas drinks reception for business alumni. The event, kindly sponsored by Bank of Ireland, was held in the UCD Quinn School of Business on the Belfield Campus, to mark the ten-year anniversary of the School. The School first opened its doors in October 2002. UCD Quinn School benefactor and business alumnus, Lochlann Quinn marked the occasion with a warm and witty speech.
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1: UCD business alumni at the reception. 2: Liam McLoughlin, Brian Harman, Brenda Quinn, Tara Collins, Lochlann Quinn, Professor Ciarán Ó hÓgartaigh, Dr Martin Butler, Dr Michael MacDonnell and Professor Philip Bourke 3: Dr Michael MacDonnell, Lochlann Quinn, Brian Harman, Brenda Quinn and Conall Quinn.
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4: Martin Murphy and Padraic Brennan. 5: Desmond Miller and Professor Niamh Brennan. 6: Emma Holohan, Rosemary Hogan and Anna Holohan. 7: Francis O’Hara and Matthew Gleeson. 8: Professor Frank Bradley, Professor Eamonn Walsh and Professor Andy Prothero. 9: Holly Davidson, Kate Cronin and Aoife Duffy. 10: John O’Loughlin, Susanna Murphy, Kathy O’Reilly and Stephen Smith.
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A PASSION FOR SONG UCD Choral Scholars Perform
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UCD Choral Scholars, the award-winning vocal Book your ticket for ensemble with a repertoire ranging from the December 2013 Choral Scholars Christmas medieval to the contemporary, has a well-deserved Concert nights at international reputation. With scholarships www.ucd.ie/alumni/events awarded by a panel of professional musicians, successful students from all academic disciplines have the opportunity to enjoy the challenge of participation in UCD Choral Scholars. Eighteen scholars are appointed annually following a competition and go on to perform at 1&2: University Church. 3: Vivienne Bradley and Sean Walsh 4: Conor Murray and public concerts such as the annual Christmas Concert at Rachel McMahon. 5: Lena Foley, Aisling Flynn and Samantha Magee. 6: Carmencita University Church in Dublin. and Billy Hederman. 7: Mary and Roisin Molloy. 8: Brid McCarthy and Thelma Doran. 7 7
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9: Jane and Brian Harman. 10: Sarah Buckley, Jane Whelan and Carol O’ Buachalla. 11: Ruaidhri, Alison, Amy and Michele Gibbons with Hilda and Philip Hughes. 12: Darragh and Ciara Murphy. 13: Evangeline Leonard and Jim Fitzsimons. 14: Dr Clare Rock and Dr Kathy Rock. 15: Ignatius, Mary and Declan Byrne.
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Notice to Graduates of UCD of Election of Members of the Governing Authority Call for Nominations An election meeting to elect graduates to the fifth Governing Authority of University College Dublin shall be held on Thursday 28th November 2013 in the Gerard Manley Hopkins International Centre, lower ground floor, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4. In accordance with the relevant provisions of the Universities Act, 1997, graduates of University College Dublin, including those who are graduates of the National University of Ireland by reason of their studies at the former University College Dublin, may elect three of their number to the Governing Authority. At least one of the elected graduates shall be a man and at least one shall be a woman. The term of office of the fifth Governing Authority shall be five years from 1st February 2014 to 31st January 2019.
Voting Papers
Nomination Process * Graduates are invited to put themselves forward at this time as a candidate for the election. * Candidates must complete a Nomination Paper that is signed by two graduates of University College Dublin/NUI graduates whose degree was awarded by virtue of study at University College Dublin. * Full details of the nomination process are available on the following website: www.ucd.ie/graduateelection2013.htm * Completed nomination forms should be returned to: The Registrar, C/O Academic Secretariat, UCD Registry, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4 and should be received by 5pm,
Following the close of the nomination process, ballot papers will be posted to the following electoral cohorts: (a) All UCD graduates of NUI who voted in the election of November 2008; (b) All UCD graduates of NUI who have applied for a ballot paper; (c) All UCD graduates who have verified their postal address with the Registrar’s Office, c/o Academic Secretariat, UCD Registry; (d) All those who graduated from UCD since the election of November 2008 All graduates of University College Dublin, including those who are graduates of the National University of Ireland by reason of their studies at the former University College Dublin, are eligible to vote in this election. If you do not fall into the above categories and wish to receive ballot papers, please visit the following website and complete the registration process as directed and no later than Friday 18th October 2013. www.ucd.ie/graduateelection2013.htm Completed ballot papers must be returned by post and should be received by UCD by 5pm, Wednesday 27th November 2013.
All queries should be addressed to: GE2013@ucd.ie If you wish to concurrently update your details with UCD Alumni Relations, please visit our update page: www.ucd.ie/alumni/update-form Professor Mark Rogers, Registrar
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WINNERS OF THE McCABE CUP, 1946: Robbie McCabe, Hugh O’Donoghue, Joe Hackett, John Blayney, Dermot Nolan, Ivar Boden (captain) and JP MacHale.
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UCD Lawn Tennis Club Celebrates Its Centenary
he UCD Tennis Club will celebrate 100 years of play in the 2013-2014 academic year. The Club itself remains one of the most popular in the University with consistent success in Intervarsity and League tournaments and, of course, in the annual Colours clash against perennial rivals Trinity College. The Club’s considerable membership and popularity date back to its inception in 1913, under the captaincy of Cahir Davitt. According to Professor Patrick Meenan, editor of UCD sports history book St Patrick’s Blue and Saffron, members availed of the two hard courts
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behind Earlsfort Terrace dating back to the late 19th century. After the relocation of the sports ground to Belfield in 1936, the Lawn Tennis Club was one of the first to take up residence there and boasted the largest club membership of the whole University. The mens team of 1946, shown above, seemingly capitalised on these enhanced facilities, battling Trinity to secure the McCabe (Colours) Cup that same year. The captain of that team, Ivar Boden, went on to become President of the famous Queen’s Club in London and both Joe Hackett and Joe McHale (RIP) earned many Davis caps for Ireland. Alice Smyth, Ladies Captain (1949-51), fondly
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remembers League matches played in Belfield on grass courts and teas in the old Belfield House. Members now have five synthetic grass, floodlit courts at their disposal. Students are offered coaching to suit all abilities, with more intense training available to the top teams, and beginners are always welcome. ^ As part of the centenary celebrations, an event is planned for 2014. Register your interest in this event at www.ucd.ie/alumni/events All queries to ucdtennisclub100@gmail.com
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