Prof Linda Doyle, Trinity’s provost-elect, today said that she wants the “extraordinary” election of a female head of College to become “no longer an extraordinary thing to do”.
Doyle was elected provost on the second round of voting, defeating Prof Linda Hogan by 247 votes. Prof Jane Ohlmeyer was eliminated after the first round.
In her speech, she thanked her opponents for the “huge service for this university by running such fantastic campaigns” which she said facilitated “rigorous debate”.
“I’m just so proud to have them as colleagues”, she said.
“Today is a historic moment for our university”, Doyle said. “I want to acknowledge the tremendous work that women have done before me.”
She added that she wanted to turn the “extraordinary day” into “an ordinary day” in the future “and there’s many more women in positions like this”.
Doyle also said that she wanted to make Trinity an “open, productive and creative place”, adding that she think that “we will do amazing things in the next decade”.
Her manifesto, “Imagine Trinity,” encouraged voters to imagine what Trinity would be like in 2031 at the conclusion of her provostship. She frequently focused on her first manifesto point about creating a “re-energised democracy” during the provostial hustings, discussing detailed plans of how to redistribute provostial power.
She pledged to introduce an independent chair of College Board, and frequently heralded Trinity East as the answer to many of Trinity’s current problems. She also promised to “take back time” for research and teaching, with administrative and bureaucracy problems cited by the candidates as a key issue to tackle.
Though she agreed with her opponents on many points, she diverged from their views on the issue of rankings. Hogan and Doyle both promised to improve Trinity’s position in international rankings. Doyle said she believed that “our behaviour should drive rankings”, as opposed to the other way around.
The two-month campaign saw much discussion of a perceived shift away from Trinity’s core values. Doyle and the other candidates all vowed to fix College’s “broken” promotion systems, overcentralised bureaucracy and cumbersome administration procedures.
Prior to running for Provost, Doyle was the Director of the Science Foundation Ireland CONNECT Centre, a position she left to become Trinity’s Dean of Research. She has also been involved in the postgraduate advisory service and is a professor of engineering and the arts.
