REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE UCD SMURFIT & QUINN BUSINESS SCHOOLS’ CENTENARY DINNER, UCD
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE UCD SMURFIT & QUINN BUSINESS SCHOOLS’ CENTENARY DINNER, UCD, THURSDAY, 23 APRIL 2009
Dia dhíbh a chairde. Tá an-áthas orm a bheith i bhur measc anocht ar an ócáid speisialta seo. Táim buíoch díbh as an gcuireadh agus an fáilte a chuir sibh romhaim.
Your Excellencies, President Brady, distinguished alumni and guests. We are the fortunate generation which gets to be around to celebrate one hundred years of business education at UCD. Which would we rather be I wonder, the founding generation which started with ten students and one part-time professor or the one which has lived to see that modest beginning develop into the largest university based school of business in the state, with three thousand students studying at the Business School’s Irish campuses, and several thousand more being taught by the School in Spain and South East Asia.
In 1909 UCD was smaller than an average secondary school today. It catered to an elite in an unhappy part of a fading Empire in a world where universal suffrage for men never mind women was a controversial novelty. Who in that founding year could have foreseen what would lie ahead, the violent struggle for our own independence, the World Wars, the eras of dictatorships and democracies, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the European Union, the Good Friday Agreement, the depressions and recessions, the outward migration and the inward migration, the national and international events which would shake and change the world, including our world, in every generation. One thing the founders did foresee was, that whatever came or went in the world, education was going to be a necessary leaven and so they began something that would not only survive the changing times and tides, but something which would itself be a catalyst of deep and lasting change, a steady guide through turbulence, a nourisher and a harvester of the talent and the leadership which would recreate Ireland. Restricted access meant it was a slow burn for the first half century but with the advent of free second level education it fanned to a flame as more and more of Ireland’s brainpower was given the opportunity to travel an unimpeded road to new skills, qualifications and confidence. The curiosity and ambition unlocked in the last quarter of this century has altered the course of Irish political, social and economic history. Both the Quinn and Smurfit Business Schools have written remarkable new chapters in that history. By their own efforts they are ranked among the best of the best in the world. Their names evoke national pride and we know that even after one hundred years we are still only at the start.
It was Abraham Lincoln who said, give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. We have had a lot of things to metaphorically chop down, not least of them the historic malaise of post-colonial self-doubt, the poverty and underachievement, the physical and psychological drain of emigration, the skewed and unresolved relationships between North and South, Dublin and London, Planter and Gael. Fighting on so many fronts called for an avalanche of fresh thinking, innovation, energy shaped, probed and honed by scholarship. Even now this island is only coming into its own.
Maybe a better question would be would we prefer to be at the centenary or the bicentenary celebrations for at this halfway mark, even in a recession as harsh and cruel as this is for so many people, we still have the chance to be the Ireland the generation of 1909 dreamt of. It was that same generation which scripted those words that still ring fresh today, this “Republic guarantees religious and civil liberty, equal rights and equal opportunities to all its citizens, and declares its resolve to pursue the happiness and prosperity of the whole nation and all of its parts, cherishing all of the children of the nation equally.”
Good business and good business practice are essential for our prosperity; jobs and financial security are an important element in the dignity and the happiness of our citizens. With the bitter wisdom of recent hindsight we know these things more deeply than ever before and now we need people, like those who founded the Faculty of Commerce one hundred years ago who believe we can make change happen, humble step, by humble step. Your students, staff and graduates have been much more than witnesses to a transformed Ireland they have been the authors and you are entitled to gather this night in pride and in anticipation of even more remarkable chapters to come.
It is so right to mark this occasion by honouring and congratulating some of those who in our time have taken the baton of the founders and handled it with courage and care, Professor Michael McCormick the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School Alumnus of the Year and the man who introduced the MBA in 1964, a European first at the time; Claire Kennedy and Andrew Flood who have been named Students of the Year ; distinguished graduate Mr Philip Berber, whose work in Ethiopia along with his wife Donna, through ‘A Glimmer of Hope Foundation’ speaks of a selflessness and humanity that are much more characteristic and truly defining of this country than recent events and commentaries might suggest; the Ulysses medallists, Michael Smurfit and Lochlann Quinn two of Ireland’s most outstandingly successful businessmen whose deep spirit of philanthropy has been expressed in many, many ways but is particularly associated with a wonderful contribution both have made to UCD and to business education. To each of those honoured tonight I add my own congratulations and also thanks for the ways in which you witness to our individual and collective capacity to be agents of change for the good of all.
It was the founding Rector of UCD, John Henry Newman himself, who once said “knowledge is one thing virtue is another”. On this very special occasion at UCD tonight, it is worth reminding ourselves that in this chastening moment we need local and global business leadership to help us reposition virtue at the centre of our commercial lives. Perhaps this is a time when we need to reflect on the core values presented in our Proclamation, 93 years old tomorrow, and, indeed, in our Constitution, so that the next iteration of prosperity in our country – and it will happen – will be characterised by the alliance of virtue and knowledge.
We know that scholarship, research, education and training will be key to doing that, just as philanthropy will be an essential component in terms of quality, quantity and speed of delivery. In that regard, I want to extend a particular welcome to the Business Schools’ North America Advisory Board, who have been such wonderful personal exemplars of the power of philanthropy. Tonight is also a celebration of what UCD has been able to accomplish with the help of philanthropy unselfish virtue and a statement of intent about its determination to be a harbinger of the best business culture, the best business climate, the best business values, the best business graduates and the best Ireland in the century ahead. I wish you well.