Retirement of Anne FitzGerald, Secretary to the College
Senior Common Room, Trinity College Dublin
Thursday, 08 November 2012
Anne FitzGerald, on behalf of Trinity College, I’d like to pay tribute to you and thank you for your service to this university. We’re here to recognise your outstanding university career, and in particular the last three years when you served with such distinction as College Secretary. You’ve left an important legacy, which it’s my pleasure to talk about this evening.
But allow me first to welcome everyone here tonight. What a great turn out this is! It’s a tribute to your popularity and the esteem in which you’re held. We welcome, in particular, your husband Ronnie. We know how delighted he is to get you back from us!
I’m not surprised by the turn-out. You have held such a key role within the College, and you have had responsibility for such a wide range of portfolios; you have come in contact with a huge number of people, and have been instrumental in helping them in their work. Always in that firm way you have of sorting things out and, of solving problems.
From when I was Dean of Graduate Studies, and then later Vice-Provost, and now as Provost, I have been the great beneficiary of your sound advice, your insights and good sense, your formidable organisational skills and your remarkable knowledge of the workings of this College. You’ll be glad to know that we’ve had one Board meeting since your departure and your successor has done very well - we didn’t keel over - but it will be strange not to have your reassuring presence at Board.
At times I must admit, as a fledgling Provost, that I felt like the hapless star of ‘Yes, Minister’ as my enthusiastic but naïve proposals were diplomatically reduced to least-best options before eventually being set aside. “That would be unnecessarily brave” I think was one diplomatic response - “That wouldn’t be the right move” was another, sterner one. But I always knew just how lucky I was to have someone of your experience and humour to try out my proposals on. And I always knew that if an idea did pass, then the ground was safe.
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You’re a Trinity Graduate – “Trinity by the grace of God” as Denis Burkitt would say. A graduate in science and geography, but your career has been diverse, and much of it outside these walls. You worked in RTE and Forfás, then called the National Board of Science and Technology. When you returned to Trinity in 1997 as Assistant Secretary to the College, you brought a portfolio of skills and experiences gained from working in state and semi-state bodies - an understanding of budgets, legal frameworks, governance and compliance. All these skills were placed at the service of this College, and in your time here you helped effect necessary change and equip us for the challenges we’ll face in the future.
Your fifteen years with us spanned an extraordinary period. You arrived in 1997 just as the boom years were taking off, and you shared our pride at seeing the work and vision of this great university rewarded as Trinity took advantage of the economic vitality of the times to expand and modernize.
You then took over as Secretary in 2009, when the recession was starting to bite. For the past four years we have all had to deal with much reduced budgets and with the massive pressures on the Irish higher education system. The change between boom and bust has been dramatic, for Trinity as for the rest of the country.
It has not been easy, but, - and I know everyone here will agree with me on this Anne – had it not been for you, it would have been much harder again. Your calmness, restraint, accountability and humour; that willingness to engage in even the knottiest of political problems; that sure sense of what is possible and how to achieve it, has helped see us through.
In Trinity we like to point out that we behaved responsibly during the now-notorious boom years. The way I put it in my inaugural address last year was:
“We didn’t lose the run of ourselves. We adhered to our age-old values of prudence and vigilance.”
Now some may recall that originally I worded this a bit differently. A bit more flamboyantly. I wanted to say:
“There were no decadent Gatsby parties; staff didn’t whisk from first class flights to waiting limousines”.
Or another version which went: “There were no season tickets for the big matches”.
Well, Anne you stopped me from saying any of those things …… for reasons it’s perhaps best not to dwell on. But rightly, in retrospect!
Your timely intervention on that occasion shows just how much you embody those ageless Trinity values of prudence and vigilance. It is vital for the Secretary to set the standard for trust, integrity and accountability, and that is what you did. In boom and bust you steered an admirably even course. More than most people I know, you live up to Kipling’s entreaty “to meet with triumph and disaster, and treat those two imposters just the same”.
We all know how the end of that poem goes: “then you’ll be a Man, my son!”. Well I dare him to say it to Anne!
Yours was an historic Secretaryship: you were the first female College Secretary. Margaret Thatcher was accused, in her historic position as first female British Prime Minister, of doing little to encourage women’s rights or equality. That accusation could never be hurled at you.
You had responsibility for College Equality, and in 2004 you oversaw the Women’s Centenary Celebrations marking the admission of women to Trinity in 1904. The culmination of the events was an all women’s dinner in the Dining Hall. Twenty years on from when Mrs Thatcher left office, she remains the only female Prime Minister, and with no contenders in sight. I don’t expect you to hold your lonely distinction for any sustained period. It is not what you would wish and not what you have worked to achieve.
As well as overseeing the organisation of an impressive 249 Board meetings since joining Trinity, and providing advice, guidance and leadership on governance, compliance and legal matters – which duties might be summed up as ‘keeping the Provost out of scrapes!’ – you have also held responsibility for diverse portfolios including Communications, Web Design, College Equality, Irish Language and Information Compliance offices, and indeed most strangely of all, the College Art Collections.
Your personal support for these areas has helped form them into the well run offices we see today. And your support was never merely dutiful. Last month we proudly opened Seomra na Gaeilge – a room for Irish language speakers. This you had been working on behind the scenes for some time - scheming as only College Secretaries can do - and when the opportunity of an unused common room emerged, you closed the deal, refurbishment and all, before anyone noticed. You then persuaded me to make a speech in Irish at its opening - which I did my best to…………
I’m not sure if you’re planning on writing your memoirs – I suspect you might think it imprudent – but as I say you were with us during an extraordinary period and you were at the heart of great events. Within two years of your returning to the College, you were faced with the Y2K scare. Your motto being, then as now, “Fail to prepare, prepare to fail”, you made preparations to save us from impending doom, which fortunately as it turned out, we did not need to call upon.
The following year came the Anthrax scare. A suspicious substance arrived in the post. You took steps. The Director of Buildings office was placed under quarantine, and a fire brigade sent down a “decontamination” unit. After decontamination, you and about six other staff members were given lovely blue overalls to wear and transported off to St James’s Hospital for further examination. Seven members of Trinity College staff in blue overalls was a strange sight. On being asked where you were from, I believe it was Noel McCann who replied – “We’re from the Joy!!”
And in 2011 the eyes of the world were on Trinity College, first for the Queen Elizabeth’s historic visit in May and then for President Obama’s visit to College Green.
There probably aren’t two people in the world more carefully guarded and closely scheduled then the Queen and the President [of the United States]. I know that there were months and months of security checks, scheduling, organization, and protocols. I can only imagine how relieved the British and American organisers must have been to be dealing with you. I know how many hours you put in to ensure that these visits came off, particularly the Queen’s visit which took place on College grounds.
After all your hard work, you were rewarded by appearing on the televised coverage of the Queen’s visit. It wasn’t quite Andy Warhol’s fifteen minutes of fame, but it was certainly a good few seconds! But I know of course that your true reward came from seeing the visit go off so smoothly and in such style.
There was never any doubt in my mind in all my dealings with you, but that you were always motivated by what was best for Trinity. Your loyalty to the College is reflected by your staff’s loyalty to you. Of course many of the anecdotes in this speech were given to me by your staff, and I have been struck by the warmth and regard in which you’re held. On behalf of the College may I thank you for fifteen years of remarkable service. On my own behalf, may I say that I will never forget how you steered me through my first year as Provost, and that I shall miss you.
I wish you a well-earned and wonderful retirement. I will endeavour to be unselfishly delighted for Ronnie that he will get to see so much more of you, and also for the Leinster Rugby team that you will see much more of them.
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