Provost Patrick Prendergast paid tribute to the “instrumental” role played in College life by departing Vice-Provost Chris Morash, at a reception held this evening to mark the end of Morash’s three-year term as Trinity’s second-in-command.
In a warm speech peppered with in-jokes – featuring quips about the length and verbosity of Morash’s emails – Prendergast hailed Morash’s “sound judgement” and said that “Chris can always be relied on to bring a fresh perspective”.
The Provost thanked Morash – who announced his resignation in April – for his work on the Trinity Education Project, the radical reimagining of the College’s undergraduate curriculum, as well as for his contribution to Trinity’s new joint-honours degree programmes, which will replace the College’s TSM degrees from next September.
“The final story of the Trinity Education Project has yet to be written”, Prendergast said, “but when it is it will be clear that the role that Chris has played has been instrumental to its success”.
He also praised Morash’s role in the College’s upcoming new Strategic Plan, a draft of which was presented to the College Board yesterday.
“As anyone familiar with Chris’s books would expect, the Plan is hallmarked by clarity, expressiveness and elegance of language and a wonderful absence of jargon, cliché and policy-speak”, he said.
“Chris’s superlative quality”, Prendergast added, “is that he is calm and considerate of others, and that has been extremely appreciated on Board and on Council”.
Prof Darryl Jones, who recently finished his term as Dean of the Arts, Humanities and Social Science (AHSS) Faculty, also spoke at the reception, and credited Morash for his patience and optimism.
“I remember sitting in Council”, Jones said, “watching Chris talking us through the various aspects of the Trinity Education Project for the 10,000th time, and thinking – ’no-one else could do this’. So thank you”.
In his speech, Morash said that “in some respects, I’ve learned more in the last three years than in any other three years of my life since my undergraduate degree”.
“If I leave this job with anything, it’s an abiding admiration for everyone who works here”, he said, and joked: “If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a big village to raise a Vice-Provost.”
