Remarks by President McAleese for the NAIRTL National Awards for Excellence in Teaching
Remarks by President McAleese for the National Academy for Integration of Research and Teaching and Learning National Awards
Dia dhíbh a chairde. I am delighted to be here with you today to congratulate and celebrate the 2009 National Award Winners for Excellence in Teaching and I would like to thank Tom Boland for his kind invitation to join you today. This is the first year of this National Awards scheme and I am delighted to see that there has been such enthusiasm and support from so many individuals and institutions with all
HEA-funded higher education institutions in Ireland – universities, institutes of technology and colleges of education – eligible to participate in the scheme.
This award scheme meets a unique need, the recognition of truly inspiring higher education teachers who demonstrate outstanding achievements in their teaching and research and have made an exceptional impact on students. It is a celebration of those who display evidence of sustained commitment to teaching excellence, who support student learning and are inspirational scholars within and beyond their own institution. In particular, these awards value and recognise success at integrating research, teaching and learning. The experience of having a truly excellent teacher or lecturer is one that remains with those fortunate enough to encounter such a person long after the particular course is finished, its imprint can not only last a lifetime, but it can change the course of a life for the better. So in honouring the most innovative and exciting teachers in higher-level education, we are also acknowledging the investment each one has made in the education of others, in encouraging intellectual curiosity and giving the leadership that allows students to see limitless horizons instead of fixed and impermeable boundaries.
These awards are a good fit with our ambition to develop Ireland as a smart economy for they celebrate the combined role of teacher and researcher. Albert Einstein said that “A mind once stretched by new thoughts can never regain its original shape.” Today’s award winners have contributed to developing in their students, our citizens of today and tomorrow, the critical thinking and analytical skills as well as the scholarly values which are the basic building blocks of a dynamic smart economy.
The basic building blocks of a good education are a good teacher and a good student. Where there is a fluent, symbiotic relationship between them, where both give one hundred per cent and inspire one another, the one with his or her ability, the other with his or her application, there is the chance of a remarkable outcome. That is why it is so crucial that opportunities are created for all students to engage in and be challenged by research and scholarly activity from their first year of undergraduate studies. Even the most ardent student can find his or her motivation dampened by dullness. The French playwright Marcel Achard once said “When I give a lecture, I accept that people look at their watches, but what I do not tolerate is when they look at it and raise it to their ear to find out if it stopped!” I suspect if things have come to such a pass, the problem is not with the audience or their hearing or their watches but lies more likely with the lecturer. The good lecturer does indeed make time stand still - no one looks to the clock when he or she is held enthralled and importantly when he or she is included in an effective and meaningful way. As the old Chinese proverb tells us “tell me and I’ll forget, show me and I may remember, include me and I’ll understand”.
In these times of economic uncertainty for our country, we are being sorely and forensically tested, some much more than others and it is essential that we do not lose sight of the things which are important strengths and sources of well-rooted optimism. Our high levels of education are just such an important strength and resource. There is an Everest to be climbed by Ireland and her people, not the first one we have confronted and probably not the last given the cyclical nature of economics but this is the test of our generation and so it is for us to do the work that will help us pass that test. Today’s award winners reassure us that we have the intellectual muscle, the imagination and the ability to move beyond the current mood to new levels of can do and new levels of achievement.
These awards have the potential to profoundly enhance teaching policy and practice in Ireland across every discipline. The inaugural national award winners represent a wide spectrum of academic endeavour but in each case they share in common a mastery of both the art and the science of teaching. Their expertise is honed by their own relentless pursuit of improvement in pedagogy, by sensitive and effective interaction with their student audience and by an unstinting curiosity about their own discipline and its place in the inchoate world of knowledge.
I would like to pay tribute to Michael Kelly, CEO of HEA and the Higher Education Authority for their ongoing support for this Awards scheme and I thank Áine Hyland and her selection committee, which includes academics, students and international experts for their work in judging the nominations received. I would also like to congratulate Jennifer Murphy and her colleagues at the National Academy for the Integration of Research and Teaching and Learning for their hard work behind the scenes to ensure that the awards scheme and today’s celebration went smoothly. And finally let us applaud the enormous contribution made by our Award Winners today and all those they represent. I want to congratulate this year’s award winners - Helena Lenihan, Aisling McCluskey, Amanda Gibney, Michael Seery, Claire McDonnell, Christine O’Connor, Sarah Rawe, Susan Bergin, Bettie Higgs and Marian McCarthy - may you continue to inspire those whose lives you touch and may you find in this prestigious recognition some inspiration of your own, a renewed sense of purpose and more importantly a sense of our warm gratitude. Go raibh míle maith agaibh go léir.